TA Pekudei 5785 – Clothed in Dignity

One of the procedures that took place at the inauguration of the Mishkan in Parshas Pekudei was the dressing of the kohanim for their first service in the newly constructed Mishkan. וְהִלְבַּשְׁתָּ אֶת אַהֲרֹן אֵת בִּגְדֵי הַקֹּדֶשׁ – And you should dress Aharon in the sacred garments…, וְכִהֵן לִי – and then he will be fit to serve Me…, וְאֶת בָּנָיו תַּקְרִיב וְהִלְבַּשְׁתָּ אֹתָם כֻּתֳּנֹת – and his children too you should bring near and dress them in tunics…, וְכִהֲנוּ לִי – and then they shall be fit to serve Me (Shemos 40: 13-15).

It was the וְהִלְבַּשְׁתָּ -the act of being dressed in bigdei kehunah, that was one of the important preparations for the service of the Mishkan. And not only for that one time in history; putting on the bigdei kehunah was a prerequisite for serving Hashem in the Beis Hamikdash forever and ever.

Now if you learned a little bit, you know that when it comes to the service of the Beis Hamikdash only a kohen is permitted to do it. If a zar - a non-kohen, approaches to do the avodah – even if he’s a big talmid chochom and he follows all the halachos – it’s nothing at all. The whole thing is profaned; it’s rendered possul - disqualified.

But there’s something more that is not as well known and that is that even a kohen, a kosher kohen, loses his status as a kohen if he’s not wearing the bigdei kehuna. בִּזְמַן שֶׁבִּגְדֵיהֶם עֲלֵיהֶם כְּהֻנָּתָם עֲלֵיהֶם – When a kohen puts on his garments, that’s when he’s a kohen (Zevachim 17b). But if he’s missing even one of the prescribed garments, so he’s not a kohen; he’s a zar - non-kohen now.

Now this seems simple to us – it’s the procedure of the Beis Hamikdash, one of the technicalities – but we have to understand there is some logic to it too. And it’s a logic based on the age-old principle of ‘vestis virum reddit‘ – it’s Latin for ‘the clothes make the man’. But it’s not merely how the world understands it, that a person’s clothing causes others to perceive him in a certain way. That’s true too but we’re going to see now that clothing can actually change who a person is – they can transform him from a plain person into a servant of Hashem.

It’s true of everybody. Human beings are what their garments are. If you take a pair of ragged jeans and put it on a human being, he becomes a bum. And even though it’s only external clothing – “it’s just clothes,” he says – but the truth is that inwardly he becomes a bum too! The garment evokes a certain way of thinking, of behavior.

And if you’ll take that ragged bum off the street and put a uniform on him, he’ll be a changed man. That’s why when you’re walking on the street and you see a policeman in a blue uniform so to some extent you feel that this man is on the side of the law. It doesn’t mean that he’s going to withstand big temptation if somebody offers him big money but ordinarily we feel confident that he is now on the side of law and order.

But the question is why should that be? We know that policemen are recruited from Bensonhurst and you can be quite certain that before they had a uniform they were on the other side. So what is that now all of a sudden he became an upholder of law and order?

The answer is the great principle that we spoke about many times which the Mesillas Yesharim taught us: הַחִיצוֹנִיּוֹת מְעוֹרֶרֶת אֶת הַפְּנִימִיּוֹת – A man’s outwardliness affects his inwardliness. And merely by putting on a certain outfit, a uniform, he assumes a certain responsibility. The clothes make him a different person.

That’s the greatness of mankind, by the way. It doesn’t matter who – brown, white, black, yellow, any color; mankind alone is innately endowed with noble emotions, with greatness of character. And a uniform is one of the ways of bringing man’s greatness to the surface. Because if you put a blue uniform on a baboon it wouldn’t accomplish much. But you see here a bum wearing a blue uniform on the street corner twirling his baton and now he’s on the side of law and order. Yesterday he was on the same street corner breaking windows! Yesterday he used to walk out of the corner store with his pockets bulging! And now he put on a blue uniform and you trust him.

