Many are familiar with the elaborate and intricate biblical vestments of the Kohain Gadol – High Priest, ceremonial ornaments and colorful clothing, of which the 12-stone breastplate is probably the best known.
But on Yom Kippur, when entering the Holy of Holies, the High Priest would not wear his special garb. Instead he’d only wear simple white linen garments. There are a few reasons for this: The Talmud says “the prosecutor should not be the defense attorney” – we don’t want the golden clothes to recall the sin of the Golden Calf as we seek atonement. And in a spiritual sense, the fancy clothing are sophisticated, whereas the simple linen is plain and humble. Entering the innermost Holy of Holies is a deep core connection, not a complex sophisticated one.
Here’s the catch though. On Yom Kippur the High Priest did not wear only white. He kept switching back and forth between the two sets of clothes. The outer service (mostly) required the ceremonial fancy clothing, but the inner service in the Holy of Holies required the plain white.
This change of clothing happened five times during the Yom Kippur service. Almost as if he was one of the big performers nowadays, doing a series of dramatic outfit changes during a major concert.
But unlike today’s concert performers, this back and forth clothing change was a big deal and time-consuming. It didn’t take 60 seconds. Each time the clothing switched it required a full Mikvah immersion in between, plus a hands-feet Kiyor washbasin before and after.
Why couldn’t they just stick with the white for Yom Kippur? Why the back and forth, switching five times? And what can we learn from this in the 21st century?
Perhaps this teaches us something about our “two sets of clothing” – the two approaches of soul essence and soul expression.
Our service on Yom Kippur, and (to some degree) year-round is a combination of a deep sense of core identity, along with a richly lived expression. There’s the Jew at heart, deep down at the soul-core, but also the active Jew, the alive Jew, the Jew who is visibly engaged and expressive about his/her Judaism.
There’s room in our Jewish life for both the plain white essential clothing, as well as the colorful expressive more detailed clothing. We need both to live Jewishly. Our lives are wearing both sets, sometimes switching back and forth, and sometimes wearing them both at the same time.