Cap and Gown and Kittel

This past Sunday, Yeshiva University Canada held a Convocation, honouring three remarkable people - Joseph Lebovic, Wolf Lebovic and Dr. Joseph Kerzner - for their life's work. As part of the ceremony, I marched down and delivered the Invocation, in cap and gown. Friends were kind enough to send me cell phone photos of the occasion; here is the least goofy one I could find, click to expand it in all of its fuzzy glory:

The costume was ridiculously impractical. These gowns have no pockets, so I couldn't keep my speech in a pocket, and I couldn't get to my suit's pockets beneath the gown (the paper is hiding in my right sleeve, and in the photo above I am praying it doesn't slide out as I'm walking). The gowns are hot, of course. What colour sash do you wear, and what does it represent? (Mine: My graduate school career at New York University, since the rental company didn't provide a rabbinical sash. Go figure.) The sash is hooked to a shirt button to keep it in position - but which button, and how do you keep that from messing with the zipper of the gown, and your tie? And of course, the hat raises all sorts of questions: Elastic in back or front? Corner in front or at an angle? Tassle on left or right, front or back - and how do you keep it there? Hat on or off while speaking? And if it's off, how do you get it back on afterward, in the right way, while on stage? And so on.

And yet, people do it. Indeed, according to one my gowned comrades, he had to wear such an outfit while taking exams in university in England. [Hogwarts, perhaps?] It reminded me, actually, of the kittel I wear at the seder, which until Convocation was the most impractical costume I could remember ever having worn in my adult life. Sure - recline at a table for a few hours in a white garment, while eating crumby matzah, pouring and drinking four cups of wine, and consuming a meal. Really? It's not as hot as the gown, but that's about the only advantage.

Of course, one reason we engage in costumes is that they help us to communicate the mood of a moment - the purity and celebration of a kittel, the sobriety of a gown. And perhaps they also serve a basic human need for ceremony, even in our casual generation, for dressing up and following a set of protocols that govern an occasion.

And then there is another advantage: They help us more, at that moment, with the event we are marking, and with similar events we have experienced, than with the rest of our lives. Special costumes link together the times that we are in costume, making those events stand out, more preent in our minds. I imagine that at my seder this year, as we begin to pour the cups, I'm going to remember the Convocation and the gown. But I will also remember the seder of years past, and wearing the kittel then, and what happened on those occasions. They will be more real to me. I will become a person of the seder.

Perhaps it would be good for people to have special, dedicated, year-after-year seder clothes - not as a minhag, just as something they do. Even for those who don't wear a kittel, perhaps a dedicated hat or jacket or scarf or tie or necklace or brooch or something, to communicate the mood of the moment, to dress up, and to link together the identity of each year's seder.

Just a thought.

The man who mistook his religion for a hat

[Post on my mind today: Not so easy to contain the disgust, from Orthonomics]

with apologies to Dr. Oliver Sacks for the title

I was up on a chair at my Bar Mitzvah celebration when the offer was made. A friend of our family asked me which gift I would like: A Shas [set of Talmud] or a Borsalino hat? [Borsalino is a high-end, expensive brand, although I didn't know that at the time. In 1985, both a Borsalino and a Pninim Shas probably ran between 100 and 130 dollars.]

I chose the Shas.

I wish I could say it was an educated, ideological decision, substance over style, Shas over shtick. But, in truth, I didn't really see much of a choice. The men of our family didn't wear hats for davening or Shabbos, and I didn't know anything about why anyone would wear one. It was more ignorance than anything else.

I received that Shas as well as another one for my bar mitzvah, and I'm glad I have both; I've scribbled notes in the volumes of both over the years, and carried them all over, to the point where bindings are frayed and gone, and some pages are covered with more of my own writing than the original. I'm really attached to it, far more attached than I've ever been to a piece of clothing, even a piece of clothing associated with a mitzvah. Score one for the Shas, in terms of utility.

And score another for the Shas: I didn't end up putting on a hat for another five years, until my second year in yeshiva in Israel, when I started wearing one in honor of Shabbos. It would be another twelve or so years before I would start wearing a hat for davening in general (as a way to enhance the jacket and tie I was wearing all day). So from a 'years of use' perspective, my decision certainly made sense.

Beyond years of use, though, and beyond my general attachment to that Pninim Shas, I'm glad of my decision because now that I am of age to make an informed decision, I can't see trading Torah for a hat. In truth, I'm not really sure why there was a question in the first place.

I don't think that the generous person offering the gift really thought a hat was the equivalent of a Shas. Maybe he was doing it to tease my family, who were not hat-wearers. Or maybe he just wanted to see where I was, mentally. Or, perhaps, he was just joking. Don't know.

The Feathers Make the Bird

I’m not one for fancy clothes; if anything, I’m fond of the children’s story, The Wise Shoemaker of Studena, about a wise cobbler who was invited to a wedding and who soon realized he had been invited for the externals he represented, and not his true identity. I own 8 plain white shirts and a few pairs of gray and black slacks, and a bunch of ties I know match with them, and that set-up takes me through the week.

That said, I know perfectly well that clothes affect our mood; I once taught a semester-long adult education course, “Jews and Clothes,” and this was a recurring theme. We are supposed to have special clothes for davening (nice or less nice, depending on the circumstances of our prayer), and clothes of honor for Shabbat and Yom Tov. The colors of our clothes, as I noted here (under "7a"), are special as well.

The Kohanim wore special uniforms to serve in the Beit haMikdash, and they were required to keep that clothing clean and to wear only clothing that fit perfectly. Jews wear special clothing to signify mourning. We recite a special berachah to mark the joy of new clothing and transform it into religious celebration.

In some sense, we recognize that clothing not only reflects a mood or special occasion, but actually generates that mood or special occasion. You are, indeed, what you wear.

And into the mix comes an article from Science Daily on the way the colors of birds’ feathers, when artificially changed, seem to affect the internal physiology of the birds!

Herewith an excerpt:

Feather Colors Affect Bird Physiology, Barn Swallows Show

ScienceDaily (Jun. 3, 2008) — In the world of birds, where fancy can be as fleeting as flight, the color of the bird apparently has a profound effect on more than just its image. A new study of barn swallows reveals it also affects the bird's physiology.

A team of researchers, including one from Arizona State University, found in an experiment that involved artificially coloring the breast feathers of male barn swallows the testosterone levels of the manipulated birds soared in a short period of time. The jump in testosterone, recorded after one week, was unexpected because it was observed at the time in the breeding cycle when levels of sex steroids like testosterone are typically declining.

"The traditional view is that internal processes of birds determine their external features -- in other words, physiology forms the feathers," said Kevin McGraw, an assistant professor at ASU's School of Life Sciences. "But our results indicate that a perceived change in the color of an animal can directly affect its internal physiological state. A barn swallow's hormonal profile is influenced by its outward appearance."

"The experimental manipulation didn't just improve the males' looks in the eyes of the females, it actually changed their body chemistry," said lead author Safran.

"The speed with which the internal qualities of the bird were affected by the plumage color manipulation was surprising to me," added McGraw. This suggests a dynamic system, he added, one that "speaks to the complexity of sexual signaling systems and the way people should think about how phenotype interacts with physiology."

The new study is the first to show significant feedback between physical appearance and physiology in birds, and has implications for better understanding the ecology and evolution of physical signals such as feather color, the researchers said.

I am reminded of the Sefer haChinuch’s mantra, אחרי הפעולות נמשכים הלבבות, that our hearts are drawn after our deeds. Apparently, they are drawn after our clothing, too.