By putting on the uniform you already assume in your mind a certain responsibility, certain attitudes. You identify with the uniform you wear, and your clothing elicits from deep in your soul the innate greatness; it evokes profound ideals and attitudes that are laying there dormant. It’s something that we have to know; it’s actually a fact that people are changed by their garments; clothes make the man

And this brings us to the very important subject of clothing.
And so we’ll begin by going back all the way to the beginning, to the first time that clothing is mentioned in the Torah.

Everybody remembers the story of the first couple in Gan Eden, how וַיֵּדְעוּ כִּי עֵירֻמִּם הֵם – when Adam realized that he and his wife were naked, so וַיִּתְפְּרוּ עֲלֵי תְּאֵנָה – they sewed up fig leaves for themselves (Bereishis 3:7). Adam and his wife understood that there has to be a certain amount of tzniyus, a certain amount of decency in the world. After all, without clothing you can’t have a civilized society. It’s impossible to function otherwise because mankind would always be distracted.

That’s why all over the world nobody preaches nudity. Except the editors of The New York Times; they’re the only ones. But among the sane people, there’s no such thing. And so Adam and Chava, once they recognized their nakedness, they took leaves from a fig tree and they sewed them together into little belts, short skirts. Now a fig leaf is not a very fancy outfit but for Adam and his wife it was considered sufficient because it was enough to cover up their nakedness.

And that’s how the styles would have been from then on. You would have gone to the department store to buy something the size of a few fig leaves. That would have been sufficient, and it would have been included in the great legacy of Adam and Chava; the great ideal of tzniyus, of decency.

But Hakadosh Baruch Hu disagreed. “My children,” He said, “that’s not enough.” וַיַּעַשׂ ה’ אֱלֹקִים לְאָדָם וּלְאִשְׁתּוֹ כָּתְנוֹת עוֹר וַיַּלְבִּשֵׁם – And Hashem made for Adam and his wife tunics – it means long gowns of leather – and He clothed them (ibid. 21).

And now Adam and his wife are walking around with tunics, long tunics, and maybe they were thinking, “Who needs it? What was wrong with our fig leaves? After all, decency is fulfilled by covering what has to be covered. And it’s not cold. The weather is perfect so we don’t need it to protect us from the elements. So why is Hashem insisting that we have to have full garments, full robes?”

But Hakadosh Baruch Hu came and taught them a lesson. “You’re making a big mistake,” He said. “You have to understand that clothing has a much more important purpose than just to cover up. I approve of what you did, but there’s a much more important purpose. The purpose of a garment is not merely to conceal the body. The purpose of a garment is to reveal!”

When Hashem clothed man for the first time it wasn’t to cover up; that was done already. But Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants much more than that. When Hashem tells us we have to be dressed, it means that clothing is for the purpose of demonstrating the importance of the wearer.

Clothing is to let yourselves know that you are unique in the universe, that you’re not just another creation, another animal. Imagine a man is walking almost naked in the fields. His ervah (genitalia) is covered but he’s almost naked. And he sees a donkey in the fields. Now, a donkey also has shoulders; a donkey has feet too. If a man would get on his front hands and legs, he could walk like a donkey too. So there’s a big danger, there’s a peril he might think that he is connected with a donkey in some way. It’s true he’s better than they are at surviving; he has a better head than a donkey. But still, he’s one of them. Today many people are saying that the donkey is our second cousin. What does the college man think after all? That we’re just a better edition of the gorilla. You’re just a more successful chimpanzee – those poor chimps didn’t make it.

