Clothes Make the Man: A Drash for Parashat Tetzaveh, 27 February 2015

Do you remember the 1980 film, The Elephant Man, starring John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins?  It is the story of Joseph Merrick, a man in Victorian England.  Merrick had a condition causes him to develop severe deformities in childhood.  In his youth, his parents rejected him.  Ultimately he ended up in a travelling freak show.  A surgeon named Frederick Treves discovered him and talked him into accompanying him to London Hospital for a study.  In hospital, he was still regarded as a freak, albeit in a higher-class way and in more comfort.  But even his benefactors did not treat him as a human being, as an equal.

          Merrick was kidnapped back to the freak show and ultimately liberated to return to the hospital.  The doctors, their wives, nurses and even the Princess of Wales, ultimately developed an interest in seeing and relating to the man behind the hideous visage.  They acceded to his requests to be given a gentleman’s clothes and a toilet kit.  Merrick showed how the allowance of such small dignities can transform a man.  This, because they transform the way that others see the man.

          This week’s Torah portion, Tetzaveh is dominated by narrative describing the vestments of the Kohanim, the Priests.  Their clothes had to perfectly fit the specifications spelled out in the reading.  And they had to fit the man perfectly.  If not, according to the Gemara in Sanhedrin 83b, it was as if they were not Kohanim.  In other words, their service would be as if it had not happened.  This, no matter how expert and exacting the performance may have been.

          This is certainly a proof text for the concept that clothes make the man.  Anybody who has dressed for an interview for a white collar job, is aware of the importance of making a good first impression by one’s appearance and one’s clothes.  As it is said, one doesn’t get a second chance to make a first impression.  Rightly or wrongly, that first impression will stick.  As much as one might argue against the superficiality of it, it is a fact of life.

          When I was preparing to retire from the US Air Force, I was sent to a transition class.  Among other things, we were told how to dress for job interviews.  Retiring military guys need this; they generally don’t know how to dress civilian, except for leisure!  So I learned all about cuts and qualities of suits, why not to wear button-down shirts, and how powerful ties should be.  I absorbed all this, got a job, and then I went back to my button-down shirts and my old ties.  But when I was interviewing, I got it.  Interview committees responded positive to the way I turned myself out.  And I responded to it myself, with increased confidence.

          So of course it mattered that the Kohanim dressed in an absolutely perfect manner.  That there was not a single stray thread hanging from their vestments.  That they were constructed perfectly according to specification.  And that they fitted the man perfectly.  Because the Priests, and what they did, served as a nexus between Hashem and the people Israel.  It mattered to Hashem.  It mattered to the people.  And it mattered to the Kohanim.

          In my congregation in Colorado Springs, there was a nice man on the Ritual Committee.  He was an older guy who had owned a clothing store for many years and so was always turned out in a very dapper fashion.  As you can imagine, one of his pet peeves was people who come to shule dressed sloppily, or overly casual.  He and I talked about it on a number of occasions.  I could say that I felt some agreement with his position, because I thought that some of our members and guests could have put a little more care into how they dressed for shule.  But I talked him out of making it an issue.  This, because at the end of the day, I preferred that the people in question came sloppy, than that they wouldn’t come at all.  Because we were happy to have these usually younger adults in shule, I counselled that we just not pick this fight…and we didn’t.

          I think it is good to dress in a not-every-day fashion to come to shule.  If this is a special place where we do something special – and I would argue yes on both counts – then we should feel comfortable dressing in a special manner.  Even if it isn’t the most comfortable suit of clothes we’ll put on during the week.

I have to be careful about how I express this.  The last time I spoke about the importance of dressing appropriately – guess what!  It was for parashat Tetzaveh last year! – some of my students took it to heart and showed up in dark suits the next week.  I had to explain to the Board of Management why we had a row of individuals dressed like gangsters, in shule.  So let me be clear about this; I am not expressing anything close to an expectation that anybody hearing this will go out and buy an expensive new suit of clothes for attending shule!  Not that you’ll be turned away if you do.  But you also won’t be turned away if you don’t.

Someday, we won’t be meeting to pray in a community centre meeting room with a dry erase board and a projection screen behind me.  And we’ll have more than 30 or so people in the room.  And then the informal ethic that we’ve adopted will no longer seem most appropriate.  And I’ll probably go back to wearing my formal robes, or at least a suit and tie.  And believe me, I’ll miss dressing casually on Friday nights.
          But in the meantime, I think we’ve all been around long enough, and seen and experienced enough, to understand clearly why the vestments of the Priests mattered to a people wandering in the desert.  And to the Deity.  And to the Priests themselves.  It mattered for the same reason that it matters how we dress for a job interview.  Or a wedding.  Or our kid’s graduation.  Or a friend’s funeral.  It matters to those who see us. And it matters to us.  The two feed off one another.

Joseph Merrick found that clothes make the man.  As did the Priests of ancient Israel.  It’s something that we all know and understand, even if we occasionally rebel against it.  Shabbat shalom.