Dress With Respect
Back in November 2025, the United States Department of Transportation memorably started a campaign to “jumpstart a nationwide conversation around how we can all restore courtesy and class to air travel,” in part by encouraging people to “dress with respect.”
Reactions ranged from outrage at the idea of dictating a dress code to charmed bemusement with such a ridiculous and old-fashioned focus, given real problems in the world. A news article stated: “Travel experts are skeptical that the Transportation Department's call to dress up for the airport will result in meaningful changes.”
But if dressing up for the airport seems a bit much, real questions arise (although perhaps less so in Seattle) about dressing up for other occasions. We expect at least some guidance on how formally we should show up to weddings, funerals, graduations, and other significant gatherings. And while fan gear is hardly formal, there’s certainly serious encouragement to show your team spirit through clothing, even if you aren’t at the game itself.
When our attention shifts to religious spaces, in particular regular prayer services, there seems to be a genuine debate about the role of dressing up (although again, probably less so in Seattle). Should we be signaling that we are in sacred space and time through more formal clothing? Or should we keep it casual, creating a more comfortable and relatable setting for connecting to each other and our spiritual lives?
There’s a curious verse near the end of the book of Vayikra that brought this tension between the formal and the casual to mind.
I will walk about (heet’halachti) in your midst: I will be your God, and you will be My people. (Vayikra 26:12)
Rashi (11th century France) helps us understand the odd image of God walking about in the Israelite camp:
I will, as it were, walk with you…as though I were one of you and you will not be frightened of Me. One might think that this implies: you will not be in awe of Me! Scripture however states, “but I will be your God.”
God’s walking about is meant to make God more relatable and more accessible. Surely God is not always walking about in a three-piece suit or a chic black dress. I bet God even wears sweatpants on airplanes these days…
But Rashi clarifies that our awe of God should not be diminished by such casual presence. Familiarity should not breed contempt, God forbid, and informality should not be mistaken for lack of grandeur.
Lurking in the shadows of this verse is the story of the Garden of Eden (Bereshit 3:6-8). This is the only other place in Torah where God is described as meet’haleich, walking about.
When the woman saw that the tree was good for eating and a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable as a source of wisdom, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her husband, and he ate.
Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they perceived that they were naked; and they sewed together fig leaves and made themselves loincloths.
They heard the voice of God walking about (meet’haleich) in the garden at the breezy time of day; and the Human and his wife hid from God among the trees of the garden.
In addition to this text being an origin story for wearing clothes at all, let alone wearing the right clothes, it also reveals a tragic breakdown of relationship. When Adam and Eve become aware of God walking about in the Garden, they become frightened and hide. First they hide part of themselves through the figleaves. And then they attempt to hide fully from God.
Their primary failure wasn’t eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, but in being unable to integrate their new perception and to honestly be themselves and simultaneously responsive to the divine.
Rashi’s reading of God’s promise in Vayikra offers a tikkun, a redemptive and poetic reversal of what goes wrong in the Garden. God’s promise is that in the future when we perceive God’s presence, we will no longer be frightened, but we will be comforted and capable of growing into a relationship with our spiritual awareness, rather than running away from it.
There’s no accident that throughout the Torah, walking with God becomes a metaphor for our spiritual aspirations, and it is no accident that Jewish law is known as halachah, literally “walking”.
Too often the debate about dress is just about power and control, but there’s a deeper question worth pondering. Which behaviors and settings help us cultivate awe and reverence for the Something-Larger-than-us that inspires our growth, while also providing enough comfort and ease that we don’t become overwhelmed and hide from our own path of growth?
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Jay LeVine
