Once Upon a Child

“And Bnei Yisrael did according to Moshe’s order, and they borrowed from the Mitzrim, silver objects, golden objects, and garments.” (Shemos 12:35)

When it was time to leave Mitzrayim, Hashem told Moshe to tell the Jews to borrow the silver and gold vessels of their Egyptian neighbors. Yet, interestingly enough, this pasuk shows that they took the garments as well. Rashi even says that the garments were more valuable to the Jews than the gold and silver. Why? (Rabbi Ben Tzion Shafier, The Shmuz)

Every so often you meet up with your inner child in the oddest of places. Mine showed up while I was in the city of Rishon LeZion, trying to take care of a bureaucratic errand. I didn’t expect to be sidetracked as I hurried through the mall looking for the office I needed. Then, boom, I came face to face with my childhood wannnabe store.

When I was a young teen, United Colors of Benetton was the coolest of the cool. That logo on your sweatshirt meant you had made it. But the price tag was out of my babysitting money range, so I had to content myself with a Gap sweatshirt, dreaming of the day when I could own a Benetton one. (I did own a Princeton sweatshirt that I found in a thrift shop, and my friend had a Harvard one. We had a great time debating the pros and cons of the two Ivy League schools, as if we understood them. Don’t get me started on the topic nowadays.)

If you look at your parents’ wedding album, you wonder: What were they thinking? The colors. The hairstyles. Of course, the answer is that back then, that look was “in.” Every generation has a specific look that it considers appealing, and the vast majority of people kowtow to fashionable dressing dictated by social pressure.

This would seem to explain Rashi. The people leaving Mitzrayim were born into slavery. They were brought up in a world where the Egyptians were their rulers and masters. Therefore, the clothing that their masters wore was superior — something they’d only dreamed of owning. Thus, when given the opportunity to take whatever they wanted, the most valuable thing to them was the clothing.

So, there I was, in Rishon LeZion, Israel, of all places, facing a Benetton store.

I couldn’t resist; I was drawn inside like a magnet. I was a grown adult now, and I could afford a Benetton sweatshirt if I wanted one. And I suddenly wanted one so badly.