Throughout Our Lives, We Try On Different Outfits

My youngest, Ben, now dons the garb of a Chasidic Jew when he celebrates Sabbath, holy days and sacred occasions — black frockcoat, broad-brimmed hat, ritual fringes, woven prayer-sash, and the rest. He has come to identify with an Orthodox sect, Chabad, with which I, too, was once closely associated.

Chabad recently gained a modicum of controversy, having posthumously declared their Rebbe (“Grand Rabbi”) the Messiah. The disagreements between us have never been rancorous. Ben knows my watchword: “Son, as long as you are first and foremost, in every dimension of your life, a ‘mensch’ (a decent, God-loving, honorable human being), everything else is just parsley around the plate.” So far, he is faithful to my watchword.

His siblings are not quite so tolerant. Oh, they would put down their lives for him. They, too, are quite religious, simply more modern. They see his “dress-up” as “mishugas” (foolishness) and have even asked me to straighten him out. I won’t.

Maybe part of me is proud to have a child so devout, yet live such a responsible life. (He is a senior property manager for a multinational firm.)

But I think it’s more than that. As I see it, everyone should grant him/herself the opportunity, with impunity, to try on different outfits — to see which fit, which are fads, which might be outgrown, which make us look like fools. I would like to believe we’ve all been through it — groping, perhaps for a lifetime, for the personae, tastes, cultures, friends, politics, philosophy that “fit.”

How sad for people who don’t, who fear the intrigue, who refuse the prerogative to change. How sad for people who are deluded or brainwashed into believing one size always fits all. How sad for people who mock and deride — as, by the way, my parents did — those who try on different outfits, some garb whose silliness will be overcome, some not, and some that it turns out isn’t really silly at all.

Of course, each new outfit might bode of a commensurate change in values: After each Sabbath, Ben changes from his frockcoat into basketball shorts and a grubby T-shirt. So, we call him “neo-Chasidic.” We laugh, and he laughs along with us. Another child of the extended family, age 28, dresses quite fashionably, but as a matter of commitment, just like her mother. Her persona is stuck at 60.

But values that form one’s core? They must remain at the core, despite the permutation of clothing that circles them. It’s as I tell Ben, “So long as you are a mensch … justice, mercy, humility, justice, mercy, humility …” Thanks to Micah. No matter, these must endure. If not, then all the changing of outfits becomes nothing more than an obscene striptease.

In adolescence, I was obliged to dress like a mama’s boy, quintessentially obedient. Then, the work-shirt and jeans of a ’60s radical. Then, like Ben, the pietistic Chasidic cassock. Then, intimations of prosperity cloaked in Brooks Brothers pinstripe, just out of Wall Street, which I wasn’t. With the denial of my collision with middle age, I dressed ridiculously retro-youth.

Now, a bit more adjusted, slacks and a sport shirt, maybe an occasional pair of shorts, maybe a bowtie, just for the effect. And that’s the point — the fit marks the passing time and persona: obedience, radicalism, liberal, conservative, liberal, radical liberal, resolved … and maybe not resolved. That’s the story of my life. With old age, how can one know?

Long ago, the rabbis marveled at how the same King Solomon could have penned the mushy Song of Songs and the cynical Ecclesiastes. Some of them answered the obvious: He wrote Song of Songs when he was young and full of youthful romance, and Ecclesiastes when he was an old, sour crab. No, others said. He wrote Ecclesiastes in the cynical disillusionment of youth. Then, he composed Song of Songs when he attained the resolution and romance that come from maturity and the philosophical mind.

I vote for interpretation No. 2. Or, at least I pray for it. I can see ol’ King Solomon sitting on his throne in regal vestments and then a couple of hours later puttering around in his garden in T-shirt and jeans.

I wonder if I can get there, too. That and justice, mercy, humility, always justice, mercy, humility. Finally, a pretty good fit.