Come join us Sisters as we explore how gowns have affected our lives in strange ways

Clothes make the man, they say.

But do they really? And what about the woman?

On most levels, that adage seems contrary to Torah values. It’s usually about people judging others based upon external trappings. And yet… perhaps there’s some truth to the saying. It’s all about how clothes make us feel about ourselves, how they help define us. Women, especially.

As girls, who of us didn’t love playing dress-up? Our mothers’ hats, high heels, and scarves. Lots of fake, glittery jewelry. And our nightgowns transformed into ball gowns… or bridal gowns…

There’s something about a gown… Even as an adult, what woman doesn’t feel extra special when gussied up in a spectacular gown? A gown can be like a mood-altering drug. It can convert boredom into excitement, gloom into elation.

But what happens to those feelings when we’re back in our everyday clothes? Do they linger on? Do they fade? Do they leave us feeling a little better about ourselves? Do they give us a different perspective on life?

Come join us Sisters as we explore how gowns have affected our lives in strange ways. Visions of bridal gowns evoke… thoughts of work ethics and the Wizard of Oz. The image of a graduation gown represents… a life-altering decision. And the sight of a simchah gown validates… keeping clutter in closets!

Miriam connects gowns to…

Mommy and the Mob and the Wizard of Oz

In the two decades during which I was privileged to live next door to my mother, Mrs. Rose Stark a”h, she shared many memories. One of the stories I loved most took place in Budapest, in 1943.

The Hungarians had taken control of her hometown of Munkacs. Life was getting harder every day. Food was scarce. Anti-Semitism, in hibernation during the peaceful interwar years, was awakening, snarling and maddened and fatally dangerous.

My mother, always a devoted daughter, went to live with relatives in Budapest so she could find work and earn money to send to her parents. There, against the backdrop of war, came a glittering moment of escape: Her cousins took her to the “cinema,” she told me, and they watched The Wizard of Oz, with Hungarian subtitles.

I sometimes wondered: Had Budapest, with its elegant bridges, blue Danube waters, and magnificent architecture seemed to her like the Emerald City? Was Munkacs, with its wooden shacks and widespread poverty, an Eastern European Kansas?

I’ll never know.  What I do know is that whatever her thoughts about Budapest and Munkacs and the Land of Oz, she never accepted the Emerald City’s unusual work ethic: We get up at twelve / and start to work by one. / Take an hour for lunch / And then by two we’re done ... Jolly good fun!

For Mommy, work wasn't “jolly good fun.” It was serious business.