And that’s a tremendous danger for the human race, to say we have any connection with animals. It’s the most tragic error in the world because it’s a degradation of the honor of mankind. The greatness of mankind becomes lost if there’s even the slightest idea of man being an animal. You see what happens. Animals have no principles, so why should men have principles? Those who follow Darwin have become animals. They behave like chimpanzees in the colleges. Today the colleges are places of jungles. Only I’m afraid it’s an insult to the jungle to say the colleges are like jungles. Animals behave better.

So how could Hashem demonstrate that man is the grand purpose of all creation? By very many demonstrations. But the most basic one, the most fundamental one, is by putting garments on him. Hakadosh Baruch Hu says that in order to demonstrate the superiority of mankind, you must be clothed. And that’s the way a human being must dress every day, with the knowledge that his clothing is intended to demonstrate his greatness, his gadlus haadam. Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, “Don’t underestimate the importance of clothing. Don’t scorn what garments can do to transform a person who wants to understand the lesson they’re trying to teach.”

We’re learning now an entirely new way of understanding the subject of begadim - of what it means to wear clothing. Because according to what we’re saying here, when we get dressed in the morning, when you put on your shirt and pants, or your dress, whatever it is, we’re demonstrating that man is not just another animal. You’re announcing to the world – at least to yourself – that man is capable of infinite greatness.

That’s how to put on clothes: “I’m making a protest against all the universities of the world, all the professors, all the evolutionists. You are all blind maniacs! Shame on the world of academicians! Shame on all the colleges! You should close down and go to work. Go out and make an honest living instead of deceiving the world by your falsehood, that we’re just animals. Man is great! Man is fashioned by Hashem’s Hand. Every one of us is a masterpiece capable of greatness, of eternity.

And the most available expression, the easiest and most accessible manifestation of this principle is in our closets! Our clothing! Clothing is your dignity at all times! Like Rabbi Yochanan said מָאנֵי מַכְבַּדוּתָא – Garments are my honor! (Bava Kama 91b). Garments declare who I am! I am a man! A human being! A man or a woman, human beings! It’s a tremendous honor to be a human being! Clothing means that you have a neshama - that you have a soul in you. It demonstrates to ourselves that you and a horse are two different worlds.

That’s why you must wear full garments. People that show their bodies are nothing but human horses. Did you ever look at a policeman’s horse in the street as it’s walking? You see the muscles, between the legs and the thigh, are walking. When people walk in the street today and they try to display as much of their bodies as they can, they should remind you of a horse. Even though you see a difference nevertheless the comparison is overwhelming. And so to show off your body means you’re like a good police horse that’s walking down the street flexing his muscles; his big legs, his big behind, and waving his tail.

And so the people who parade down the avenue in summer time with very little clothing on them, with short pants or short dresses, they’re are demonstrating how ignorant they are of man’s role in this world. They have lost sight of one of the most important facts in the universe, the greatness of mankind.

Oh no! Cover up! That’s the greatness of mankind. There’s nothing like you. Even angels cannot compare to you. That’s our tradition. Clothing is to show who you are. You have a neshama in you. You have greatness. You’re tzelem Elokim - made in the image of Hashem. You are so unique that there’s nothing in the entire universe that compares to you.

Now I know it’s a new idea to most people but actually it’s one of the oldest ideas of all. וְיַלְבִּישֵׁם– That’s what Adam was told. “Clothing is not merely for tznius like you thought originally. And it’s not merely to protect you from the cold or from the heat. Clothing is a demonstration, “I am great!”

When you get dressed, when you wear clothing, it’s like saying, “I now declare that I am the choicest of all creation. Hashem has chosen me. I have unlimited potential, unlimited greatness within me!” חָבִיב אָדָם – How beloved a man is by Hashem, שֶׁנִּבְרָא בְּצֶלֶם – that he was made in the image of Hashem (Avos 3:14). How beloved a man is to Hashem that He gave us garments!

