03x05 - The Hairy show

[bunniefuu]

♪ He's a tall, tall man ♪

- What does it all mean?

♪ From a tall, tall land ♪

This is where the archeology has been found.

Oh, hi.

How are you?

Look at that!

I, I need a planter.

♪ From the mountain tops. ♪

Shrine to a belly button. ♪ To the ancient rocks ♪

This is a rock salt?

♪ He digs for clues ♪

♪ In his dusty boots ♪ Look at that!

♪ He's a tall, tall man! ♪

No one gets into this but Noah.

Nice, oh!

Don't take me too far.

Now that's naked archeology.

♪ No apologies ♪

♪ For his archeology ♪

♪ For his archeology ♪

Behind me is a closed wig shop.

In most places are closed wig shop is just that,

a closed wig shop.

But for me,

naked archeology tells me that this is an opportunity

to philosophize about the Bible and hair.

In Jerusalem,

you can't help noticing that hair

is worn differently than hair in other places.

Religious men wear beards and side locks, or Payot.

And women cover their hair with scarves or wigs.

Why? (bubbly popping)

Does hair have a deeper meaning in the Bible?

Is it something more than what's on top of your head?

I'm on a quest to find out what biblical hair symbolized

and what it looked like.

(crowd cheering)

- Impossible.

- The trouble with that is

the Bible isn't illustrated.

Why?

In Genesis we're told

that humans were created in God's image,

but humans were forbidden to create images of God.

Most of what we think of as biblical hair

comes from movies

and television.

So I want to know, are those images the real deal.

- This also fell in with my plan. (beeping)

- When you wanna find out about biblical hairdos,

where are you gonna go?

Where are you gonna go?

Ein Yael, just outside of Jerusalem,

here they're bringing back all things biblical.

From olive presses, to pottery, to hair.

Because when they're showing me those hairdos,

I want to know why they're doing what they're doing

and what it has to do with the Bible.

Suri Provisor, ancient craft specialist,

is going to get me started on my

quest to find out about biblical hair.

- We are gonna design Mayana's hair

into a biblical hairstyle.

- Biblical hairstyle, I love it.

This is your daughter, right?

- This is my daughter Mayana.

- Mayana, very lovely.

And now you're gonna be biblical.

- Exactly.

- Okay, so what are you gonna do?

- From what we see in the coins and statues,

we see that they actually used to braid their hair in front

and just collect it in the back.

It was just a simple style for the girls,

for the young girls.

It was just what was accepted in the ancient culture.

So girls her age

actually have a few years

to have a good time with their hair.

After that, it's gone. (lightly laughing)

- [Simcha Jacobovici] Young girls are one thing,

but I want to know what the grownups were doing.

So I'm off to see biblical scholar professor

Yair Zakovitch,

to find out if he can give me the hairy lowdown

on Hebrew hair.

- I'd like nothing better

than to question him. (deep laughter)

- First of all,

I don't think that you should talk to me about hair.

I am bald. (laughing)

You are teasing me, by talking about-

- You're an expert on hair, I can tell.

- (laughing) Yeah, sure.

Okay.

Hair is a symbol of beauty,

both for men and women in the ancient world.

And in the story about, you know,

Abraham and Sarah going down to Egypt and there we get a

whole description of her body from top to bottom and they

tell you that her hair was so very beautiful.

- So in a sense, hair can convey a lot of imagery,

sexiness, attractiveness.

- There is this belief

that there is a lot of power in the hair.

That the hair belongs to God.

Hair is the element that grows,

so it's a symbol of life.

Perhaps that's the reason why hair is so very important.

- The most famous, hairy biblical story

is in Judges -,

And starts those two great biblical lovers,

Samson and Delilah.

Before Samson was even born

his mother to be agrees to raise her son as a Nazarite.

A Nazarite wasn't somebody from Nazareth, (buzzing)

a Nazarite could be from anywhere.

Like John the Baptist.

They just had to take a sacred vow.

Numbers - tells us everything we need to know

about being a Nazarite.

Keep kosher, (harsh buzzing)

stay away from anything to do with grapes, (buzzing)

avoid corpses (buzzing)

and graves. (buzzing)

No haircuts, (hair clipper buzzing)

no combing. (plastic buzzing)

As the young Nazarite Samson grows up, it becomes obvious.

He has the gift of super strength.

But our hunky Jewish hero

falls for a sexy Philistine gal named Delilah

who cuts his hair.

Once that part of his Nazarite vow is broken,

all his troubles begin.

