There are only 13 shopping days left ‘till Rosh Hashanah!
That’s big news for us Jews, who all feel obliged to get new outfits in honour of the Rosh Hashanah. After all, we all want to step into the New Year in style.
If you’d like to know the truth, our annual fashion binge has a unique spiritual source. Jewish law considers it a mitzvah to buy new clothing for Yom Tov (good news for the ladies).
A little deeper than that: Jewish mysticism explains how your soul needs clothes. Just as you need to be dressed to go out and interact within society, your soul needs clothes to interface with the world.
In his magnum opus, Tanya, the Alter Rebbe (first Rebbe of Chabad) writes that the “garments” of the soul are thought, speech and action. Without these facilities, your soul is captive in an unresponsive human suit. Thinking, speaking and doing are the tools that a soul uses to affect the world.
Each Rosh Hashanah offers you an opportunity to become a new person. Not in the glib, clichéd sense, but in real terms. Rosh Hashanah is an opportunity to confront your personal weaknesses and internal struggles- and to beat them.
The first step in that direction is to get new clothes. You need to consider how you can upgrade the way you think, refine the way you talk and do a little more good. When you kit your soul out properly out, it feels refreshed and energized. Then you are ready to move forward in leaps and bounds.
Oh- and by the way, there’s a great sale on soul fashion at Chabad at the moment…
Wishing you a good Yom Tov and a blessed year!
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