“Make sacred clothes for your brother Aaron, for glory and for beauty” Exodus 28:2

I wore golden boots at my child’s recent bneimitzvah party. I thought long and hard about what I wanted to wear. I wanted shoes that felt special and celebratory but that I could still dance easily in. These fitted the bill. My child spotted a shirt they liked at Greenwich Market which they wore — also something both celebratory and comfortable.  

Although the focus of the day was obviously on the Torah, our clothes still mattered. Had we both turned up in tracksuit bottoms, we would have felt we were somehow letting ourselves down. Dressing up a bit enhanced the glory of the day, a visual aid to what was going on under the surface. 

I didn’t always dress up for prayer or parties. As a younger woman, I was strongly of the opinion that God didn’t care what I wore and as I associated  suits and dresses with the workplace, I was more likely to frequent Shabbat gatherings where jeans or leggings were considered OK. 

I’m still more comfortable in settings where you don’t have to dress up, perhaps heeding God’s words to the prophet Samuel, when Samuel is wondering if a prospective  king needs to look tall and handsome. “Pay no attention to his appearance or his stature, for I have rejected him. For not as man sees does God see; man sees only what is visible, but God sees into the heart (I Samuel 16:6).

Now, there is something about dressing for the occasion that moves me. It’s a form of embodied spirituality and hiddur mitzvah, enhancing a mitzvah through aesthetics. It’s also a form of self-exposure, saying “I care about this; this matters to me.” 

Aaron’s priestly clothes are for glory and beauty. Nachmanides comments that they represent God’s glory and through serving God, the priest becomes glorious too, so the clothes must be made with full awareness of their sacred purpose. The weavers need to understand what they are making. 

I’m not sure if my boots were made with spiritual intentionality (kavannah) but they were certainly worn with intentionality — and then my child was given one more gift which was definitely fashioned with the spirit of  wisdom, a B’Nai Or rainbow tallit, inspired by the midrash: “How did God create the world? They wrapped themself in a robe of light and it began to shine.”   The coloured stripes represent the spectrum of primal light.  

When you’re wearing something that brings your inner and outer worlds together as one, whether it’s a tallit or party shoes, it’s an opportunity to bring kavod and tiferet, honour and beauty into the world.