Where Memory and Fashion Converge

By Hazzan Jenna Greenberg.

Parashat Tetzaveh often falls right around Purim, and both share the theme of fashion, whether it be the uniform for the Kohanim or the costumes we wear for Purim. How we look on the outside defines us. How we dress on Shabbat elevates us physically, differentiating our appearance from the rest of the week… and also it is a mitzvah!

The Talmud explains, in Shabbat 113a, that wearing special clothes for Shabbat is one of the best ways of showing Kavod Shabbat, honor for Shabbat.

By dressing up, we not only honor Shabbat, but this is a physical way in which we “Remember Shabbat and keep it holy,” one of the 10 Commandments that we read just a few weeks ago in Parashat Yitro.

On the theme of Remembering Shabbat, we have yet another connection to this particular Shabbat that connects us to our upcoming holiday of Purim. This Shabbat, Tetzaveh coincides with Shabbat Zachor, the Shabbat preceding Purim in which we read a special Maftir and Haftara, both focusing on Remembering what Amalek did to our people. The Maftir begins with “Remember” and ends with “Do not forget,” bookending the passage with the same message in different wordings.

There is a tradition from the Talmud that Haman, the antagonist of the Purim story, was descended from Amalek, hence why we read this on the Shabbat preceding Purim. In the Maftir verses, it is a Mitzvah, a commandment, to remember Amalek, ancestor to Haman, whose name we will blot out with our graggers next week each time we hear his name read in Megillat Esther.

The theme of memory on this Shabbat is both physical and historical. Physically, through the fashion theme of Tetzaveh, we learn the Mitzvah of honoring Shabbat by how we dress on the holiest day of the week. Historically, we are commanded to remember Amalek’s attack on the Israelites. And even in our silliest of Purim costumes, we will blot out the name of evil, remembering the enemies from our past, as well as our current antagonists, with the hope that one day in the future, we will not have to worry about subsequent attacks on our people.