- Towards the end of his life,

he has to pray to God

to let him take revenge and to ruin the House of Dagon

which will fall on the top of all the Philistines.

You are being told, there is no power in the hair.

The power is God's.

- So Samson's problem wasn't his haircut,

it's what it symbolized:

breaking the vow he made with God.

(heavy crashing)

So maybe that's why a Nazarite doesn't cut his hair

because he has to learn to control his ego

even when his hair is loose,

- You can come up with a psychological explanation,

which I'm willing to accept,

but there's no proof to it in the Bible itself.

- For me, the proof is in the Bible and archeology.

So I'm off to talk to Philistine expert,

professor Aren Maier,

who's made an archeological discovery

that makes the Samson story

seem more like fact than fiction.

- You look over there.

- You found hair?

- No, no.

That's the area of the Judaen Shfela.

The foothills of Judea, that's Samson country.

- Show me that temple you found.

Not everybody can say that.

I can't go home and say,

honey, I'm home, I found a temple.

(comical drum crash)

We have the famous story of Samson in a Philistine temple.

You're standing in the Philistine temple.

- I'm standing in a Philistine temple.

I'm standing on one stone column base.

And this is the second one.

- The biblical text tells us that Samson,

he of the long hair,

he was tied up, he was blinded.

He had, his hair was cut.

His masculinity was gone, he lost his strength.

And he was tied to these two pillars.

Here as Aren Maier finds a Philistine temple

and what do you have?

Two pillars!

And look at this.

If you imagine the pillar here

and imagine the pillar here,

it's perfectly positioned.

But what's a temple,

if it doesn't have an altar?

- That was where the

probably the cultic focus of this building was.

We know from Mesopotamian texts

that a woman would cut her hair

and it would be given to the temple as an offering.

- Why hair?

- Hair is a very, very important

defining aspect of,

of humans.

The story of Samson, they,

yes hair, no hair,

cutting the hair has a lot to do with his sexual potency.

He's being emasculated.

You know what, actually,

if you think of it, the story of Samson,

it's sort of like a combination of an X-rated movie

(comical popping)

and a Rambo film.

(loud expl*si*n)

- The archeology fits with the biblical tale

of the guy with the long hair.

Samson's uncut hair was the outward symbol

of surrendering his ego to God.

What about the average biblical guy?

How did he wear his hair?

(monkey screaming)

♪ He's a tall, tall man ♪

♪ He's a tall, tall man ♪

(peppy music)

In my search to discover

the deeper meaning of biblical hair,

I've learned that for the ancients hair was a treasure

that could be part of an offering or an oath to God,

like a Nazarite.

What about the average biblical Joe?

There are rules for him too.

And to break them is worse than eating pork.

Dreadlock beard.

Like a woman wouldn't go around with her hair

exposed like that like you do.

- Especially if she had a beard. (monkey laughing)

- Do you know why you wear your hair like this?

- I like it.

- You like it, but I'll tell you, this is Rasta.

It's a Rasta look.

Hassids, they have their hair like this.

- Yeah.

- Same passage from the Bible,

the Rasta says

you're not supposed to just not cut this hair.

You're supposed to not cut the whole hair.

(dog barking) (penny whistling)

Dreadlocks are a great look,

but not all the ancients went for it.

So just what were the rules

for ancient guys in biblical Judea?

(clippers buzzing)

I need to find someone whose business it is to know.

(cartoonish honking)

A Kosher barber.

Who better to explain that passage in Leviticus?

(speaking with heavy accent)

- There's five points

that you're not allowed to cut with a razor.

Which points?

- Here.

(bells chiming)

Here. (timer buzzing)

Here. (bell chiming)

And five. (buzzing)

- You're better off eating a nice pork chop

(people gasping) (pig snorting)

than cutting that hair right there,

that's serious business.

(thunderous crashes)

The Books of Moses tell us that shaving is a big no-no.

(record scratching) Why?

One reason might be

shaving was part of pagan rituals for the dead.

And God wanted Israel to stay way clear of anything pagan,

Modern electric shavers

are more like hundreds of tiny scissors.

So if you can pull off a trimmed beard

with no razorblades touching your face,

it's kosher.

This not kosher (high pitched beeping)

kosher (harp music)

because this is a razor.

A razor must not touch the face.

This is a scissor.

A scissor never gets that close.

Am I right?

- Yes, yes, you're right.

- Look at this man.

Look how he looks beautiful.

- It's his job.

Good job.

(loud kiss)

- But there's another story in the Bible

where it's body hair that's important.

