A Cry From The Heart
(From
the book, "The Crown of Modesty" by the scholarly Kabbalist, Rabbi Daniel
Frish, zatzal, author of the
commentary on the Zohar, "Matok M'Dvash").
It is time to seriously examine the terrible breach
brought about by clothes that hug the body in a provocative manner.  When we
contemplate to the depth of the matter, we must know that every time a woman
goes out wearing a tight-fitting garment - even without intending to cause
damage, but merely to appear "more attractive" - behold, she returns home
burdened with thousands of serious transgressions, may the Almighty have mercy!
Each
time a woman goes out to the street in immodest attire, she transgresses six
prohibitions of the Torah and five positive commandments.
With
each man that she causes to gaze at her with a lustful glance, she transgresses
the prohibition, "Do not put a stumbling
block before a blind man"
In his book, "Letter of T'shuva," Rabbeinu Yona also makes
this point, stating that a man who gazes at a woman lustfully, whether at her
face or her hand, brings the punishment of hell upon himself. And she receives
the punishment that she caused to each and every man who gazed at her, because
she caused them to stumble by her not behaving in a modest fashion.
It is further stated in the book, "Shomer Emunim," in the name of the Sages of old, that when a woman
goes about on the street dressed in an immodest fashion, she is accompanied by
tens of thousands of evil forces and husks of impurity (klipot,) may the Almighty save us. These impure forces enter into
the hearts of the men on the street, and tempt and bewilder these men into
gazing at her and succumbing to lustful thoughts.
 The Ole Domino Effect
Concerning this, our Sages have said: "Yeravam sinned and
caused the public to sin; thus the sin of the multitudes is attributed to him"
(Avot, 5:21). Furthermore, they
taught: "Anyone who causes a multitude to sin is not afforded repentance"
(Ibid).
Therefore, the immodest woman plays a hand in the
spiritual decline of every woman she influences, not only in regards to the
woman who learned from her, but also from the woman who learns from the second
woman, and there on down the chain. As long as this matter is not corrected,
and the plague of immodesty not stemmed, the woman who influences others has a
part in the whole.
She also causes the standard of modesty to crumble, and
causes a weakening of Judaism, for she adds to the spreading of this errant
fashion. When one commandment is taken lightly, the entire Torah is weakened,
not only in her eyes, but in the eyes of her generation and the generations
that follow. All of this comes in the wake of the woman who leaves her home
wearing immodest clothes. How staggering are the consequences of this matter!
("The Crown of Modesty," Pg. 259)
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