Tzviah on Shabbos: Makeup, Lasting Color, and Eino Miskayem

Topics

• Tzviah on Shabbos: Makeup, Lasting Color, and Eino Miskayem
• Tzviah on the Body: Berries and Sarak
• The Shaar HaTziyun’s Distinction Between Lips and Face
• What Does Eino Miskayem Kelal Mean?
• Lasting by Itself and Being Removed
• Can Readily Removable Color Be Called Lasting?
• An Aside on Chatzitzah, Then the Duration of Miskayem
• Two Ways to Understand the Requirement of Lasting
• Color Wanted for a Limited Time
• Loose Powder, Absorbed Color, and the Report from Reb Dovid
• White Powder and the Later Letter of Rav Moshe
• Bringing Out Redness, Suntanning, and Changing Lenses
• The Intended Use of the Changing Color

Transcript

# Tzviah on Shabbos: Makeup, Lasting Color, and Eino Miskayem

## Tzviah on the Body: Berries and Sarak

Yesterday we began Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 320:20. An important part of this discussion is also in 303:25: tzviah on a person. To whom does that din apply, and what kind of coloring does it include?

In siman 320, the Shulchan Aruch discusses eating berries. Your hands become stained with the juice, and you have to be careful about touching your begadim. His words describe hands that are already colored.

But what about the coloring of the hands themselves? Why is the Shulchan Aruch concerned only about what happens afterward, when you touch the clothing?

Mishnah Berurah 320:58 explains that coloring the face and hands in this manner is not a concern: “דאין צביעה אלא בדבר שדרכו לצבוע”—tzviah applies to something that is normally colored.

The Shulchan Aruch mentions the hands; the Mishnah Berurah also includes the face. That is interesting in light of the Shaar HaTziyun in siman 303, which distinguishes the lips from the rest of the face when someone eats berries.

Here is the picture: you eat berries, and juice colors your mouth, your face, or your hands. The question is whether that is tzviah on the body, even before you touch anything else.

Yesterday we clarified two ways to understand darko. Does it refer to the body part? People do not normally color their faces with berries; that is not the usual makeup. Or is the point the object being colored—that this is not a davar normally subject to this form of tzviah?

The Mishnah Berurah does not spell out the distinction. He says only that tzviah applies to a davar shedarko litzboa.

Now consider the case in Shulchan Aruch 303:25: a woman may not put sarak on her face, because she is coloring it. The Mishnah Berurah answers that a woman is different, since this is her normal way of beautifying herself.

Why does he frame the answer as a distinction between a man and a woman? Why not simply say that berries differ from sarak?

If berry juice is not the kind of material used for this tzviah, that seems to be the straightforward answer. We are discussing berries, not trying to settle every application of sarak.

You say that his answer also teaches us about sarak on a man. I hear that. But my question is why he chooses that formulation here.

A beged is certainly shayach to tzviah. People dye clothing with fruit juices and berries. Skin is different: coloring it that way is not the usual practice.

Reb Paltiel suggests that the distinction between ish and ishah is a mashal for the underlying rule. In each case, the question is whether this is the normal way to color that object. Perhaps the Mishnah Berurah means no more than that.

It is a possible pshat. I raised the question yesterday, and tonight I want to work through it more carefully.

## The Shaar HaTziyun’s Distinction Between Lips and Face

The distinction matters lema’aseh. If the rule depends on a woman’s normal practice of beautifying herself, could eating berries present a problem for her?

On the other hand, the words davar shedarko litzboa seem to focus on the object being colored. That is the difficulty I am raising with the teretz.

Reb Paltiel understands the ish-and-ishah distinction as an illustration of darko. Fine; that is a nice piece of pilpul. Now what is the halachah in the case of a woman eating berries?

The Shaar HaTziyun in siman 303 says that she, too, may eat them. At the Shabbos table, she may eat the berries with everyone else. But I do not understand his sevara: he says that the psik reisha is only on her lips.

What does that answer? If the lips are inevitably colored, why is that coloring better?

