The Leather Jacket

Clothing serves two functions: It removes our shame and lends dignity. Mitzvos are spiritual clothing. They remove the soul’s embarrassment in its state of nakedness. And they also royal robes that brings us dignity.

The Role of Garments

After Adam and Eve realized that they had sinned by eating the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, the first bit of knowledge that came to them was the shocking realization that they were naked.

Rashi, the great commentator, explains that this awareness was actually more than just the physical reality that they had no clothing. It was the realization that they were naked of Mitzvos. The single Mitzvah they had before, they had now lost.

The concept of Mitzvah as garment is based on the understanding of Mitzvah as more than just a good deed. A Mitzvah generates G-dly light which envelops a person with G- dly warmth and protection. A Mitzvah is like a royal robe. It clads a person with beauty and dignity. Adam and Eve realized that, in one terrible moment, they had lost the warmth, protection, beauty and dignity that once had been theirs.

Their response to this new-found nakedness was to fashion a fig leaf into a garment. While the fig leaf might have provided some measure of modesty, it could not provide much warmth and protection. And it certainly could not restore the sense of dignity and royalty that a Mitzvah confers.

G-d’s response to their nakedness, however, was to fashion garments for them made out of leather.

If their nakedness was not physical but spiritual, what did the fig leaf and then the leather garments accomplish in restoring their lost Mitzvah status?

The Paradoxical Fig

The fig and its tree are touted by our Sages as a positive symbol of the Jewish nation, as well as a symbol of sorrow and grief. The fig tree, in its spiritual dimension, is a double edged sword that can either degrade or elevate a person.

One of the many characteristics of the fig that can work both ways is that the tree does not produce its entire crop at the same time. One goes out to pick figs will discover that only a few of them are ripe. One must go out repeatedly, throughout the season, to reap all the figs. The ripeness of a single fig was no indication that the time had arrived to pick them all.

This characteristic of “teasing” the owner who thinks his figs are ready to harvest was at the root of Adam’s rush to partake of the fruit. On the basis of Midrashic sources, commentators point out that the prohibition against partaking of the forbidden fruit was temporary and only to last a few hours. The overwhelming temptation that gripped Adam in that fateful moment compelled him to eat of the fruit. He simply could not wait for the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge to become fully available to him.

Thus, one of the factors that contributed to his transgression was impulsiveness. This very much resembles the person who cannot wait for more figs to ripen and takes whichever is already ripe.

On the positive side, the Talmud (Eiruvin 54a) asks “why is the Torah likened to a fig tree?” Just like the fig tree, from which one can eat any time one chooses, so too one can find the good taste of Torah every time one partakes of its fruit-knowledge.

The Correction

Adam’s taking of the fig-leaf to cover himself was his way of recognizing the root cause of his transgression. When Adam realized that his impulsive nature, similar to that of the impatient fig tree owner, caused him to succumb to the serpent’s enticement, he took the fig’s leaf to cover himself as a way of reversing his downfall. He hoped to use the incremental nature of the fig tree’s ripening fruit to savor all of the permissible spiritual “treats” and always find meaning in life. There would always be something new for him to partake of.

Instead of allowing one to be so enamored with fleeting pleasures, one can preserve a sense of pleasure by savoring every new day and new experience. There is so much to enjoy in the world that is kosher and proper. The supply is inexhaustible.

This fig-leaf “correction” was enough to lift Adam and Eve out of their rut of misery over having lost their sole Mitzvah/garment. They now had a positive result from their misadventure which, by virtue of the Torah reporting this fact, provides us with a powerful lesson about how we should view life. Adam and Eve now had not only a physical cover for their physical nakedness, but they also acquired a new spiritual garment: a fresh outlook on life.

The Next Lesson

G-d was not content with their fig-leaf. That was but Step One in human development; to take the root cause of one’s errors and turn it into a teachable moment. With this “fig-leaf” approach, Adam and Eve transformed the grief caused by the fig tree into a source of positive energy.

Now humanity was ready for its next lesson.

The fig-leaf, with all due respect to the fig, can only cover nakedness by removing the cause of the sin. The fig-leaf, in and of itself, can hardly lend warmth and protection. It certainly does not lend dignity to the one who is so garbed. So too in the spiritual sense, while the fig-leaf gave Adam and Eve a positive way of viewing the pleasures of life it failed to inform them of their ultimate purpose. It did not show them that they were not just living creatures but they were also partners in Creation. This enlightenment dawned when G-d provided them with their new leather garments.

