Shopping with Soul

לֹא תִירָא לְבֵיתָהּ מִשָּׁלֶג

כִּי כָל בֵּיתָהּ לָבֻשׁ שָׁנִים

She does not fear  for her household in the snow,  

for her entire household is clothed in scarlet

Shopping with Soul

Mrs. Shira Hochheimer

People get emotional when it comes to shopping. More than one friend has said to me, “I hate shopping!” while their teens say they love shopping. Why doesn’t shopping for clothes feel like any other chore we do for our families, like cooking and laundry?

Perhaps clothing shopping feels more complex because we instinctively sense that from the time of Adam and Chavah, clothing pronounces that we’re more than just animals. Clothing indicates our spiritual strivings and our desire to be more than our base nature (Rav Schwab on Prayer, Shema).

Given the emotion around clothes, I was excited to find that the Alshich on our pasuk offers grounded and timeless wisdom on how to buy clothing.

First the Alshich notes that there’s a trend for wealthy women to dress their children in the finest fabrics. He warns that this will lead children to be arrogant, which will lead them to be rebellious, which will lead them to get involved in things that aren’t good.