"Clothes for Honor and Glory"
Student Summaries of Sichot of the Roshei Yeshiva
Yeshivat
Har Etzion
*********************************************************
Yeshivat Har
Etzion invites you
to join us for its Annual Dinner
which will be
held Tuesday, March 21st
at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in
NYC.
Rabbi Ari
Berman - Rabbinic Tribute Award
Dr. Mark and Brenda Gardenswartz - Parents
of the Year
Elana Stein
and Tova Warburg Sinensky - first American alumnae
of the Stella K. Abraham Beit Midrash for Women in Migdal
Oz,
Yeshivat Har
Etzion Classes of 1985 and 1986
For more
information contact the NY office at [email protected] or call
1212-732-4874
*********************************************************
PARASHAT
TETZAVEH
SICHA
OF HARAV YEHUDA AMITAL SHLIT"A
"Clothes for Honor and
Glory"
Summarized by
Shaul Barth
Translated by
Kaeren Fish
Our parasha speaks about the
priestly garments; I would like to speak about clothing in general.
Rambam (Moreh
Nevukhim III:33) describes the values that the Torah comes to teach
Israel. One of these values is hygiene of the body and cleanliness of clothes.
Rambam goes on to say that a person who emphasizes only these external values is
a sinful and wanton individual, but still we see that great importance is
attached to a person's outward appearance and manner.
In the Gemara we read of Rabbi
Yochanan, who was so handsome that he used to station himself outside the
mikveh, so that women emerging from their ritual immersion would set their eyes
upon him and eventually give birth to handsome children. In one of his sayings,
Rabbi Yochanan asserts that a Torah Sage must ensure that his clothing is clean
and respectable; this, too, teaches us that a person must pay proper attention
to his outer appearance. Even Rabbi Yochanan, blessed with an exceptionally
handsome appearance, took care to ensure that his garments were clean.
During the 1960's, "hippies"
introduced a trend of strange clothes and a peculiar appearance. By this they
meant to show that a person's importance lies inside; therefore, there is no
significance to the outer form that he assumes. Judaism does not accept this
approach. Undoubtedly, inner character is most important, but external
appearance also has its place. The culture of the '60's expressed a lack of
shame, a sort of uninterest in how a person looked. Shame is a very important
principle in Judaism. We see this evidenced in the fact that the very first
thing that God does, after Adam and Chava are expelled from Gan Eden, is to sew
them garments made of skins. The trend towards a lack of shame reaches its
extreme in the form of nudist colonies: entire communities of people who go
about naked, like animals. One of man's distinct levels of superiority over the
animals is our sense of shame; this emotion is important, and it is important
that we care about how we look.
When I was younger, I used to go
into the students' rooms to see how they looked, whether they were tidy. Today I
am too old for that, but it must be emphasized that there is importance attached
to how things look, to external appearance. Clearly, a person who focuses only
on externals is corrupt, but a normal person must take this aspect of reality
into consideration. It was said that in the yeshiva of Slobodka, students who
bought new suits would not come to wish the rav "Shabbat Shalom," because he
would praise the new garment and would wish them to wear it well, and the
students did not want to be treated in any special way. The rav did this because
he wanted to show them that outer appearance is important.
The Torah places inner values as
our top priority, but does not suffice with this. One interpretation of the sin
of the sons of Aharon was that they entered the Mishkan without their
priestly garments. They believed that what was important was inner values, and
therefore if they really wanted to serve God, surely it would not matter how
they were dressed. But they were mistaken. One cannot serve God in any manner
that one chooses; there is significance to one's external appearance when
approaching the Sanctuary, that way in which others see us is important. This, too, is one of the values to which
the Torah educates us.
[This sicha was delivered at
seuda shelishit, Shabbat parashat Tetzaveh 5765
(2005).]