The beginning of our year has been severely marred by the horrible attacks in Israel which have taken hundreds of Jewish lives. I am dedicating this dvar Torah as a zechus for the safety and welfare of Klal Yisrael in Eretz Yisrael. This is truly a time when tefillah and tzedaka for the benefit of Israel, in handling what is a crisis for all of us, is most fitting. May Hashem help our brethren in Israel be safe and ultimately victorious.
When my teenagers were learning to drive, I purchased an old Honda sedan with over 120,000 miles on it. The body had plenty of dents and scratches, but the engine was in excellent condition. I still have the car, which over the years has acquired a few extra scratches, dents and bruises to enhance its “beautiful” appearance. But it drives really well!
This week is Shabbos Bereishis, providing a new beginning. We just completed the cycle of the Yomim Noraim, a period of time for deep introspection and improvement. We are new drivers this year, and very likely we will have some failures. Indeed, Adam HaRishon got into an accident on the first day he was created, as he and Chava ate from the Eitz Hada’as, Tree of Knowledge. After Adam and Chava ate from the Eitz Hada’as, Hashem made “cosnos ohr” (leather cloaks) for them, “vayalbishem” (and He dressed them). The Gemara says that Hashem does acts of chesed, and the fact that He provided these cloaks is proof of this. This is quite perplexing, as there are plenty of earlier acts of kindness Hashem did for Adam. Hashem created the world and everything in it for him. The Gemara says that before Adam sinned, he was in Gan Eden and the angels were roasting meat and pouring wine for him. Why did the Gemara not bring proof from these earlier acts of kindness?
To understand this, we need to understand the significance of the cosnos ohr. We know that Adam and Chava had already taken fig leaves and sewed them into clothing to cover themselves. So where was the chesed in providing clothes that were not truly needed?
There are multiple explanations given by various commentators as to the nature of the cosnos ohr. While the simple translation of the words is leather cloaks, Rabbeinu Bachya cites a tradition that it was special clothing which had the power to subdue all the animals in the world, even the most dangerous and deadly. It was this cloak that Nimrod stole and utilized to be a master hunter. Eventually, Eisav killed Nimrod and took this cloak, using it for his own skillful hunting. It was this cloak that Yosef’s brothers dipped in goat’s blood to show to Yaakov.
Rabbeinu Bachya gives an additional explanation, noting that there is only one other time where the Torah uses the word “vayalbisheim”: when Moshe dressed the Kohanim in their prescribed clothing. There are eight words in the verse which mentions the cosnos ohr with regard to Adam and Chava. The Ba’al HaTurim says that this is analogous to the eight special garments which the Kohen Gadol wore.
Thus, the cosnos ohr were not regular clothes made to cover their nakedness, but rather were special clothing of honor. Rabbi Bachya explains that Hashem made this clothing to demonstrate the love He had for Adam even after he sinned.
Rabbi Avraham Grodzinski says that with the above understanding, we now have an explanation of why providing the cosnos ohr for Adam and Chava is specifically described as an act of kindness by Hashem. Of course, Hashem did acts of kindness prior to the sin, but the Gemara’s proof that Hashem did an act of kindness with regard to the cloaks was specifically to demonstrate that Hashem does acts of kindness even after one’s sin or failure.
Note that in the Thirteen Attributes of Hashem, the name of Hashem is mentioned twice. Rashi explains that this is to demonstrate that Hashem acts with kindness to us both before and after we mess up.
After Sukkos and the preceding Yomim Noraim, we can feel discouraged when we don’t maintain the spiritual high as we intended, and our good intentions are not going according to plan. Often, after failing to keep some commitments, we feel that we are failures, and we just discard all the positive commitments we made during the Yomim Noraim. Hashem is telling us with the message of the cloaks: Don’t despair. He still loves us, even if we sometimes mess up. Just because we have a scratch on our car, we can still drive it. We need to keep moving on. With faith and determination, we can improve and excel in each area in which we focus. Despite the inevitable bumps in the road, Hashem is still our biggest fan and has confidence in our success. He is always there for us, including when tragedy strikes.
Rabbi Baruch Bodenheim is the associate rosh yeshiva of Passaic Torah Institute (PTI)/Yeshiva Ner Boruch. Rabbi Bodenheim can be reached at [email protected]. For more info about PTI and its Torah classes, visit www.pti.shulcloud.com
