01 March 2024
Pageau doesn't say it clearly enough: Clothing is required by the Covenant because our fallen sensibilities cannot handle nudity without sin. Flaunting it is simply evil. If you've seen so much nudity that you are jaded, that is actually worse. We are supposed to be sensitive to it. If we cannot sense the urgency of covering nakedness, then we are badly damaged.
So he takes the time to explain the importance of clothing that identifies who are you in society. This contrasts with clothing designed to hide your identity. Granted, your enemy has no business knowing the truth, but your covenant brothers and sisters are not the enemy. People should be deceived by their own blindness, not by your choices. The dynamic here is that masquerading exposes the nakedness of everyone else. It's what spies do, scoping out the vulnerabilities of the community.
It's critical that you know who God says is your family and who is your enemy.
Finally, Pageau notes that the command in Moses to wear a fringe on the garment fulfills the "decorate or die" principle. It says something in the ancient culture about your devotion to the one Creator of all things. The garments have fuzzy edges, because we always make room for God to change us.
Speaking of what people see, the next chapter talks about the moral imagery of eyes. In our materialistic western world, the eye is simply a receptor for light photons/waves. But in the Hebrew society, eyes represent the capacity to know, to receive divine truth (depicted as light). Further, the clear eyes seeking the truth can be their own source of light in the moral sense, piercing moral darkness.
Notice that Adam named the birds and land animals, but not the creatures in the sea. The symbolism should be obvious. Further, the serpent represents the chaotic sea of time and absurdity. As the most subtle of creatures, it was at home on the land and sea, capable of transgressing space and sneaking around.
The verse in Genesis that refers to Adam and Eve having their eyes open to their nakedness refers to a kind of "eye opening" that means a confusing perception of foreign and strange lands. They are in alien territory because they aren't wired to operate there. It's not the vision from above, but the vision from below -- a fallen vision. Thus, they are dreaming, or even hallucinating, because they had been poisoned by the food that was inappropriate for them.
We return to the polarity of right and left for the eyes. The right eye symbolizes clear view and moral clarity (space); the left eye is the "evil eye", the one that sees confusion and chaos (time). By the same token, the right eye is affirmative and conservative, seeing that which is established, safe and even boring. The left eye is wandering, seeing creativity and new things not yet recognized. The business of inspection and investigating requires both eyes, comparing what it finds with what should be, while questioning what is. The same questioning from the wrong person, someone who lacks an affinity for the right-eye social stability, is a threat to the community (space).
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