We read the lashon again. The inevitable result is only on the lips. Perhaps we have to understand the metzius of the makeup used in that time. Was coloring the lips not part of the normal practice he was describing?

Perhaps that is how to understand the metzius then. There is discussion in the olam about lipstick in Radin. Still, the question in the text remains.

The Shaar HaTziyun also indicates that the Magen Avraham’s wording is somewhat difficult on this explanation. It is not even an entirely straightforward reading of the Magen Avraham.

If the heter rests on the lips being different from the area normally colored, what happens today, when coloring the lips is normal? Would the same argument still apply?

I could hear a chumrah emerging from this. Deliberately applying berry juice to color the lips is certainly a different case from merely eating it; but even in the eating case, we have to understand what he is doing with the inevitable coloring.

You suggest that the explanation concerns the rest of the face, where the coloring is not inevitable. Fine. But why is the inevitable coloring of the lips not itself a problem?

Today there is lipstick. So what does “only on the lips” accomplish? I do not understand the Shaar HaTziyun.

There is a second question. Mishnah Berurah 320:58 describes the hands and face becoming colored. Why, then, does the Shaar HaTziyun isolate the lips as the only inevitable result?

Perhaps different cases are being described. We have to be medayek in the metzius and in the words. For now, I am pointing out the difficulty; I am not pretending that it has been resolved.

## What Does Eino Miskayem Kelal Mean?

You came on an unusual night: you caught me suggesting a chumrah. If the learning leads toward chumrah, we have to follow it; if it leads toward kula, we follow that. We have to be honest with the sugya.

You suggest that perhaps the berry color does not look like the desired lipstick color. Maybe it is not a useful shade. That might be a sevara, but it is not what the Shaar HaTziyun explicitly says.

Or perhaps the relevant question is whether people normally color the face or lips in that particular manner. Again, that depends on how we understand darko.

What is clear in the case of sarak is that makeup raises a question of tzviah. The discussion of berries cannot simply be transferred to a normal act of applying makeup.

Now turn to Mishnah Berurah 320:59. Here we reach miskayem: coloring must last for the full chiyuv of the melachah.

I want to be careful about the case he is describing. He is not simply returning to the woman applying sarak, nor to eating berries. He describes applying sarak or shashar to metal.

The word sarak appears in both discussions, but that does not mean that every appearance of the word describes the same application. Here he says that the material was applied to iron or copper.

He brings the rule that one who colors the requisite length of thread is chayav, and that the color must be miskayem. By contrast, color that is eino miskayem kelal is patur.

Notice: patur is not itself a heter. We will reach the level of the issur gradually.

Suppose, for argument’s sake, that this requirement of lasting color applies to the makeup case. I will later bring a discussion in the Chayei Adam that complicates this, but first we need the hagdarah.

What counts as miskayem? Makeup fades. It is not like painting a wall, whose color does not disappear within a few hours. But is lasting a few hours enough?

Perhaps eino miskayem kelal means that it lasts hardly any time. Perhaps it means something else. Until we define the term, saying that makeup “fades” does not settle the issue.

This is the sugya behind the discussions of makeup intended for Shabbos. We must first learn the Mishnah Berurah carefully, and then ask which products or applications fit the definition.

## Lasting by Itself and Being Removed

Even ordinary makeup eventually fades. But how long must something last to count as a davar hamiskayem?

Compared with wall paint, makeup is short lived. If the criterion were only a few minutes, it would certainly last long enough. So the whole question depends on the definition.

The words eino miskayem kelal sound stronger than simply lasting less than paint. Do they mean that virtually nothing remains? That it falls off immediately?

The heter attributed to Maharam Brisk is described in that very strong way: the powder falls away. If literally nothing remains on the face, the olam asks, why would anyone put it on? The practical question is whether the actual material really behaves that way.

Let us be magdir the words before discussing the product.

Yesterday we brought the Minchas Chinuch’s discussion of tzovea. As we learned it, the distinction is not merely between more minutes and fewer minutes. The question is whether the color lasts on its own.

