Fashion and Compassion

"Who is clothed in charity on the day of judgment."
--High Holiday Prayerbook

Many of us will spend the next few days in synagogue services of some kind. We can't always help the temptation to take our eyes from the prayerbook to see the latest fashions. A new designer suit. A fabulous tie. A little girl's frilly dress that is just adorable. It can all be so distracting.

Into this fashion parade, we find another image when we turn our eyes back to the prayerbook: God is clothed in charity. In one of the ancient song/poems of the day that are sprinkled throughout the liturgy, we find this odd expression, which is translated in some prayerbooks as "who is clothed in righteousness on the day of judgment." The Hebrew has charity in the plural. God is dressed in charities. Not one, but many.

We rarely think of God having the capacity to be dressed unless we're still stuck in childhood images of God as a grandfather in white beard and long, flowing robe. In some ways, it's almost amusing. What clothing line would God wear if God wore clothes? A dark Armani suit? Something more conservative, perhaps? Many images of God that we read on these days of prayer have God in a human role: as writer, as shepherd, as judge. And if we are going to be anthropomorphic on these Days of Awe, then why have God covered in abstraction. What could it possibly mean to be clothed in tzedakot?

And yet, this has always been one of my favorite expressions of the High Holiday prayers; this slip of prayer creates a visual picture of the intimate covering of the Divine.

Compassion is God's clothing and, in imitation of God, we, too, should be mindful of what covers us, what our outermost layer communicates to others about who we really are and what our values are.

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, an 18th century rabbi from Germany, does a great deal of linguistic analysis in his commentary on the Pentateuch. He links the term for garment in Hebrew "beged" with infidelity or betrayal,"boged." Clothing can have a deceptive aspect. It can hide or mask an identity. Think of the very first clothing in the Bible - Adam and Eve's fig leaves. They take what is immediately available before them to cover up who they are once they have intimate knowledge that was forbidden to them. Clothing is part of the "cover-up."

In contemporary terms, I may put on uniform and fool someone into thinking I am a policeman. I may wear certain types of clothing to conceal my age. Cross-dressing is not primarily about clothing but about gender and sexual identity. Clothing can reveal and it can conceal.

Rabbi Hirsch challenges us to think about the real person beneath the clothing and what it is we may be trying to hide:

To see someone clothed in human garments makes once conclude that here is a real human being. If someone puts trust in me as being a true human being, and I betray that trust, then I have shown myself to be merely the cloak of a human being. I wear the outer appearance of a human being but it was only the mask of a human being.

In that vein, the Talmud in Tractate Brakhot shares with us the blessing Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai gave to his students just before he died: "May it be God's will that the fear of God shall be upon you like the fear of mortals." The students could not understand this blessing. But, of course, they feared God more than they feared others! Rabbi Yohanan powerfully reminds them that in life, we are always more worried about what others will see than what God will see. Since we can't see God, we justify wrongdoings that we would not justify were a person in the room.

The image of God clothed in charity reminds us of the importance of authenticity. What we wear is a signature of who we are; the outside layers should mimic in some way what the clothing covers. Clothing here is a metaphor for our values. So instead of looking at what someone else is wearing, now is a great time to look in the mirror. What does our clothing communicate about our charity, our righteousness? Do we dress for ourselves or for others? Do we act on what we deem is right and just or do we follow the crowd? Fashion is ever-changing. Certain values should be immutable, not changed by time. And charity and justice is not something we take off, like an article of clothing. It should be a second skin.

May Rabbi Yohanan's blessing to his students help us think about who we answer to and why this coming year. May it be a year of meaning and growth where our outside lives and our inside lives match each other, and we learn and grow in compassion and love so that, we too are clothed in charity.

Shabbat Shalom and Happy New Year.

By Erica Brown  |  September 17, 2009; 8:40 AM ET
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