Cardinals wear red ones. The Pope wears a white one. Rabbis often wear black ones. What’s the difference?
Well, in this case, form does not follow function. Let’s start with rabbis. Theirs are called kippot (pronounced keypoat), which is the Hebrew word for skullcap. The singular is kippah (keypah). You might have also heard them called yarmulkes (pronounced yamakas), which is a Yiddish word taken from the Polish word for skullcap. The reason why rabbis and many observant Jews wear them is because the religious book, the Talmud, orders them to: “Cover your head in order that the fear of heaven may be upon you.”
So basically, it’s a way of showing respect for God.
Cardinals and Popes, on the other hand, wear zucchettos, which is the Italian for a small gourd. (This may be because the panels sewn together to make the cap resemble the dome of a pumpkin or gourd.) The tradition of wearing the skullcap is markedly different from the rabbinic tradition. Catholic clergy originally wore them to address two issues: their short haircuts and the problem of not having a hood on their copes. Monasteries used to insist that men shaved the crown of the head, based on Paul’s writing: “Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is degrading to him…” (1 Corinthians 11:14) In fact, to this day, when the Orthodox talk about the day on which a priest was ordained or a monk entered a monastery, they refer to the date he was tonsured, which is the fancy word for buzzed.
Combine this, with the fact that copes with hoods went out of fashion in the 13th century, and you begin to see where the tradition comes from. Yes, they were cold in the winter! (What with the lack of modern-day heating and such in our cathedrals.) Of course, today they don’t need them to stay warm, but the tradition lives on.
And there are other religions and other similar traditions of covering the head. Zoroastrians wear topis; Druze men sometimes don a doppa and Buddhists often wear a bao-tzu.
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Hi you forgot to mention the ones Muslim men wear as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiyah_%28cap%29
It is usually called a kufi in the US too.
posted by Nora on 6-17-2010 at 1:41 pm
Seriously? Jews wear them to show respect for God (which is great)…but Catholics wear them just to keep their heads warm?!? I can’t believe there’s not more to it than that.
posted by Rachel on 6-17-2010 at 1:56 pm
i have to agree w/ rachel – i would have thought it was a nod (no pun intended!) to the fact that Christianity had its beginnings in Judaism, its Savior was a Jew and the Church was a product of a Jewish cult. there has to be more to the story.
posted by hansen on 6-17-2010 at 2:27 pm
The reason for the yarmulka hearkens back to the obligation for priests in the Temple in Jerusalem to cover their heads while performing the rites. In this way, the yarmulka reminds the wearer that they are to be serving God at all times.
The word “yarmulka” simply means “cap”, originally a Turkic word, and then migrated into Slavic languages and Yiddish. I surmise that had the Jews of Eastern Europe not thought of the word in those terms, it wouldn’t have had staying power.
Other names for the Jewish headcovering are “kippah” (dome) and “kopl” (small head thing).
I would think that since the Catholic priesthood sees itself as a continuation of the Temple Priesthood, they likely have a similar motivation.
As for the reasons for the colors… Rabbi Belkin was the president of Yeshiva University from 1943 to 1975. One time, as a city function, he was called upon to speak immediately after Cardinal Spellman. He opened with something along the lines of:
“As you may have noticed, both the cardinal and I wear yarmulkas. The difference is that his yarmulka is red, but his institution is running in the black. My yarmulka is black, and my institution…”
-Micha Berger (rabbi and Mental_Floss subscriber)
posted by micha on 6-17-2010 at 3:14 pm
And we can’t forget that whole “gotta cover your bald spot”
posted by Nicole on 6-17-2010 at 3:14 pm
PS: It’s not an obligation from the talmud. It’s a relatively late custom, as Jews measure age. Later than the split-off of Christianity. So I would go with the common ancestry in the Temple uniform idea.
posted by micha on 6-17-2010 at 3:28 pm
Well, judging by the comments so far, seems like there could have been more going into this article.
Also, why does the Pope’s picture come first when the story deals w/ the Jewish skullcap, and then then the rabbi appears when the Catholic one is discussed.
posted by Big Jonny on 6-17-2010 at 4:38 pm
Sucks to be Samson and Jesus then, if you’re not supposed to have long hair.
What a convenient thing to ‘forget’.
posted by Bakedpotatoes on 6-17-2010 at 4:38 pm
Bakedpotatoes- I’m pretty sure the bible doesn’t say that Jesus had long hair. The pictures you’re thinking of is because artists much later chose to depict him that way.
I’m wondering about the pope’s bigger style of hat. What’s that all about?
posted by Melissa on 6-17-2010 at 4:43 pm
Bishops wear purple ones. Some religious orders wear black ones and, I believe, there are those who wear them during their novitiate.
Also, a man’s tonsure would actually occur before he could be received into either major or minor orders (though the minor orders no longer exist, canonically speaking), so it doesn’t really refer to his ordination so much as his eligibility or candidacy (which is what tonsure has turned into) for it.
@Melissa – The pope’s miter? Or his saturno? He has a couple of big hats.
posted by Jayna on 6-17-2010 at 5:01 pm
@Bakedpotatoes: First of all, there is no Biblical command for men to have short hair. Paul addressed the customs of hair lengths in 1 Corinthians 11, but keep in mind that he specifically says that these customs were unique to the Corinthian culture and were not universal commands. Although we have no idea how long Jesus’ hair was, it’s fairly likely that it was long by current standards.
As far as Samson, he was a Nazirite, that is, someone who had taken a special vow which included, among other things, not cutting your hair.
posted by rev on 6-17-2010 at 5:47 pm
I wonder if they’ve ever walked into a bar just to freak people out….
posted by this is not my name on 6-17-2010 at 11:19 pm
My question… how do skullcaps stay on? They look like they’d just fall off if you tipped your head.
posted by Maggie on 6-21-2010 at 12:14 pm
@rev gotcha. Did a bit more reading.
posted by Bakedpotatoes on 6-27-2010 at 3:46 am
yarmulka comes from Aramaic, “yere malka”, meaning fear of the King, or kingship. Hebrew would be, “yirat malkhut”
posted by chezi on 10-8-2010 at 4:02 pm
Chezi,
That’s a folk etymology, and may be why the name stuck. “Yarmulka” is a Slavic word for “cap”, and is used in various parts of Eastern Europe to refer to that locale’s most common style of cap.
posted by micha on 10-26-2011 at 11:32 am