Something that disintegrates or fades by itself can be described as eino miskayem kelal, even though it was present for a while. The word kelal does not necessarily mean that it never remained even momentarily.

Would makeup fit that description? Perhaps it fades on its own. But I am not convinced that this is the entire metzius. Much of the fading may come from touching the face. If no one touches it, perhaps it lasts for hours and hours.

The Minchas Chinuch is not explaining the Mishnah Berurah, which was written later. He is discussing the earlier sources whose language the Mishnah Berurah brings.

We then read the next phrase, also found in Rambam, Hilchos Shabbos 9:13: “שהרי אתה מעבירו לשעתו”—you apply or pass it for a time. How do we understand ma’aviro here?

The reading we are discussing takes it as putting the color on and removing it for the occasion. In that reading, even something that could last by itself may be treated differently when it is put on temporarily and taken off.

But that raises a question. Why should removing the color yourself make it eino miskayem if the material would otherwise last?

We must distinguish the nature of the material, the intention when applying it, and the later act of removal. I am trying to understand the pshat; I am not yet deciding every case of makeup.

## Can Readily Removable Color Be Called Lasting?

Suppose the color remains on its own. What would you call that?

There is much more to this sugya than one brief teshuvah. Rav Moshe wrote several letters about it, including material in L’Torah V’Hora’ah. I spent hours discussing the matter with Reb Dovid and had many telephone conversations with him.

I once gave a Sunday morning shiur on this in Queens. The olam reacted very strongly, but we have to say what comes out of the learning. Let me present the steps.

On the reading of the Minchas Chinuch we are discussing, something that fades by itself is eino miskayem. Something that remains by itself is miskayem. Yet there is another possibility: something ordinarily capable of remaining is applied for temporary use and removed.

What if the removal happens through touching the face, sleeping on a pillow, drinking, or eating? Is that the same as deliberately taking it off? That is a question in the pshat.

If the makeup truly fades by itself, you could connect it to the first part of the discussion. If it comes off through the pillow or through ordinary contact, you might connect it to the second part, which we are reading as removal.

Here is the chiddush I am considering: perhaps a material that can simply be wiped off is different from paint on a wall. You cannot paint a wall and casually wipe the finished paint away. Removing it may require scraping; it is an avodah.

You raised the distinction between color sitting on top and color being absorbed into the object. We will reach that later. First I want to understand miskayem.

On this proposed reading, we are left with a possible way of treating the makeup as eino miskayem: either it fades by itself, or it is readily removed through normal use. At most, the question would then be at the derabbanan level. But patur is not yet mutar; we have not finished.

I should also say that the plain reading of the Mishnah Berurah may differ from the reading we attributed to the Minchas Chinuch. Kelal could be describing duration. And ma’aviro may mean applying the material, not taking it off.

You put it on for the occasion, knowing that it will fade. That could be the meaning of ma’aviro lesha’ato. Even the second diyuk we were discussing is therefore not beyond question.

I am working through different peshatim. We must not confuse a suggested explanation of the words with a settled heter.

## An Aside on Chatzitzah, Then the Duration of Miskayem

Someone asks about makeup before tevilah. That is a different sugya.

There is a practical issue with materials such as eyeliner: they can be difficult to remove completely. That is why care is taken about using them on the day of tevilah.

Then there is the separate question of hakpadah. Would she be particular about appearing in the street with that mark or remaining material?

The basic categories of Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 198:1, matter: rubo umakpid; rubo ve’eino makpid; mi’uto umakpid; and mi’uto ve’eino makpid. Do not turn every tiny mark into the same case without knowing the halachah.

Bnos Yisrael are very careful about these matters. I receive calls from women after the mikveh who are worried that they missed a small spot. Their care is real, but a rav must know what the din requires.

We are not going to settle every individual case of eyeliner here. The difficulty removing a substance and the halachic category of a chatzitzah are distinct questions.

Now return to Shabbos. Shaar HaTziyun 303:68 discusses miskayem in connection with braiding hair. He considers a result that lasts for yom haShabbos.

