I was excited to find that the Alshich on our pasuk offers grounded and timeless wisdom on how to buy clothing

לֹא תִירָא לְבֵיתָהּ מִשָּׁלֶג

כִּי כָל בֵּיתָהּ לָבֻשׁ שָׁנִים

She does not fear  for her household in the snow,  

for her entire household is clothed in scarlet

Shopping with Soul

Mrs. Shira Hochheimer

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eople get emotional when it comes to shopping. More than one friend has said to me, “I hate shopping!” while their teens say they love shopping. Why doesn’t shopping for clothes feel like any other chore we do for our families, like cooking and laundry?

Perhaps clothing shopping feels more complex because we instinctively sense that from the time of Adam and Chavah, clothing pronounces that we’re more than just animals. Clothing indicates our spiritual strivings and our desire to be more than our base nature (Rav Schwab on Prayer, Shema).

Given the emotion around clothes, I was excited to find that the Alshich on our pasuk offers grounded and timeless wisdom on how to buy clothing.

First the Alshich notes that there’s a trend for wealthy women to dress their children in the finest fabrics. He warns that this will lead children to be arrogant, which will lead them to be rebellious, which will lead them to get involved in things that aren’t good.

If that’s not bad enough, if they wear nicer clothes than others, it will cause jealousy. The Alshich reminds us of the tragedy that came when Yaakov Avinu bought one person nicer clothes than the others, and how powerfully dangerous jealousy can be.

The pasuk tells us that the eishes chayil buys her children scarlet fabric, which is known to be particularly warm. She buys for practical reasons, not because of how it will look to others.

The Alshich also notes that the eishes chayil buys clothing l’kol beisah, for her whole household, which includes her children, her servants, and her servants’ children. When her children look like those who work for their family, they’re not aware of the difference in class between them. With this approach, the eishes chayil prevents the cultivation the three bad middos — kinah, taavah, and kavod.

This has been a helpful prescription when I go clothes shopping. My goal when shopping is not to turn heads. When I shop for my children, I want buy them clothes that are practical, and reflect their yiras Shamayim. At the same time, I think twice about buying clothing that is luxurious, even if I can afford it, as I don’t want to raise standards, or create fertile soil for kinah, taavah, and kavod to grow.

Question: What guides my decision of what to buy when clothing shopping for my children?

Mrs. Shira Hochheimer is the author of Eishes Chayil: Ancient Wisdom for Women of Today, a presenter for Torat Imecha Nach Yomi, and an administrator for WITS in Baltimore, MD.

Window to Change

Rebbetzin Shira Smiles

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he Midrash links this pasuk to Rachav. Rachav is one of the most fascinating personalities in Tanach. Chazal teach us that for 40 years, she was a wealthy, sought-after zonah. She not only merited to marry Yehoshua, the leader of Klal Yisrael, but many of her descendants were prophets.

Rav Gilad Messing, in his sefer, Ve’at Alis al Kulanah, tells us that Rachav effectuated a complete teshuvah. Chazal note that when she lowered the spies through her window to help them escape, she prayed to Hashem that although she’d sinned with her linen, rope, and window by using them to sneak in her clients, He forgive her because with great mesirus nefesh she was utilizing these exact things to save the Jewish spies.

What was the impetus for Rachav’s dramatic change? We learn from Chazal that as a result of the overwhelming fear of Am Yisrael that gripped the nations living in Canaan, people stopped coming to Rachav, and her business dwindled. She was left with time to contemplate all the miracles that Hashem performed for the Jewish people. She thus came to recognize Hashem’s greatness. When she saw Calev’s and Pinchas’s refinement and dedication to their mission, her inner stirrings were solidified.

There was another stimulus for Rachav’s teshuvah specifically at this point. Now that the Jews were about to enter the Land of Israel, they were in perfect sync with retzon Hashem, and this impacted the world around them. The Gemara Yerushalmi notes that when the Jewish people do the Will of Hashem, Hashem searches for righteous people among the nations to join the Jewish people, citing Yisro and Rachav as examples.

We now understand why Rachav was worthy of having prophets among her progeny. She models one who drastically changed her life, doing teshuvah out of love for Hashem. A prophet’s mission is just that — to inspire people to examine their lives and realign with Hashem’s Will with love.

The red string Rachav hung from her window, as Calev and Pinchas had instructed her to, is reminiscent of the red string the Kohein Gadol placed on the se’ir l’Azazel. When the goat was sent over the cliff, this very string became snow white, symbolizing Am Yisrael’s purification. Rachav’s red string is a symbol of her purification.

Rebbetzin Shira Smiles is a lecturer in the Yerushalayim area, and a mechaneches in Darchei Binah Seminary. She is the author of Torah Tapestries, which includes extensive essays on each parshah, and Arise and Aspire, on birchos hashachar.

Choose Meaning

Rebbetzin Debbie Greenblatt

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ften, when we hear a compliment, instead of simply saying, “thank you,” we start explaining how what we did or who we are isn’t that great, because if you would only know how lazy I am, you wouldn’t think so highly of me.

It doesn’t often occur to us that this seemingly humble voice inside of us that deflects compliments lest we become arrogant or conceited is our evil inclination. Rav Yaakov Weinberg, in his book Fundamentals and Faith, explains that the yetzer hara always dresses itself in lofty terms, such as dignity, mercy, compassion, and in this case, humility, or perhaps “truth.”

Shlomo Hamelech, in Mishlei, presents a more accurate picture of the eishes chayil’s self-perception. She has a confidence in the life she is living, and therefore she doesn’t fear Judgment Day or death (Malbim). Can we even imagine the self-assuredness of the woman who lives so purposefully that she doesn’t fear for her body (which the Malbim explains is the meaning of beisah) and what it will endure from the sheleg (the time of death or judgment), as she knows she has prepared the shanim (the proper garments) that clothe her soul?

Being confident that we fill our days meaningfully with a Torah-based life doesn’t mean that we think we have arrived, that we can’t do better in our mitzvah observance or middos development. It means that in our life, we regularly choose meaningful conversations over empty ones, proactive responses over knee-jerk ones, and seek to deepen our understanding of mitzvos over coasting on explanations we learned as children.

Take another look. We are leading purposeful lives. How many mitzvos do we do in a day? We may not think about them as such, because they are part of the fabric of our existence. How many middos tovos do we exhibit every time we open our mouths? How much internal development is evident every time someone says something hurtful or inconsiderate, and we decide to let it pass rather than come back with a sharp (and oh-so-witty) retort?

So the next time someone compliments something you did, or some positive quality you have, take a deep breath and say, “Thank you.”

Rebbetzin Debbie Greenblatt is a senior lecturer for the Gateways organization and a teacher of both the observant and the not-yet-observant. She is also director of education at Core.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 966)