Garments of Skin

Garments of Protection

Life outside God’s pleasure garden sounds harsh. Death, murder, hard graft awaits. But, lest you should think that God is overly harsh in sending the humans out of the garden to a certain death, they are at least clothed in כתנות עור.

TB Sotah 14a

Rabbi Simlai explained, ‘The beginning of Torah is loving kindness, and the end of Torah is loving kindness. The beginning is loving kindness, as it says And LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and dressed them. (Gen 3:21). And the end is loving kindness as it says And He [God] buried him [Moses] in the Valley. (Deut 34:6)

I argue that the primary lens through which the Rabbis saw the כתנות עור is that of a comfort and a kindness, not as a loss and the actualization of the curse of mortality. It is almost pshat. Sarna writing on verse Gen 3:21 states the verse offers ‘rapprochement;’ a ‘measure of reconciliation.’[1] The necessity of explaining Adam’s survival, both physical and spiritual, outside of the Garden, is certainly a Rabbinic concern, the editor of Pirkei Rebbi Eliezer collects the following;

PRE Chapter 20

Rabbi Yehuda said, ‘It was the [keeping] of Shabbat that kept [Adam] from all evil and comforted him from all the disquiet of his heart.

Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Karcha said, ‘From [the leaves of] the tree under which they hid, they took leaves and sewed them.’

Rabbi Ilai said, ‘The Blessed One took the skin which the snake sloughed[2] off and made garments of skin and clothed them.’[3]

The sense is that the humans are protected, either by their own actions (taking the leaves), by their, more than a little anachronistic, keeping of God’s command to keep the Shabbat, or by God’s act of grace (the snake skin as כתנות עור).

The notion that the כתנות עור are made from the skin of the snake is an appealing insight noticeably lacking from Bereishit Rabbah’s long list of potential materials, including fine linen from Bet-Shean,[4] goats’ skin, hares’ skin, skin with its wool, Circassian wool, camel wool and hare fur. (20:12) It provides an excellent solution to the problem that the slaughter of animals (the more conventional way of acquiring leathers in antiquity) is only sanctioned post-deluge (Gen 9:1-7).

I have already noted that Ephrem, the fourth century Church Father, saw the possibility of re-cycling the skin of the snake, but in PRE the idea is developed further. In PRE the sloughing of the snake’s skin is connected to the expulsion narrative in a tidy like-begets-like piece of exegesis. We have already seen the first part of this Midrash in our discussion of the garments of mortality above, but now it can be more fully appreciated.

PRE 14

And when Adam ate from the fruit of the tree, his skin and his exoskeleton was sloughed from him, and the cloud of glory disappeared from him and he saw himself naked.

[Shortly thereafter God curses the snake and among other punishments] ordains that [the serpent] should slough its skin.[5]

Pre-fall, it seems, Man and snake had much in common. Both had an exoskeleton, and both walked on legs. When the humans ate from the fruit they lost their exoskeleton forevermore. When the snake is punished for leading them astray, it loses its legs forevermore and its exoskeleton on a regular, and painful,[6] basis, but we digress. Our subject is the relationship of the כתנות עור to the protection that Adam and wife need in the wilderness. Later Midrashim make explicit the protective magical qualities of these garments in the post-expulsion period.

Midrash Aseret Malachim[7]

Rabbi Yishmael said that this was due to the same garment of Adam and Eve. All beasts and birds would see them and bow down before them, because the Holy Blessed One set fear into them, as it says And the fear and dread of you shall … (Gen 9:2)

How did the first humans survive the wilderness? They had a magic garment that offered protection from all beasts. It seems that the loving kindness of God is even greater than we might have suspected from our initial reading of TB Sotah 14a. Not only do Adam and Eve receive clothes to protect them from the elements, they are dressed in magic garments which protect them from more beastly threats.

Once the כתנות עור are clearly established as a miraculous garment of protection we can begin our journey through the book of Genesis. The fullest telling of the tale is found in Pirkei Rebbi Eliezer.

PRE – Chapter 24

Rabbi Hachinai said, ‘Nimrod was heroically mighty, as it says and Cush begot Nimrod [who was the first man of might on the earth] (Gen 10:8).’

Rabbi Yehuda said, ‘the garment which the Blessed One made for Adam and his wife was with Noah and his sons in the ark. And when they came out from the ark, Ham, the son of Noah, took it from him[8] and gave it as an inheritance to Nimrod [his grandson].

And when he wore them, all cattle, beast and wild animal would come and fall down before him. And it was that people thought it was from the might of his heroism, therefore they crowned him King upon them, as it says [hence the saying] ‘Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter, by the grace of God’ (Gen 10:9) …

Rabbi Meir said, ‘Esau – his brother – saw Nimrod’s garment and coveted it in his heart, and he killed him and took it from him.

And how do we know that [the garment] was desirous in his eyes? As it says, Rebekhah took the coveted clothes of Esau her oldest son (Gen 27:15).[9] Anyone who wore them also became mighty, as it says ‘Esau became a skillful hunter’ (Gen 25:27). And when Jacob went out from before Isaac his father she said, “This wicked Esau is not worthy of wearing these garments.” What did she do? She dug up some earth and hid them as it says hidden in the earth are his threads (Job 18:10).

