The Way You Wear Your Hat

I love my Burns hat. 

For the uninitiated, Burns Cowboy Shop is a Utah-based family business that makes custom hats, saddles, boots, and belt buckles – pretty much everything that a Rosh HaYeshiva in Great Neck could possibly need.  I love my hat not so much for its utility or for its look, but rather for the memories it carries.  In January 2020, my wife had a conference in Park City and I tagged along.  We entered Burns; she splurged and bought me the hat as an early birthday gift.  

Then, a few weeks later, the world shut down.  Life became an endless cycle of Clorox wipes, N95 masks, remote learning, and round-the-clock Zooms.  When a large box arrived from Utah in late April, I had practically forgotten our entire trip, let alone the purchase.  But unboxing and wearing that hat made me so incredibly happy – and it still does each Shabbat that I bring it down from its shelf to wear to shul.  It reminds me of resilience, of moments of joy amid difficulty, and of a romantic shopping spree.  Well worth the price.

After the Israelites successfully crossed the Yam Suf, the Reed Sea, in our Torah reading of Beshalach, they couldn’t bear to leave.  The verse says va-yasa Moshe et Yisrael mi-Yam Suf, Moshe needed to nudge them along.  Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch explains that the People wanted to stay because this shore was a holy place; the shechina was revealed there.  They knew that the desert would be less uplifting.  Rashi, however, famously offers a less flattering portrait: the people wouldn’t leave as they were busy collecting the Egyptian loot that had washed ashore after the sea closed.  Rashi reports that gedola hayta bizat hayam me-bizat Mitzrayim, “there was more booty at the Sea than the booty of Egypt.”  I always found this description of the Israelites derogatory.  Maybe they were just looking for something to remember the moment.  After all, these were the people who had endured slavery, plagues, a tense Pesach departure, and a harrowing split-sea escape, all followed by a lengthy song of praise led by Moshe and Miriam.  Wouldn’t they want some memento of their experience?  

And so Rabbi Asher Wassertheil calls Rashi out, citing the Tamudic statement that the lowest Israelite at the Yam Suf attained a higher level of prophecy than the great prophet Ezekiel.  The people weren’t looting – they were seeking inspiration.  They needed to find their Burns hats.  Rabbi Aryeh Yitzchak HaCohen Kook explains that sometimes we need rechush gadol, great physical bounty, in order to achieve haramat ruach, a spiritual lift.  We tend to dismiss the physical in favor of the spiritual, but Rav Kook reminds us that one can be the doorway to the other if we only view it as such.

We should be thoughtful about the physical items with which we surround ourselves.  Thank God, many of us can afford all types of accessories, gadgets, toys, what my Dad calls tchotchkes, for ourselves and our kids.  Are those items lifting us up, connecting us to inspiring memories and moments of spirituality?  The Burns hatter provided me with such an artifact – I’ll bet we can all find more.  

Happy shopping – and Shabbat Shalom.