[Avodah] Tz'nius and Clothing

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 12:25:42PM -0500, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote:
: What struck me as fascinating is the etymology of 
: the word BEGED, clothing. The same word can also
: mean treacherous, faithless, etc. 
: I think only one who understands tz'nius and clothing
: can see the connection. If the BEGED one wears is 
: inappropriate, then that person is acting in a faithless,
: treacherous, disloyal manner.

There are three terms in Tanakh for clothing -- kesus, beged and levush.
Although levush doesn't appear as a noun until Mordechai wears
Achashveirosh's clothing.

I thought of kesus in terms of tzeni'us, and beged in terms of uniform.
Eg kohanim get bigdei kehunah. Adam and Chava cover themselves up, but
Hashem makes them kusanos or -- which we know from kehunah is a form of
beged.

Achashveirosh wears levush, because the uniform doesn't help much. It's
just "drapery".

I used this notion to explain the two times Hashem commands tzitzis:
we put tzitzis (sprouts - growth) on the corners of our begadim, but
gedilim (ropes? something "bigger" than strings, cords, binding with
chulios, kerikhos and qeshrim) go on a kesus. Perhaps, using RYBS-speak,
we could say that a kesus is an article of retreat, and a beged is worn
to advance. (As I posted here in 2010.)

http://www.aishdas.org/asp/tzitzis-advance-and-retreat

:-)BBii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Nearly all men can stand adversity,
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