Modesty and the Imahot
Question
There seem to be many sources in the Torah that heavily imply that our imahot covered their faces as well as their hair (the Me’am Loez says it about Dina, Rashi quotes Chazal about Tamar, Avraham didn’t know how beautiful Sara was, Rivka covered her face when she saw Yitzchak). Did our Imahot cover their faces? If so, why dont we? and if they didnt, why does there seem to be so much evidence that they did?
Answers
Despite the fact that there are sources to face-coverings – Tamar being the most famous of them – there is no definitive source that I am familiar with that suggests that it was the norm. In fact, some of the Meforshim explain that Avraham’s wonderment at Sarah’s beauty was not because he didn’t know what she looked like. It was simply because the closer they got to Egypt and the darker the skins became of those they saw, the more Avraham appreciated just how beautiful Sarah was.
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