So I'm off to the Bible Lands Museum

to talk to Dr. Pnina Galpaz-Feller,

expert in ancient hair.

I wanna talk about two biblical brothers,

Jacob and Esau.

- Everything that is written in the Bible has meaning.

And when the Bible say that Esau was a hairy man,

it means that he was masculine.

He was a real man, as we say, a macho.

- Jacob and his twin brother Esau

were born to Isaac and Rebecca.

Esau was the he-man,

Jacob the geek.

As the older twin,

Esau was entitled to a birthright

and his father's blessing.

But by putting goatskins on his arms,

Jacob disguises himself as the hairy Esau

and tricks his blind father to give him Esau's inheritance.

So Jacob got the goods and Esau got the shaft.

- He saw his brother,

that was very good looking with hair.

And he used to want outside and he was a brave man.

You know, like a hero.

He looked at him and he was jealous.

- Maybe when Jacob puts on the hairy skin,

he's changing his identity.

- Exactly.

Exactly.

- So for Jacob, changing his hair

signaled a change in personality and identity.

That was the first step towards becoming

the father of Israel.

But for biblical women, what did their hair signal?

(bright music) (cymbal crashing)

Why do Orthodox women cover their hair?

- It's modesty.

It's supposed to be a very enticing part of the anatomy.

- Well?

How does it look? (monkey laughing)

♪ He's a tall, tall man ♪

♪ He's a tall, tall man ♪

- when I started on this journey,

if you asked me about biblical hair,

I would say Samson and Delilah like everybody else.

But the more I think about it,

there's hair all over the Bible.

There's hair when it has to do with

Jacob getting the blessing from Isaac.

How does he fool his father?

By pretending to be hairy like his brother.

When it has to do with taking a special Nazarite vow

like John the Baptist to have a relationship with God,

has to do with not cutting your hair.

The more I think about it,

the hairier it gets.

Waiter, waiter!

There's a hair in my coffee.

(monkeys laughing)

The five books of Moses are full of rules,

covering everything from what kind of clothes to wear,

to what to do if your ox falls in your neighbor's ditch.

(cow mooing)

And what women need to do to keep their hair kosher.

(mechanical squeaking) (talking excitedly)

You've got your head covered.

Is that a fashion statement?

- It's not a fashion statement.

It comes from the Torah.

- Books of Moses, the Bible.

- The books of Moses.

As observant Jew, we follow the Torah.

We lead a Torah life,

and the Torah explains it.

Once a woman gets married, she needs to cover her hair.

These are called tichels, or the headscarves.

I also have a sheitel.

- A wig.

- Which I wear on the Sabbath.

It looks hair, why not have your hair?

It's because my own hair carries an energy,

which is not to be shared with the world.

- So hair is a powerful thing, as far as you're concerned.

- It's a powerful thing.

(crashing thunder) (woman screaming)

- Do you think that women in ancient times

covered their hair or braided their hair?

Or both?

- You look at ancient cultures,

and you see that people really did cover their hair.

It's I guess only a modern thing that women are not covering

their hair.

- So for the modern woman, hair can be a big statement.

- I guess it's a self-image thing

in how you want to present yourself to the world.

- It's a statement?

- I guess so.

- What statement?

- That I don't like long hair. (laughing)

- If I was one of those colors,

which one would I be?

- Lagoon blue.

- Folks, lagoon blue.

(various screaming)

But what about the ancients?

What statements were they making with their hair?

Maybe the frescoes of ancient Egyptians on display at the

Bible Lands Museum can give us a hint.

The biblical idea of hair.

How does it differ between say a man and a woman?

- In Egypt hair symbolized not only gender,

but economical status as well.

Also age.

- So one guy has a fancy wig that shows his status.

- And you don't see his ears.

- So what about the other guy?

- The other one is younger,

and before you see his ears

because he has to hear and to listen to the old man.

- The old guy's ears are covered

because he doesn't have to listen to anybody.

Not exactly democracy.

- In women wigs, they are always there.

You can see exposing their ears like the Goddess Hathor.

- So is there another reason why Egyptian men and women

were bugging out on wigs?

- We have lot of evidence, for example,

in Egypt about lice in wigs and in hair as well.

We can find them in mummies.

- So in ancient days, it was the mummies that had the lice,

today it's the kids. (laughing)

(monkeys laughing)

- But you know, they were very clever to prevent lice.

They used to take a cone to put it on the wig

(video game beeps)

and the cone was made by butter, honey,

and beautiful raisins, beautiful smell.

And it was very hot during the banquet.

And little by little,

the oil was melting and suffocated the lice.

