Bo, Shemos 13:19. Tefillin and the Very Unfortunate Tattoo

The Minchas Yitzchak 3:11 has an interesting shaileh. A man had served in the army. During his time in the military, he got a tattoo on his left upper arm, precisely where one puts the shel yad of tefillin. The tattoo depicted an unclothed woman. Now the man had become a baal tshuvoh. The question was, could he put his tefillin on his left arm over the tattoo of the woman? Or would it be better to put it on his right arm?

Obviously, he cannot put the tefillin on his other arm. The Minchas Yitzchok suggests various methods by which the person might put on tefillin in a manner which mitigates the disgrace to the tefillin.

The Minchas Yitzchok, surprisingly, does not suggest what seems to me to be the obvious and correct answer. That is, this person should use indelible ink to dress her---Just cover her up with a blotch of India ink or permanent marker, which stains the skin but is absorbed completely and has absolutely no tangible substance. Indelible ink is not a chatzitzah, even if it is evident and the person does not want it there. It is no more a chatzitza than women's hair dye is a chatzitza, in other words, it's not a chatzitza at all. The Chatzitza problem only arises if the extraneous matter has substance.

Parenthetically, I don't want the title of this piece to mislead anyone into thinking that any voluntary tattoo might be Kosher. It is not. It is biblically prohibited for any Jew to voluntarily be tattooed. Remarkably, even most Reform rabbis agree that this prohibition should be honored. Only the most rebellious or angry Jewish person would tattoo himself. It is a permanent declaration that he rejects not only the halachah but also the cultural tradition of the Jewish people.


HOWEVER:

My dear brother sent me a news article that mentioned that tattoos on grafted skin also stay forever. He said that this would be a hetter to get a tattoo. I found the idea repulsive: it's bad enough to get someone else's skin, but to get skin that has a personal tattoo would be horrible. But then I realized that this gives us a better hetter for tattoos. One could have a surgeon remove a piece of skin from his body, have it tattooed, and then put the skin back. An argument could be made that there was no maiseh of nesina of a ksoves while it was bsarchem. Of course, it could be that putting it on your body gufa is called nesina bachem - as the passuk says, וכתובת קעקע לא תתנו בכם. It doesn't say the issur is the writing, it's the nesinah bachem. Still, it's a possibility that we ought to investigate.


UPDATE 2018
I saw this very moving story, and it's a perfect way to end this post.

Rabbi Hanoch Teller writes a story he personally witnessed regarding a young man, Jamie, who had recently become Torah observant and went to immerse in a busy mikveh in Jerusalem. As he walked towards the mikveh, he held his hands over his arms, attempting to cover his tattoos. As he stepped into the mikveh, he slipped and the lewd tattoos that lined his biceps were now exposed for all to see. At an earlier time, Jamie had viewed his tattoos with pride, but that afternoon he felt humiliation.

An elderly Jew stepped forward and in a heavily accented English declared, “Look here, I also have a tattoo.” Stretching out his frail arm, the man pointed to the row of numbers from tattooed on his arm. “It seems we’ve both come a long way.” (From It’s A Small Word After All, 1997)