Parshat Noach 5768: The Shawl and the Tallit

Three World Views

Noach's three sons' different world-views affected their views of fatherhood too.[1] We see those different views play out in the scene of Noach's degrading fit of drunkenness. Cham mocks his father, harasses him and abuses him. Shem and Yeffet cover him up. They move backwards towards their naked father holding a cloth between them so as not to witness his degraded state as they cover him.

Cham is a man, as his name indicates, driven neither by thoughtful deliberation nor by a set of values. Cham means heat, and he is driven by the heat of the moment and the sensations he experiences at any given time.

Yeffet's name connotes aesthetics, order and beauty. Yeffet relates to the world structurally and aesthetically. He sees things as they appear on the surface and prefers that surface to be orderly and attractive.

Shem means "definition." Shem looks at the essence of what things really are at their root, and relates to them at their soul level. TheShem Mishmuel[2] puts it a little differently: Cham is a physical being and operates from a place of guf, body. Yeffet uses human sensitivity; he comes from a place of nefesh. And Shem is a man ofseichel, intellect.

It comes then as no surprise that Cham would seek fun in his father's unfortunate state. His father is just an old man who has shown poor judgment. No reason for sympathy or even empathy.  Noach in that state is a provider of amusement to Cham, amusement that he intended to share with his brothers. They were not receptive to this however because their view of Noach is so different.

To Yeffet, the scene is an ugly one. It is disorderly and unattractive. It is not something to find entertaining or amusing. It is a scene to cover and remove. To Yeffet the reason to cover Noach is not for Noach's dignity, but for the kavod haberiyot, the human dignity of the family around him. It is a scene they should be spared.

The Meaning of Fatherhood

Shem has yet a different perspective. He analyses the term av, father. Av means "source or generator." Noach is the source of his children, he generated them, he partnered with G-d in their creation. Noach is closer to Adam and Hashem's creation of the world, than they, his sons, are. Noach commands Shem's unconditional respect just because he is their Av. The level of respect we owe a father exceeds that of anyone else (other than a rebbe who has helped one develop ones entire world view and Torah knowledge-base). We call Hashem Himself Avinu "our Father." Shem covers his father not to spare the family an ugly sight, but to spare his father the humiliation.

Beauty and Meaning

The intention of an action often defines it and differentiates it. Although Yeffet and Shem participated together in the same mitzvah of covering their father, they did so with two different intentions. The one did it to create order; the other to honor a parent. For the one it was an act of aesthetics. For the other it was the expression of a value and an act of kedusha.

The differences in their intentions are responsible for the different outcomes that each achieved. The Midrash[3] says that this action of Shem was the root of the Mitzvah of Talit and Tzitzit that we were given centuries later and observe till today. Yeffet was given a beautiful shawl. Yeffet's action at the time of the genesis of the culture he was creating, resulted in his descendants valuing the surface beauty of objects, in this case an item of adornment and fashion. The nations of Europe are the descendant's of Yeffet, and the source of their experience of beauty is in the object of beauty.

Shem initiates a different aesthetic philosophy that still underpins the Jewish experience of aesthetics. To us objects are often artistic symbols whose beauty lies in the emotions they invoke deep within our souls rather than on the surface of their appearance. A Jew looks at a simple pair of candlesticks and tears may well in his or her eyes. As they look at the candlesticks they do not see the silver weight or even the workmanship. They see their own mothers and countless other Jewish mothers pouring out their hearts erev Shabbat as they stand over their lit candles and bless their loved ones. They smell the aromas of the Shabbat meal that has been cooking for hours before candle-lighting. They recall their infancy when they would stand warmly by their mother's side as she lit her candles. They recall the sacrifice with which so many women protected their candles-sticks. They think of the comfort they brought many women who carried them across continents as they fled from persecution or poverty to new lives in strange places. That is what the Jew feels when he looks through an object's surface to the depths of its soul.

These different aesthetic philosophies are reflected in the simplicity of a talit. There is nothing aesthetically amazing about it, yet of all the outer garments we could choose from the fashion boulevards of the world, it is the deliberately simple talit that is the universally chosen outer garment that every Jewish man wears as he stands before his G-d in prayer. The talit does not inspire aesthetic marvel, but it does evoke so very many thoughts, feelings and national recollections. It is an image and as such it is pregnant with meaning and beauty way beyond the simple black and white stripes of its surface.

This is not to suggest that descendants of Shem do not appreciate aesthetics or that descendants of Yeffet do not value memories. However, to the Jew, the beauty of an object lies in the meaning behind it. To Yeffet an item of designer fashion is more inspirational than a talit could possibly be. Not so to the Jew. Modern attempts to complicate the design and of our talittot may be compromising their soul. We want to be moved not by the color or the design of a talit, but by the memories and feelings deep in our national DNA that it evokes. There is so much beauty in wearing a talit that looks and feels just like the ones our grandparents and great grandparents wore throughout the ages as they filled their shuls and batei midrashwith the soulful sounds of their prayers.

Clothing, and even fashion, is important. We should project ourselves with the majesty befitting G-d's people. But we see clothing in all its grandeur, as nothing more than a person's veneer, their outermost layer that covers their body but cannot hide their soul. A person's soul radiates through all of their protective layers. The beauty of their soul reflects the mitzvot they do, the thoughts they have, the words they speak and the acts of kindness they perform. It is a person's deeds, words and thoughts that we focus on even when we are all dressed to impress.

When we think of even our outermost layers, our clothes, we see thetzitzit and we remember "et kol mitzvot Hashem (all the mitzvot of Hashem)" the real purpose of our lives and that which defines them. Shem did not see his unclothed father as a family embarrassment or a source of laughter. He saw only Noach's soul, the dignified soul of a man of sanctity and kindness temporarily housed in a body undergoing degradation. Shem restored to Noach the dignity that belonged to him: the dignity of the father of mankind, his own father too. He used clothing to perform a major mitzvah and with that gave new meaning to clothing, the meaning reflected in our tallitot.