Tradition says that It was on this day in 1040, 980 years ago, that Lady Godiva rode naked through Coventry to convince her husband to lower taxes. Nine hundred and eighty years ago…how time flies; it seems like yesterday! So, when I read this, I said to myself, “Hmmm, ‘naked,’ let’s see what our tradition says about that.” One thing I knew from certain going back over fifty years in my third rabbinical school year in Israel and the various tours we took: the Jewish cultic sites where sacrifices were performed were different than those of other people in one important way. We had ramps while they had steps.
We’re told that modesty prevailed even in that simple motion of elevating to a higher spot. If a woman brought a sacrifice and ascended to the altar climbing up steps, she might show an ankle. Therefore, we built our shrines with ramps. This follows the biblical injunction found in Exodus 20:23, “Do not ascend My altar by steps, that your nakedness may not be exposed upon it.”
A rabbi wrote about this, making a distinction between nakedness and nudity. He (Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson) stated,
Nakedness is different than nudity. “Nudity” is a state of personal intimacy and trust… (such as the nudity of a baby. Nakedness entails more than an absence of clothing – it is a mental state (both for the person lacking garments and for those observing the undressed body). To be naked is to lack an element of protection, to be stripped of dignity or decency. Nakedness is about objectification, reducing a person to a mere object to be appraised to be used.
He goes on to clarify the point, “in the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve were nude and complete. Outcast, and with a consciousness of having sinned, they became naked.”
We’ve seen photos of prisoners in concentration camps who were naked. That and a shaved head made them all “alike,” taking away any semblance of, as he wrote, “dignity or decency.” Many began looking at themselves as the Nazis looked at Jews.
But what about the person who looks at the nude/naked body? You just can’t say, “Wow! Lucky person!” Indeed, there is a diminishment of the dignity of that person as well especially, but not exclusively, if s/he knows this was not the naked person’s choice.
Artson ends his brief Torah talk with these words:
Just as a ramp offers a gradual means for steady elevation, so do all (the good things we do in God’s name - lifting us up to heights previously unattainable, to reside in the realm of the holy and the good.
(Speaking of Lady Godiva, there was a strong suggestion that you never criticize your wife. Just remember that if she was perfect, she would have married someone much better than you)