What does that mean? Twenty-four hours? The whole Shabbos? Suppose the act is done three hours before Shabbos ends and lasts until its end. Is that enough? We have to understand the lashon.

And why does this discussion appear by kelias se’ar, in the next se’if, rather than by sarak?

The Mishnah Berurah’s discussion of coloring the face does not stop to analyze whether the color lasts for the whole Shabbos. It would have been helpful if he had stated the hagdarah there.

Kelias se’ar is discussed in relation to boneh. Perhaps its requirement of lasting is not identical to the requirement in tzviah.

The word miskayem appears in both sugyos, but that alone does not prove that every condition is the same. That is precisely what we must clarify.

You point again to sarak in Mishnah Berurah 320:59. Perhaps it is relevant; but perhaps, as we said, that is the material applied to metal. We cannot skip the question of which case is being discussed.

## Two Ways to Understand the Requirement of Lasting

One answer offered in the olam is that coloring human skin is already derabbanan. If so, perhaps the discussion of lasting for yom haShabbos, as a condition of chiyuv chatas, is not the relevant discussion.

That is a good vort. Mishnah Berurah 303:79 treats tzviah on human skin as derabbanan. The definition needed for a Torah-level chiyuv need not be the entire definition of the rabbinic issur.

The discussion of kelias se’ar follows in se’if 26. Mishnah Berurah 303:82 relates it to boneh, and the Shaar HaTziyun examines how long the result must last.

By makeup, we do not find the same explicit discussion. Perhaps that is because the issur on human skin is derabbanan, and the gezeirah applies even without the degree of lasting required for chiyuv chatas.

I hear that explanation. But I want to suggest another distinction: there may be two ways in which lasting is significant.

Kelias se’ar was a normal manner of arranging the hair. We discussed in Mishnah Sotah 1:5 how the hair is undone, reflecting the way it had been arranged. An ordinary hairstyle has to have some importance as a lasting arrangement. If it lasts for the day, the woman is dressed that way for the day.

Now suppose the arrangement is made for a particular need: a meal or a simchah. Makeup is applied for that occasion. It is wanted for that period.

Perhaps, in such a case, lasting for its intended purpose is itself called miskayem.

Biur Halachah 340:4, s.v. “במשקין על השלחן,” brings the Rashba’s discussion of writing. The writing need not last forever. People write things intended to remain only for a limited period, such as reminders. Its intended use matters.

That is a beautiful raya to the distinction I am suggesting.

Take a mother who wants a special braid in her sheitel for a bat mitzvah lasting two hours. She wants that arrangement for the occasion. Perhaps those two hours supply the relevant kiyum.

An ordinary hairstyle, by contrast, is part of her normal manner of dress; the question is what duration gives that arrangement significance.

I want to show you the discussion of tzviah in the Chayei Adam. Take out klal 24 and the Nishmas Adam at the first se’if. Read it inside.

Are you here for Maariv? For Kiddush Levanah? You are coming in the morning. Be’ezras Hashem, you should be zocheh. All right, let us go back to the text.

## Color Wanted for a Limited Time

Read the Nishmas Adam in klal 24. The passage before us contrasts the Rambam’s rule with the view attributed to the Semag, when the person wants the color to remain lefi sha’ah.

Is that not the vort we just said? If he wants it to last for the limited period, that can be the relevant kiyum.

Makeup is intended for the occasion. She does not need it to remain long term. She needs it for those hours.

The Rambam speaks of color that is eino miskayem kelal. The other approach we are reading considers the fact that the person wants this temporary result.

That gives us another reason not to assume that makeup is automatically outside the sugya. First, the actual material may last. Second, even a limited period may be significant when that is the period for which it is wanted.

The Shaar HaTziyun’s discussion of yom haShabbos does not automatically settle tzviah on the face. And even in the hair case, I am suggesting that arranging it for a particular two-hour simchah may be different from an ordinary hairstyle.