The leather garments G-d prepared for Adam and Eve took them up to the next spiritual level. Just as leather warms, protects and enhances the body, so too Adam and Eve were able to reach a higher understanding of their true role. This knowledge enabled them to become masters of their own lives and of the world around them.

The Kabbalah of Leather

To better understand its role we must reflect on the nature of leather. Leather, which derives from the hide of an animal, is only an “accessory” to the animal. It is not a vital organ nor is it the animal’s meat or bones.

When leather serves the needs of a human being, an extraordinary transformation takes place. Instead of just being an accessory to an animal, whose own existence is itself only as an accessory to humanity, the leather has become a garment that warms, protects and enhances a human being. The leather garment, then, enables him or her to serve G- d, which is the human being’s ultimate purpose.

This phenomenon captures the very essence of why human beings, and indeed the entire universe, were created. In the words of our Sages the entire world was created for the sake of the human being and the human being was created to serve G-d.

Rabbi Meir’s Torah Scroll

We can now understand an enigmatic statement in the Midrash which states that the Sefer Torah (Torah scroll) written by the Sage Rabbi Meir spelled the world leather (orעור- ) differently than in our Torah scrolls. The Hebrew word Or can be spelled either with the letter ayin, as it is in the narrative of Adam and Eve in all Torah scrolls, or with the letter aleph, which alters its meaning from “leather” to “light.” Rabbi Meir’s Torah spelled Or with an aleph which suggests that G-d cloaked Adam and Eve with light rather than leather or hide.

What is the meaning of this puzzling statement?

The Rebbe explains this anomaly by means of the aforementioned exposition of G-d providing Adam and Eve with leather garments.

The letter ayin, which is numerically valued at 70, is the symbol of division and fragmentation. Hence, we find that when G-d wanted to divide humanity he created 70 distinct nations.

In addition, the number 70 is a multiple of 7 which covers the full spectrum of human emotions. Hence the number 70 underscores the idea of multiplicity and division.

Aleph, in stark contrast, has the numeric value of 1, and is used to represent the number one and also symbolizes unity.

Until Adam and Eve were garbed by G-d with this leather garment, it was a product of many influences. It reflected none of G-d’s singularity. It could also have had multifaceted uses; some possibly even contradictory to G-d’s Will.

However, once the leather garment was used to garb Adam and Eve and enable them to fulfill their G-d given purpose of bringing light to the world, the leather, or, spelled with the divisive letter ayin, was transformed into or, with the unifying and luminescent letter aleph.

The leather was indeed a leather garment but a transformed one. It was an edifying leather garment that not only covered their nakedness—physical and spiritual—but also warmed, protected and endowed them and, by extension, all humanity with the ability to be kings and masters of their own personalities and of all of creation.

The Hide of the Serpent and Moshiach

Our understanding of this discussion is made even richer when we consider the Midrash which states that the leather G-d used to garb Adam and Eve was made from the hide of the very serpent that enticed them into sinning!

The transformation from the serpent to the leather garments used to clothe Adam and Eve was nothing short of extraordinary. The ultimate force of darkness and division was now transformed into light and unity.

It should, therefore, come as no surprise that the numerical value of the Hebrew word for serpent, nachash, is the same as for the word Moshiach: 358!

Usually, when two words share the same numerical value it indicates that the two words or concepts are related. How then could the nachash-serpent, the symbol of evil be the equivalent of Moshiach, the ultimate symbol of holiness an perfection?

The answer lies in Moshiach’s ultimate goal; to take the darkness and division of our world, symbolized by the serpent, and to transform it into light and unity.

This process does not commence when Moshiach arrives and redeems us from exile. It started long ago, at the very beginning of Creation. When G-d garbed Adam and Eve with the tanned hide of the serpent, it was the first step of humanity’s journey to that redemptive transformation. It was G-d’s way of sowing the seeds of redemption into humanity at the dawn of history.

For thousands of years humanity has been at work to cultivate the seed and enable this transformation. The giving of the Torah at Sinai was the ultimate tool G-d gave us to accomplish this goal. Moshiach—and our generation, the one that the Rebbe told us will be the first of Redemption—is the one who will complete this task and make the world one of true light and unity.

From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Breishis by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.