[Avodah] Pikudei Clothing makes (or breaks) the man.

Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org
Wed Mar 6 12:49:40 PST 2019


On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 10:36:10PM -0500, Cantor Wolberg via Avodah wrote:
: Part of this portion goes into meticulous detail regarding the 'bigdei
: kehuna." The word "beged," in addition to meaning "garment" can also mean
: "betrayal" ("bagad" to deal treacherously and "b'gidah" treachery). What
: is this telling us? Clothing, garments or vestments like anything else
: used improperly is a betrayal of what's right.

I suggested in <http://www.aishdas.org/asp/tzitzis-advance-and-retreat>
that beged is garment in the sense of uniform or other symbol. And thus
they /bgd/ the person by hiding them behind the office.

This is in disinction to the other word used in chumash for clothing --
kesus. Like the kesus of the Gen Eden story, a kesus is for tzeni'us.

Which is why the Torah tells us to put "tzitzis al qanfei bigdeihem"
but the more constrained and knotting "gedilim taaseh lekha al 4
ganfei bigdekha.

Then there is levush, while used as a verb earlier in Tanakh (lilbosh),
isn't a noun until Esther. And even then, specitically for levush malkhus,
the garments of a king -- who in this case wasn't accepted as fit for
office even with all the "tekheiles and white, and a crown of gold and
a wrap of linen and purple". A failed beged? Either way, it wasn't
in scope for my discussion of the two presentations of the mitzvah of
tzitzis.


Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             You are not a human being in search
micha at aishdas.org        of a spiritual experience. You are a
http://www.aishdas.org   spiritual being immersed in a human
Fax: (270) 514-1507      experience. - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin


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