Tetzaveh – When Obscenity is Apt

The imperatives of civility and refined speech are strongly stressed in the Talmud and in halacha. Yet, like all ideals, even those have their limits. An exception – the only one – to the imperative to avoid verbalizing crude characterizations is when it comes to idolatry.

As Rav Nachman says (Megillah 25b): “All mocking obscenity is forbidden except with reference to idol worship.” And the examples the Gemara offers are almost all about defecation.  The characterization of all idolatry as “avodas gilulim” in various places in Tanach may also be intended as a scatalogical reference, since galal is a word for biological waste.

And then there is the specific case of  Pe’or, the major idolatry whose entire service involves hallowing the act of defecation itself.

Rav Shimon Schwab, zt”l, brings up Rav Nachman’s dictum to suggest an intriguing understanding of one of the bigdei kehunah, the “priestly garments.” Rashi points out that it seems to him that the garment is apron-like, but worn in reverse of how aprons are usually worn, tied in the front with the bib in the back.

The Gemara, Rav Schwab reminds us, assigns an atonement that is effected by each of the bigdei kehunah. The ephod atones for the sin of idolatry (Arachin 16a).

Idolatry, notes Rav Schwab, is ultimately about worship of the physical, about veneration of the base. And that is why, as per Rav Nachman’s statement, it is derided by the navi, and permitted to be derided by us, as scatalogical in its essence. 

And so, he then posits, it is fitting that the ephod, the beged kehunah that atones for the sin of idolatry, is worn, oddly, in a way that covers the wearer’s lower back, subtly recalling its particular role among the bigdei kehunah.

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