The hidden Jewish law woven into your clothes
(RNS) — In the weeks leading up to Rosh Hashanah, the two-day Jewish New Year’s holiday that begins at sundown on Sept. 11, Chava Goldberg spent much of her time at her sewing desk, gently opening the linings, collars and waistbands of her clients’ suits, hats and dresses in search of “shatnez ” — the forbidden mixture of sheep’s wool and linen in a single garment.
A resident of Norfolk, Virginia, Goldberg, an interior designer by profession, is one of just 200-250 specialists in the world qualified to inspect clothing for shatnez, which the Torah bans in Leviticus 19:19 and Deuteronomy 22:11.
The High Holiday period “is especially hectic,” Goldberg said, because observant Jews traditionally purchase new clothes to usher in the Jewish New Year.
The prohibition against wearing shatnez is one of the Torah’s 613 commandments , along with observing the Sabbath, honoring one’s parents and worshipping one God, but it is not widely known outside Orthodox Jewish circles. Unlike commandments with more readily apparent ethical purposes, shatnez belongs to a category of commandments (“mitzvot” in Hebrew) whose reasons aren’t obvious.
“There are reasons for every mitzvah. Some…
