Adam's Garments: From Betrayal to Fragrance

1a“He smelled the fragrance of his garments” [Bereishis 27:27]. Chazal say: “Do not read begadav, his garments, but bogdav, his betrayers” (Sanhedrin 37a). The Midrash says the same (quoted by Rashi on Tehillim 45:9) about the verse “Myrrh, aloes and cassia are all your garments”: “Do not read bigdosecha, your garments, but begidosecha, your betrayals. All your betrayals and your foul deeds are atoned for and give off a sweet fragrance.” And on our verse Rashi says, “This teaches that the fragrance of Gan Eden entered with him.” All this fits what the Kabbalists write (and so it is in the Zohar, II:141): Yaakov rectified the sin of Adam HaRishon. In this light the Siftei Kohen¹ explains the saying of Chazal (Zohar I:142b; Bava Metzia 84a), “Yaakov's beauty was like the beauty of Adam HaRishon.” The word for beauty, shufra, is the same as in “By His breath the heavens were made beautiful (shifrah)” (Iyov 26:13), and it means setting something right, tikkun. Yaakov's “beauty” was that he set right what Adam had damaged.

1bFor the garments Yaakov wore had come down from Adam HaRishon, as the Zohar explains. And clothing is a constant reminder of Adam's sin. It was through the sin that “they knew that they were naked, and they made themselves loincloths” (Bereishis 3:7), so whenever people went about dressed, they were reminded of their sin. Then Yaakov Avinu came and dressed himself in these very garments, and through them he took the blessings from Yitzchak, as Hashem willed. Had man still gone about naked as he was created, as Adam and his wife did before the sin, Yaakov could never have received the blessings. He was “a smooth man,” while his brother was “a hairy man” (Bereishis 27:11), and he did not have the fragrance of the field either. Only because of Adam's garments and the kid-goat skins (Bereishis 27:16) did Yitzchak think he was Esav and bless him. And this truly was Hashem's will. So the very thing that had made people wear clothing was now turned into merit, and through this the sin was rectified.

1cThis is the meaning of “Do not read begadav but bogdav”: what had until now been betrayal and sin became merit, and gave off a good fragrance like “myrrh and cassia.” It is also what Rashi means by “the fragrance of Gan Eden entered with him.” Adam had been banished from Gan Eden through his sin, as it says, “And He banished him” (Bereishis 3:24). Now that the sin was rectified, what had been banished returned to Gan Eden, and so the fragrance of Gan Eden entered with him. (From the author's handwritten manuscript.)