The Shaar HaTziyun also discusses the wording of Mishnah Shabbos 12:1, “melachto miskayemes b’Shabbos.” Is b’Shabbos describing the duration, or, as in Rashi’s reading, is it describing the person’s act of doing melachah on Shabbos?

If it describes the act, we still have to define the required duration. Why assume that it means more than Shabbos? Could it mean less? The text has to be learned carefully.

On the approach I am developing, there is a serious difficulty with relying simply on eino miskayem for makeup: it is wanted for its intended use.

But we must also identify the material. What is sarak? Is it attached to the face? Does it color the skin itself?

We read Mishnah Berurah 303:79 again. He describes colored fruit staining the face and hands, and the derabbanan issur of sarak on a woman’s face.

Someone returns to ma’aviro. In the language about a woman applying sarak, it certainly means putting it on. That may support the simpler reading of the parallel phrase in the other case.

Now think about berry juice. It is liquid and can enter the skin. A loose powder may lie on top. An oil-based material adheres.

You remind me that I raised this distinction myself. I did; we have a great deal of information here. Let us now see whether attachment, rather than duration alone, supplies the relevant distinction.

## Loose Powder, Absorbed Color, and the Report from Reb Dovid

To be emesdik, we have to compare the actual cases. Sarak is a dye. It adheres and colors. Berry juice can also be absorbed into the skin.

The distinction between attached and unattached material is raised in connection with the Meiri and the berries. There is also a reference to the Raavan concerning a woman not becoming unattractive to her husband.

That concern matters in practice. Sometimes a woman returns from the mikveh on Friday night without makeup and feels embarrassed at the meal. Other people may notice the difference. A rav has to understand that situation when considering the shailah.

But the halachic case still has to be defined. We are now discussing loose powder, not ordinary sarak. A powder without an oil base may rest on the surface rather than being absorbed or attached.

There are different products. An oil-based preparation adheres to the body. A loose powder without that base is another case.

Lipstick raises an additional problem of memare’ach. It is not simply loose powder; it is spread and smoothed. We cannot treat it as the blush powder being discussed.

We must also be careful about the claim that a product “does not stick.” Ordinary makeup is designed to remain on the face. The actual material matters.

There is a substantial teshuvah discussing these distinctions and the concern about a woman’s appearance to her husband. It is a serious teshuvah, not something to dismiss.

Lema’aseh, I do not want to argue with Rav Moshe. Let us work through the meaning of his heter.

Reb Dovid told me the following. Rav Blumenkrantz used the distinction of a non-oil-based powder that does not attach, and developed the discussion in L’Torah V’Hora’ah, the kuntres published by MTJ.

The report was that he showed Rav Moshe the materials, and that Rav Moshe permitted what did not stick. This was understood as permitting the powder because it lacked the oil base.

Reb Dovid disputed that interpretation. He told me that the general heter being attributed to Rav Moshe was not correct. As he explained it to me, the powder also had to be within the color of the skin, enhancing that color rather than changing it to another color.

So, in that account, the material must not be oil based, and it must preserve the basic appearance of the skin.

That is also how I understand the discussion in Maharam Brisk. He first considers the two derabbanan factors and does not regard those alone as sufficient. Then he considers a third factor relating to the purpose and color of the powder.

Let us read that passage.

## White Powder and the Later Letter of Rav Moshe

Maharam Brisk I:23 discusses white powder whose purpose is to improve the appearance of the flesh without changing the face to a different color.

Even if the face becomes somewhat whiter, he discusses it as the same basic appearance. That resembles the explanation Reb Dovid gave me of Rav Moshe’s heter.

Now look at Igros Moshe, Orach Chaim I:114. Rav Moshe discusses casting white powder on the face, when it is not miskayem.

What powder does he mean? He says lavan, white.

My understanding at this point is that lavan relates to the skin’s appearance, as in Maharam Brisk’s discussion. I find it difficult to imagine a woman putting obvious baby powder on her face as makeup. Rav Moshe was removed from olam hazeh, but he understood the practical question being asked.