And so we come back now to the bigdei kehunah and we begin to understand how important they really were. Because it makes sense now that they made the kohen! בִּזְמַן שֶׁבִּגְדֵיהֶם עֲלֵיהֶם כְּהֻנָּתָם עֲלֵיהֶם – If he’s not wearing his clothing of kehunah, he’s not a kohen. When he puts on his begadim and he understands what they demand of him, that makes him most capable of being a kohen.

Of course it’s not the sole incentive. Nobody is going to say that a kohen doesn’t need anything to inspire him except the outward garments. He has to study the halachos of the avodah for years and years. And he has to spend a lot of time also thinking about the importance of the avodah, about what it means to be a servant of Hashem, what it requires of him. Absolutely, there’s a lot of pnimiyus required to be a kohen. But the garments are capable of bringing out, of inspiring, of accentuating all of that pnimiyus, all of the greatness that’s hidden inside of a him.

Because when the kohen put on his begadim, he understood what we’re learning here, that clothing is a demonstration. He was announcing, “This is the house where Hashem dwells and I am His servant.” You know, a servant of the king dresses in a certain way and that reminds him that he must be more careful than someone else. And so when the kohen put on his begadim, he tried to be inspired by them.

Now, it could be he was thinking of other things too. He’s not a malach after all; he’s a human being. But still, the mere fact that he was dressed like a servant of Hashem, was already a tremendous success for him. The awareness that he is dressed lechovod ulesiferes - in glorious garments, makes him feel that he is a servant of Hashem. And he actually becomes more of a servant of Hashem just because of that!

That’s a very important point: A kohen can rise to the heights required of him only when he is dressed in the bigdei kehunah. And it’s an especially important point because it’s an ideal that applies to all of us, kohanim, non-kohanim, all the time. After all, we are the mamleches kohanim, the nation of servants of Hashem; and just like the kohanim utilize their bigdei kehunah to achieve all the greatness expected of them, every ben Yisroel and bas Yisroel also can only live truly successfully if they utilize their clothing to bring out the greatness that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave them.

You know the Gemara in one place makes note that the bigdei kehuna are in one place called bigdei serad. Now al pi pashtus, we understand that name: Bigdei serad – garments of officiating. They were the special garments that a kohen had to wear in order to officiate in the Beis Hamikdash. But the Gemara there gives us a deeper insight into these words: אִלְמָלֵא בִּגְדֵי כְהֻנָּה לֹא נִשְׁתַּיֵּר מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל שָׂרִיד וּפָלִיט – If not for the bigdei kehunah nothing would have remained of us (Yoma 72b). That’s why they’re called bigdei serad; because serad also means ‘a remnant’. It’s only because of the bigdei kehunah the Jewish nation was able to survive; a remnant survived.

That’s a very strange and puzzling statement. If not for the bigdei kehunah nothing would have remained of us? What’s so great about the garments of the kohen that gives us the right to continue to exist as a nation?

And the answer is what we’re talking about here tonight. Because that ideal, that principle that we learn from the bigdei kehunah, that the clothing makes the man, was an eternal salvation for the Jewish nation. And it’s especially for us because everything we said till now about the clothing of mankind – that it is intended to elicit an awareness of man’s infinite greatness – that’s only an introduction to the subject of a Jew’s clothing.

Because it’s true that חָבִיב אָדָם שֶׁנִּבְרָא בְצֶלֶם – Mankind must be aware always of that special gift, the special responsibility, that we are created in the image of Hashem (Avos 3:14). It’s a great skyscraper of greatness! But when we come to Am Yisroel it’s another much greater skyscraper on top of that one. Because the mishnah doesn’t stop there; it goes on and concludes: Yes, man is beloved because he’s created in Hashem’s image, but חֲבִיבִין יִשְׂרָאֵל – Yisroel are more beloved, much more than Adam, שֶׁנִּקְרְאוּ בָּנִים לַמָּקוֹם – because they are called the children of Hashem (ibid.). And that means the Am Yisroel have a much greater obligation to listen to what their garments are trying to tell them.