Rabbi Tzvi Abramoff
Shloompy Shapiro came down from his room on his way to shacharis. “Oy gevalt!” his mother cried, “let me fix you up a bit”. First, she took off his glasses and cleaned off the peanut butter that was stuck to the right lens. Then she wet a towel and started from the top down. When she finished, she said “I think I can figure out what you ate yesterday for all three meals. There was a cornflake from breakfast stuck to your pants. The ketchup-y noodle behind your ear must be from lunch. And dinner seems to have been meatballs with soup on the side.
“Oy Shloompy, what are we going to do with you?” she said, as she tried tucking his shirt into his pants. “How can you stand like this in front of the King of Kings?! You need to respect yourself and what you are doing, and the first step is to be put together.”
The Torah teaches us that the Kohanim and, even more so, the Kohen Gadol, need to be dressed almost royally. The begadim of a kohen need to fit him perfectly. And all the begadim must be put together in an orderly fashion, as we can see from the halachos of fastening the choshen to the eifod, so that it shouldn’t sway back and forth.
This is a very important lesson for a Yid to learn, and especially a boy or bachur learning in Yeshiva. We need to realize that we represent the Torah, and it’s important to dress up to the task!