The Midrash seems to end abruptly. The ‘end’ almost begs to be included, we can finish it ourselves – while Esau is out hunting, Rebekhah gives these clothes to Jacob and he wears the garments as he seeks the blessing from his father. Why therefore is the story only part told in this text? Perhaps the abrupt end suggests this retelling is not, for the editor of PRE, new material. Rather he is drawing on extant Midrashim (since lost) that contain the ‘whole’ story, but since, in the context of this Chapter of this work the tale is a divergence,[10] he feels the need to cut it short. Perhaps he cannot help himself, and feels the need to include the bulk of the story, but once he has the opportunity to demonstrate the Job proof text, he is done; the rest – the easy part – we are left to do for ourselves.

In a different place, but not so much later,[11] Rashi (1040-1105), demonstrates an awareness of the same tradition.

BT Pesachim 54a-b

Ten things were created in the twilight of the eve of Shabbat and these are they …. And some include the garment of the First Human.

Rashi ad. loc

The garment of the First Human

That held power over all kinds of beasts and cattle, and it was passed on to Nimrod, therefore it is said of Nimrod like Nimrod a mighty hunter (Gen 10) and Esau killed him and took it, therefore he was a man of the hunt. And this [the garment] is that which was coveted in his house (Gen 27). And me? I have heard that the garments of the first human, these are the garments of skin that he had.[12]

The author/editor of the early thirteenth century Yemenite collection of Midrashim Hemdat Yamim has more detail. Shalom Ben Yosef Alshabazi is concerned not with the possibility of Adam’s survival in the wilds outside of the Garden, but of Noah’s ability to tend to all those lions and tigers and bears in the ark. He cites the PRE narrative and at the point PRE is discussing Noah’s tenure over the garment he adds;

The garment was from the snake and by virtue of this [Noah] was able to stand between the wild animals in the ark, for the great gift (segulah) of the snake is that strikes fear into the lion.[13]

While both PRE and Rashi on Pesachim suggest the garment was passed to Nimrod and taken from him by Esau, BR 63:32 has the story the other way around. In this telling Esau arrives at Jacob’s ‘kitchen’ and pronounces that he is to die;

Since Nimrod wanted to kill him because of that garment that the First Adam had. When Esau wore it and went out into the field, all the animals and birds in the world would come and be gathered to him.

This text suggests Nimrod never had the garment, but rather it was Nimrod who coveted it and as he (Nimrod) was the archetypal mighty hunter (גבור ציד – Gen 10:9) he needed to take care of the upstart Esau (יודע ציד – Gen 25:27). This runs counter to the narrative in PRE 24. In another place BR itself[14] also contains the story the other way round (with Esau taking the skins from Nimrod) and this (derekh Nimrod version) is also the way the story is told in the Zohar.[15] Maybe we should consider that BR 63:32 records the ‘garments of protection’ narrative overlapping with the ‘garments of service’ narrative (which, as we will see later, does not include Nimrod).[16] Alternatively we could consider this section a later addition into the BR corpus. Theodor in his commentary notes that this whole section is missing from MS ו ‘and written in, in the margin, in another hand.’

Even though we do not have complete agreement that the garment is taken from Nimrod by Esau,[17] the ‘derekh Nimrod’ version is a better Midrash; it offers insights into Ham’s uncovering of his father, as well as explaining the ‘coveted clothes’ of Esau. It also seems a useful understanding to apply to the attested notion (certainly in Yemenite Midrashim) that Esau’s tiredness – when he comes to Jacob – is due to his struggle with Nimrod.

Or HaAfelah[18]

And they said that Esau encountered Nimrod and wrestled with him in the field and they agreed on that day that whoever triumphed over their fellow would kill him. And Nimrod triumphed over Esau and Esau asked for delay until the next day.

[Esau uses his reprieve to seek advice from his brother, Jacob,] and when he said Behold I am going to die, Jacob said to him, ‘When Nimrod comes to [kill] you, say to him, “take off your garment so it won’t get mucky with blood.”’ And at that time you will prevail over him,[19] and kill him and don’t let him go until the next day. And [Esau] did that and killed Nimrod and Hiver [Nimrod’s] son and took the garment, and this became the Esau’s coveted clothes (Gen 27:15)

A similar Midrash in Hadar Zekainim[20] suggests that by the time Esau comes to see Jacob he has already killed Nimrod in order to win the garments of skin.[21] While it is perhaps no offence to the language of the Bible to suggest that Esau uses exaggeration when returns from a ‘normal’ days hunting, claiming he is about to die from tiredness (Gen 25:30), the notion that he fears for his life – on being chased by Nimrod the master hunter is at the very least an attractive drash which sits well with the language of the text.

Three other details need to be included before we can turn our attention to the כתנות עורכתנות עור as garments of service.

Midrash Tanhuma (Buber) offers the following observation;

Toledot:16

What is like the smell of the field? – These are the clothes of The First Adam which have the scent of the Garden of Eden.

Immediately [Isaac] said, ‘May God give you of the dew of the heaven’ (Gen 27:28)[22]

The blind patriarch is connected to Eden through the clothes.

Finally the Yeminite collection Or Ha-Afela offers this comment on the gift that the newest inheritor the כתנות עור gives to his favoured son Joseph;

The garment of many colours: (Gen 37:3) This is the garment the Holy Blessed One made for Adam and his helpmate. [23]