Who Told You That You Are Naked?

On the verse in which Adam says, “I heard Your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid” (Bereishis 3:10), the Rizhiner told a mashal. A tsar was ill and gripped by fear that people were stalking him, and he posted guards along every road he traveled. One guard, standing in the heat by a river, left his post to bathe. When he heard the tsar's coach approaching, he ran back and stood at attention, dripping and in his underclothes. The tsar demanded to know the meaning of this. The guard answered that he could not delay the tsar by getting dressed, nor desert his post, and the tsar accepted it. So too, said the Rizhiner, Adam believed that his sin had stripped him of every merit, and so he hid. Hashem answered, “Who told you that you are naked?” Who said that you have no merit left and are excused from avodas Hashem? Even if a person is bare of every merit, Hashem still values him and his avodah forever.