Following Tetzaveh’s opening commandment regarding the menorah’s lighting, the Torah continues with a detailed description of the unique garments worn by the ordinary cohanim and the additional special garments worn only by the high priest. These sanctified garments, the Torah informs us, were made for “glory and splendor” (Exodus 28:2). The cohanim, who served simultaneously as the people’s representatives to God and as God’s representatives to the people, were commanded to dress in a manner worthy of their position and spiritual task.
The Torah spends so much time describing every detail of the sacred vestments because garments, in general signify a much deeper level of meaning: garments are but a manifestation of the Kabbalistic and Chassidic concept known as “enclothment.” The ultimate level of enclothment is manifest in God enclothing His infinite being in finite reality. This phenomenon is alluded to by God’s name, Elokim, having the same numerical value as the all-inclusive Hebrew word for nature (hateva). All further manifestations of enclothment, in a sense, follow from this Divine archetypal paradigm.
Each morning before prayers when a Jewish man wraps himself in his tallit (prayer shawl), he recites the first two verses of Psalm 104: “Bless God, O my soul. God, my God, You are very great. You have dressed Yourself in majesty and splendor, cloaked in light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a curtain.” These inspiring poetic words describe the fundamental reality of God being enclothed in His creation.
Paralleling God’s enclothment in the world, the soul descends from its heavenly abode and dwells in the human body. This reality is fundamental to the notion that human beings are created “in the image of God.” According to Chassidic teaching, the soul is “an actual part of God Above”; thus, its enclothment in a body mirrors the very dynamic by which God enclothes Himself in creation. Taking this one step further, since God, Himself, is enclothed in the soul, by extension He is, in some sense, enclothed within the human body. The concept of enclothment in fact manifests itself on literally every level of existence. For example, modern science has revealed that all matter enclothes energy. A world of frenetic energy and movement exists unseen just below the surface of all matter. Indeed, every few years scientists seem to discover increasingly smaller and more complex components of reality, each containing ever-smaller particles of energy.
Judaism has always posited that physical reality enclothes a much deeper spiritual essence. One of the purposes of the mitzvot is to engage an individual in the ongoing process of uplifting and transforming physical objects, deeds, and speech into their spiritual essences. Each mitzvah is an opportunity to extract from physical reality the pure, holy spark of enclothed Divinity and animate it. Thus, the relationship of the physical to the spiritual parallels that of matter to energy.
In one of his profoundest teachings, the Arizal describes the cataclysmic event known as “the breaking of the vessels.” During the creation process the immature vessels were not strong enough to contain the primordial light, so they shattered. Our world is called Olam Hatikkun (the World of Rectification) for it is composed of a previous world’s broken vessels. Humanity’s mission is to repair and redeem each of the shattered vessels, which enclothes a trapped spark of light in need of repair and redemption.
Upon deeper reflection we see that garments simultaneously conceal and reveal. The Hebrew root word for the word “olam” (world) means “to hide.” Paradoxically, just like garments, the world both reveals and conceals God. The world and the laws of nature hide God so well that His presence is not at all obvious, yet to a spiritually attuned soul, the beauty and awesome precision of nature and its laws reveal the handiwork of the Divine.
Significantly, the holiday of Purim usually falls in close proximity to the annual Shabbat reading of Tetzaveh. Many commentators have pointed out that God’s name does not appear in the Scroll of Esther, which is read on Purim. They take this to symbolize the fact that God’s Providence was hidden in the historical narrative. Only after the miraculous salvation had come to pass did the people realize how involved God had been behind the scenes, leaving nothing to chance. In fact, when delving deeply into the text and the commentaries, one realizes that God’s hand was behind every detail of the unfolding story.
Parenthetically, this dynamic of God being hidden and yet revealed in the Purim story is reflected by the custom of dressing in costumes and masks on Purim. On the one hand, masks or costumes hide their wearers, yet, on the other hand, wearing costumes allows people to reveal certain aspects of themselves that they would either never have the opportunity to reveal or would, under ordinary circumstances, be afraid to express. This custom is also connected to Queen Esther concealing her nationality when she was chosen as queen, only to reveal it later when it would elicit the greatest effect.
In the portion of Terumah, we discussed how the cherubim on the ark allude to the cherubim guarding the Garden of Eden. Many commentaries point out that the unclothed male and female cherubim over the ark represent Adam and Eve in their pristine state of innocence before they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Before they ate from the Tree, the Torah relates that “They were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:25). As soon as they ate the forbidden fruit, the Torah comments that “then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized they were naked and they sewed together fig leaves and they made for themselves garments” (Genesis 3:7). Their unashamed nakedness obviously represented a state of innocence while their new sense of shame and need for clothing symbolized their fall to a lower state of consciousness. Indeed, a literal peshat understanding of the text, leaves the reader with no doubt that the first garments were worn out of a sense of sinfulness and shame.
Paradoxically, however, while Adam and Eve’s nakedness represented a pristine state of innocence, it also attested to the fact that humanity was too immature to handle such a pristine spiritual level. As various Midrashim attest, the snake symbolizes the unrectified aspect of sexuality and the ensuing tension that percolated beneath the surface of the protagonists’ minds in the Garden of Eden. Just like the vessels that could not contain the primordial light, human consciousness – symbolized by nakedness – could not handle the subtle psychological undercurrent present in the Garden of Eden. On the one hand, the exile from Eden is a punishment for Adam and Eve’s misdeed, but, on the other hand, it is an opportunity for humanity – which was not yet ready to exist on a higher spiritual level – to begin the long journey to healing and rectification. Indeed, the very seeds for rectifying matter are to be found in the fallen state.
Within this context, the clothes Adam and Eve wore are not just the consequence of their sin and accompanying sense of shame, they become a potent symbol and practical vehicle for a spiritually uplifting modesty: the physical body and all its potential for enslavement to baser desires is hidden, in order to reveal the soul within the body, the real essence of the individual.
Indeed, this explains what the verse means when it states that the cohanim are to wear their garments for “glory and splendor.” These garments concealed the physical and revealed God’s glory destined to shine through the souls of those representing both God and His people. Just as every detail of the Tabernacle’s construction and of the sacred vessels used in it embody profound secrets of creation, so too each and every detail of the cohanim’s holy garments sheds light on deep concepts relating to the emotions, intellect, and soul of man.
