Mi Yodeya is a question and answer site for those who base their lives on Jewish law and tradition and anyone interested in learning more. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
It seems like almost major rebbeim/poskim do/did ear some sort of additional head covering (black hat, streimel, cap, etc) for davening. If the practice is that universal among gedolim, that might imply that the general populace ought to behave similarly.
I am curious: Are there today, or were there ever, any major rebbeim/poskim that do not wear an additional head covering for davening?
Rav Ilan Feldman, a great man and a respected personality in the rabbinic pulpit world regularly davens without a hat.
Culturally in the Sephardic countries such as Yugoslavia and Greece the Rabbonim did wear Rabbinic Yarmulkes (similar to this yarmulke of Rav Moshe's one.)
but not a hat on top of it. So seemingly they also davened like that.
"One example is R.Yehuda Aryeh of Modena (1571–1648). Rabbi Modena served on the Bet Din of Venice and authored many important works, including his commentary on Ein Yaakov entitled Beit Lehem Yehuda. As a respected rabbi and a member of the Bet Din, R. Modena responded to many inquiries about his rulings on various halakhic questions. However, one response of R. Modena dealt not only with a halakhic question, but also with an event that seems to have occurred frequently. R. Modena wrote that “a Rabbi Yitzhak Gershon12 would not once or twice, but every week berate [R. Modena] for standing with his hat in his hand [bareheaded].”
Rabbi Modena would stand outside the local synagogue speaking with people, all the while without a yarmulke, and R. Yitzhak Gershon would chastise him for doing so. R. Modena justified his practice and commented that “the majority of Jews in Italy [do not wear a yarmulke]” as well. He also noted that Italian Jews “dress differently [than other Jews], grow their hair long, and their custom is to remove their hats when greeting important people, as this honors them.” Indeed, when R. Modena’s Historia de Riti Hebraici, History of Jewish Rites, was published in 1637, the portrait of R. Modena on the cover displayed him bareheaded."
Source that contains sources Yarmulke: A Historic Cover-up?
There are also other Sephardic people who were big, but could you call them gedolim? i don't know. If someone made their own siddur that was used by an entire country (Such as the Farhi siddur for Egyptians) would you say he was a gadol? Dr Hillel Farhi
