How to Change Your Clothes
The biblical book of Mishlei (Proverbs) gives us an excellent piece of advice for navigating political and social issues right now:
“Don’t respond to stupid people in their foolishness or you’ll become just like them.” (Proverbs 26:4)
If Merriam-Webster needs a definition for “internet comments section,” they need look no further. There are certain moments when trying to reason with someone is truly a foolish waste of time. Better not to amplify those voices at all!
However, the very next bit of sage wisdom in Proverbs gives us precisely the opposite advice.
“Respond to stupid people in their foolishness, lest they think they are wise!” (Proverbs 26:5)
According to this second view, we cannot afford to ignore fools because their inflated and distorted sense of being right may snowball into something dangerous and unstoppable. Where silence might be interpreted as agreement or approval, we must register our opposition.
How do we know when to ignore and when to respond? The Talmud (Shabbat 30b) suggests we wade into the discourse when it is related to Torah, but not when it is about everyday normal stuff. In other words, let’s save our energy for the issues that really matter.
Of course, right now it seems like everything matters. The wars in Gaza and Ukraine, the threat to democracy in the United States, the increasingly lived experience of climate crisis around the world (and you could effortlessly name at least a dozen more vitally important issues).
Faced with an overwhelming justice checklist, the question of “what to do” may feel urgent, anxiety-inducing, and even impossible to answer. (Of course, you could just choose something and do it.)
Right now, I am drawn not to the question of “what to do” but to the very different framework of “who to be”. Given this perplexing and gorgeous world we live in, what character do I aspire to cultivate? Who might I become that would act from a place of more wisdom and love, even if I don’t know exactly what to do? And in what ways would the world look different if we each took that question seriously? I suspect there would be less angry fools claiming wisdom, and more humble fools seeking wisdom.
In our Torah portion, Tzav, the text elaborates Moses’ instructions to the ancient priests. After a particular sacrifice, the olah where everything is burned to ash, the priest “shall take off his clothes and put other clothes on, and carry the ashes outside the camp…” (Leviticus 6:4).
On surface level, this seems like practical advice. Rashi says it is a “matter of decency so that he should not, through removing the ashes, soil the clothes he uses regularly (at the altar in his official capacity).”
But a later Chassidic teacher, the Be’er Mayim Chayim, plumbs the spiritual depths of the text and reveals that changing clothes is about more than simply changing clothes.
“Clothes are the garments. One should strip off the unbeneficial thoughts and mental chatter that one has garbed oneself with until now…and from now on one should garb oneself with different clothes, clothes of holiness - you will wear garments of love and awe-of-God, as is fitting, as it is said to Joshua the High Priest: ‘Garb yourself in priestly robes’ (Zechariah 3:4).”
According to this teaching, changing clothes isn’t about making sure you don’t get your nice priest robes dirty, but that being a priest - a person aspiring to holy purpose - means cultivating inner traits like love and awe.
The Beer Mayim Chayim imagines our mental and emotional habituation as clothes. My thoughts and my emotions are not me, just as my clothes are not me. And yet, clothes and character impact how I move through the world, how others see me, and how I understand my role and responsibilities. What would it look like to realize that, with some persistence, we are not straight-jacketed in painful and unproductive patterns but can change our soul-clothes? What would it look like to dress intentionally in love and awe (and perhaps all the soul-traits of our Mussar tradition)?
What I like about this teaching, in contrast to the advice from Proverbs, is that it focuses on self-transformation rather than fool-confrontation. Every morning when you wake up, you have another day to try on love, to wear awe into the world, to don a humility cap or tie the laces on your patience boots. Whatever qualities of character you aspire to bring into your life may not always fit snugly, but remember to turn again and again to these garments, rather than the shroud of reactivity.
When you do encounter a fool, the primary question isn’t whether or not you should get into an argument with them, but who it is you are trying to be in the first place. And maybe if enough of us wear clothes of character, it will become fashionable once again to encounter each other with love, respect, curiosity, and hope.
Shabbat shalom!
Rabbi Jay LeVine
