But What Am I Going To Wear?

Parshas Bo 5780

There’s redemption, then there’s redemption in style. The Jews were gifted with the latter. Considering that Hashem was prepared to provide the Jews with their every need as they traveled through the wilderness, the wealth with which they left Egypt was stunning. But there is one item on the shopping list the Jews consulted as they emptied Egypt out of its wealth that is especially perplexing: 

(ובני ישראל עשו כדבר משה וישאלו ממצרים כלי כסף וכלי זהב ושמלת (יב:לה

The Children of Israel carried out the word of Moshe and requested from the Egyptians vessels of silver, vessels of gold, and garments. (12:35) 

If the Divine plan was to ensure the financial wellbeing of the Jewish People even beyond their travels through the wilderness, gold and silver are appropriate gifts. But what made the garments critical? Against the backdrop of gleaming vessels crafted from precious metal, how valuable could the clothing possibly have been?

To complicate things further, consider Rashi’s comment on the pasuk above:

ושמלות – אף הן היו חשובות להם מן הכסף ומן הזהב, והמאוחר בפסוק חשוב

And the garments – these were yet more precious to them than the silver and gold; whatever is mentioned later in the verse was more precious.

The garments weren’t a pack of tic-tacs grabbed at checkout just because. Far from a mere impulse buy, Rashi describes the clothing as the peak of the Egyptian haul. What made these items so precious?

I once went out to LA for a friend’s wedding and upon a quick look through my suitcase after arriving a the hotel, I realized I’d forgotten a tie. Thankfully, it took me all of ten minutes and fifteen dollars to right this wrong with a quick stop at a department store en route to the wedding. But under theoretically different circumstances, I wonder how much I’d have been willing to pay to ensure the proper dress. $100? $200? More? When push comes to shove, how much is it worth to be dressed appropriately, to rid oneself of nagging feelings of self-consciousness for an entire evening, and to avoid presenting oneself in a manner that is out of place or disrespectful? 

When you’re starving, food is worth more than fair market value; when you face embarrassment of being underdressed, the same is true of clothing. Through this lens, what is remarkable is not that the Jews valued fancy clothing even more than hard cash, but that they viewed the event of a rendezvous with Hashem in the desert to be worthy of such finery. So repugnant was the notion of serving Hashem in lackluster attire, that clothing became even more valuable than gold.

One of the greatest benefits of living “out of town” is a decided drop in materialism. Making a simcha costs a fraction of the price, sponsoring kiddush is not an over-the-top arms race to outdo whatever was served last week, and expectations for how we dress and how much we spend on our dress are relaxed. This creates an advantage not only in our wallets, but in our consciousness. When the static and noise of gashmiyus is silenced, ruchniyus can ring loud and clear.

Yet there is a dark side to this coin as well. There is such a thing as too casual when it comes to an affair that by its very nature ought to be more formal. While clothing can be a manifestation of materialism, it can also serve as demonstration of appropriate kavod—be it Kavod Shabbos, kavod haTefilah, or kavod Bais Haknesses. While we should never feel the need to dress to impress our friends, we should feel some pressure to dress in a way that gives honor to Hashem. The challenge in communities like ours is to avoid the former and maintain the latter. 

Smaller communities tend to be more diverse. A smaller population means that niche groups fuse together rather than creating their own separate sub-communities. In turn, our shuls play host to individuals of more diverse backgrounds, hashkafos, and upbringing. This makes a discussion about standardized dress an absurdity; what is considered proper Shabbos, tefilah, or general shul attire for one may be completely off the mark for another. 

Still, I’d propose that we all broadly consider two key issues:

Consistency – Do you dress differently for Kabbalas Shabbos and Shabbos Mincha? For Tuesday shacharis and Sunday shacharis? Is there a conscious reason for this, or more of a shrug of the shoulders? If asked what your mode of dress is for Shabbos or davening, could you respond definitively or would it be a vague, “It depends…”? An encounter with Hashem is a significant enough engagement to necessitate some prior consideration and motivate the extra effort in assessing why we dress the way we do and perhaps forcing us to remember where we left our tie after Shabbos lunch.

Trajectory – If your mode of dress has changed in recent years, have you taken a step up or a step down? Do you find that you’re “letting yourself off the hook” more frequently than you used to? That what you now wear on Shabbos would previously have been beneath your standards? I’m not referring to style, brands, or labels, of course, but formality. Did I once abide by a sense that approaching Hashem was a more formal affair than I do now? Does that represent a positive trajectory avodas Hashem, or a negative one?

When a big event approaches, the question of “What am I going to wear?” inevitably crosses our minds. This same question plagued our ancestors on the eve of Yetzias Mitzrayim, causing an overvaluation of clothing that in most other contexts would have been absurd. But an encounter with Hashem is, indeed, a big event, and demands that we give the question some serious thought every time such an encounter draws near.