Part III. Our Clothing
The Pniyimus of a Priest
And so we come back now to the bigdei kehunah and we begin to understand how important they really were. Because it makes sense now that they made the kohen! ם∆יה≈לֲﬠ םָ ָּ̇נֻה¿ּכ ם∆יה≈לֲﬠ ם∆יה≈„¿‚ƒּב∆ׁ ̆ ןַמ¿זƒּב – If he’s not wearing his clothing of kehunah, he’s not a kohen. When he puts on his begadim and he understands what they demand of him, that makes him most capable of being a kohen.
Of course it’s not the sole incentive. Nobody is going to say that a kohen doesn't need anything to inspire him except the outward garments. He has to study the halachos of the avodah for years and years. And he has to spend a lot of time also thinking about the importance of the avodah, about what it means to be a servant of Hashem, what it requires of him. Absolutely, there’s a lot of pnimiyus required to be a kohen. But the garments are capable of bringing out, of inspiring, of accentuating all of that pnimiyus, all of the greatness that’s hidden inside of a him.