You point out that the Maharam Brisk’s analysis includes several factors: tzviah on human skin, the lack of lasting color, and the fact that the basic color is not being changed.

Yes. That is why I am emphasizing the extra cheshbon rather than relying only on the powder’s being temporary.

But what is within the range of skin color? Pink? A reddish shade? It is difficult to be magdir the exact boundary.

Now I will tell you the complication. In L’Torah V’Hora’ah, Rav Moshe has a letter stating that when he wrote lavan, he did not mean to exclude red powder. He explicitly extends the discussion to that color.

We have to read that letter. The reference being given is chelek 7, page 28. It is the well-known kuntres published by MTJ. I have it in my library, and my father has it. Try to get the page so that we can see the words inside.

That complicates the explanation I have just presented. We cannot ignore Rav Moshe’s own later words.

Maharam Brisk I:23 is the teshuvah we were discussing. Rav Moshe’s initial teshuvah says white, but the later letter must be included in the cheshbon.

Rav Shlomo Zalman is quoted as taking a much stricter position on cosmetic powders, even white powder. That is another approach we have to account for.

The ordinary use of powder with a diaper is a different case: it is not being applied for coloring. We are discussing putting a material on the face for its cosmetic appearance.

Now I have another shailah. What are the actual cases in Shulchan Aruch 303:25? Sarak is one. Kohl is another. And then there is spreading dough on the face.

Read that third case. It may challenge the idea that merely bringing out the existing color is enough to avoid tzviah.

## Bringing Out Redness, Suntanning, and Changing Lenses

Shulchan Aruch 303:25 prohibits putting dough on the face when removing it reddens the flesh.

Are you adding dye? No. The flesh itself becomes red.

That is a pele. What is the act of coloring here? You have not added a new coloring material; you have brought out redness through an action.

This raises a difficulty with the broad suggestion that, as long as you are enhancing the skin’s own color, there is no issue. The dough case shows that a pe’ulah which produces redness can itself matter.

Women also ask about pinching their cheeks to make them red. You look surprised, but these are actual shailos. Women in Queens and in Lakewood ask the same sorts of questions.

Someone raises chaburah. That is another issue to examine. But even before deciding that, the case of the dough seems relevant to deliberately making the cheeks red.

What would you say about sitting in the sun for a suntan on Shabbos?

One side argues that you are not doing anything: you lie there, and the sun acts on you. The other side focuses on deliberately arranging for the color to change.

The Minchas Yitzchak is brought as prohibiting it, in siman 32. The olam asks whether the issue is tzviah, psik reisha, or merely an activity inappropriate for Shabbos.

Those are different questions. I am discussing an issur being attributed to the Minchas Yitzchak, not merely whether the activity is Shabbosdik.

Someone suggests a chiyuv. We should not run ahead of the text. We have to see exactly what he says and how he defines the act.

I find the approach a chiddush, because the person is lying there and the sun is doing the coloring. Another source mentioned in the exchange is understood as leaning toward a heter on that basis. We have to examine it.

Now consider the light-changing lenses in eyeglasses. A person goes into the light, and the lenses darken; he enters a darker place, and they change again.

What is the act? You walk from one place to another. Vos hostu getan—what did you do? On the other hand, the change is wanted, and it serves its purpose.

You ask whether the result is miskayem. That depends on the hagdarah we have been learning.

If miskayem means lasting for the intended need, as in the approach we discussed from the Chayei Adam and Nishmas Adam, perhaps the temporary darkening is significant. It is wanted for the time outside.

If the essential issue is a direct pe’ulah of coloring, the analysis may be different. We have to separate that from the duration of the result.

Someone says that his father does not permit these lenses. Ask a rav about the practical question.

The point is the nafka minah: the definitions of pe’ulah, wanted color, and miskayem now meet in a new practical case.

## The Intended Use of the Changing Color

But if you learn the approach we discussed from the Chayei Adam, the color is wanted for that purpose.

You want the lenses to become dark when you go outside. When you come inside—

It is already a quarter to. All right—let us go back.