(clacking) (cartoonish popping)

- For ancient Egyptians, hair telegraphed status,

gender, and age.

But for the Israelites,

hair was about following the Torah.

And one of the Torah's most controversial rules

is in Numbers , the law of the Sotah,

or unfaithful wife.

- She's suspected of being with another man.

She comes before the rabbis.

In order to humiliate her, they undo her hair.

Which could mean many things.

It could mean undoing her braids,

or they uncovered her hair.

- My understanding was that the reason why

Jewish women cover their hair,

can be traced back to this one passage in the Bible.

- No, sorry.

(exaggerated punching) (cat yelling)

In ancient times, the Israelites didn't cover their hair.

The priest is missing her hair.

We don't have any evidence why nowadays

the Jews are covering women's hair.

- You could be wrong about that.

- The word tzamah

(bright popping)

in the song of songs,

which is misunderstood as a braid in modern Hebrew.

Actually it is a scarf.

Something with which the head is being covered.

- Did women braid or cover their hair?

I still don't know.

So I'm going to the Israel antiquities authority

to check out two archeological finds

that might straighten out

the knots of this hairy biblical debate.

(exaggerated punching) (cat yowling)

♪ He's a tall, tall man ♪

♪ He's a tall, tall man ♪

- Two of the most moving artifacts ever found

at the clifftop fortress of Masada,

both involve hair.

(metal crashing) (yelling)

years ago in A.D.

(metal crashing) (yelling)

the Jewish defenders of Masada

(metal crashing) (horse neighing)

fought three-year battle against the Romans

for independence in Judea.

(yelling) (crashing)

According to the ancient historian Josephus,

when the Jews defeat was imminent,

(metal crashing) (yelling)

they chose su1c1de

(metal crashing) (yelling)

rather than face enslavement.

Dr. Orit Shamir of the Israel antiquities authority

can tell me just what was found with respect to hair.

What is that?

- This piece is a hairnet from Masada.

- Oh, that's,

you know I have a weak spot for personal items.

It's so moving.

This is a woman's hairnet, yes?

- Yes.

These are pieces of a hairnet, decorated with red chord.

And also, they used

the same color of the hair.

Because we found some pieces of hair-

- You found?

- attached to this hairnet. - To this one?

- Yes.

- The husband, you know, giving his wife a net,

you know, in the same color.

I know I'm a sucky guy, but,

but it's that personal connection.

You know what I mean?

Suddenly, I...

- If he chose it for her,

but maybe she chose it for herself.

- Well, I'd like to think he chose it for her.

So at least one woman at Masada covered her hair.

But another woman simply braided hers.

Wow.

You could actually see the braids of this woman's hair.

- Yes, and you can see

that she couldn't take care for herself.

They couldn't wash their hair,

they couldn't take the lice out the hair,

and you can see that it is in such poor condition.

Also you can

study about their diet.

They didn't eat very good food there.

They starved, and also the hair suffered of course

from the sun itself also.

- So you see that the hair suffered from the sun.

You see the diet is poor.

You see lice in the hair.

- Yes.

- Wow.

And yet, this human touch she's braiding her hair.

- Yeah.

- She wasn't ignoring the way she looked.

- Yes.

- Good for her, right?

- Yeah. (lightly laughing)

- Good for her.

What a story.

Whether Biblical women braided their hair or covered it

is still up for grabs.

But for unmarried girls, there was no debate.

They braided, not covered, their hair.

Look at that.

She looks like she could be of those ancient coins.

(laughing)

Did you realize how much hair stuff there is?

You can't cut the corners of your hair.

That's where payot comes from.

- Oh, okay.

- Samson gets in big trouble because of his?

- Hair.

- Right, hair.

The adulterous woman, she is humiliated with her?

- Hair. - Hair

I mean, there's hair all over the place.

Did you ever realize how much hair there is?

- No, not really.

- It's a very hairy text.

(laughing)

(percussive, bright music)

- Ta-da!

Bye mom, going to school.

- See ya honey!

- We are our hair.

- Wonderful to know that hair was a symbol

all over the years,

all over the culture in ancient time, as well as today.

It symbolized something.

- Hairdos come and hairdos go.

But there's nothing that connects us to the simple humanity

of people better than our hair.

♪ He's a tall, tall man ♪

♪ From a tall, tall land ♪

♪ He makes no apologies ♪

♪ For his archeologies ♪

♪ He's a tall, tall man ♪

♪ From a tall, tall land ♪

♪ No apologies ♪

♪ For his archeology ♪