Our parsha, Vayeshev, is filled with deception facilitated by clothing.  Joseph’s clothes of many colors are used by his brothers to deceive their father into thinking Joseph is dead, Tamar hides her face under a veil so Judah does not recognize her and takes her for a prostitute, and the wife of Potefar uses a piece of Joseph’s clothing to accuse him wrongly of raping her.   

But when we think about deceptive haberdashery in the family of our ancestors, it is Yaakov who looms large.  The pivotal moment of his life, gaining the blessing, is the product of such duplicity.  His father Yitzchak seems to suspect something is afoot and says: “Come close and kiss me, my son.  And he went up and kissed him. And he (Isaac) smelled his (Jacob’s) clothes and he blessed him, saying, ‘Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of the fields that God has blessed.’”

The Talmud (Sanhedrin 37a) comments on this verse: “Do not read the verse, ‘He smelled his clothing (bigadav)’ but rather ‘his traitors (bogdav).’”  The word for clothing in Hebrew sounds like the word for traitor, but also there is also a cognitive connection between them – clothing fundamentally betrays – clothing by its very nature is meant to obscure, to project an image, to falsify, to hide.   And yet, there are times when it can bring out the true self-when clothing is vital, and facilitates holiness.   The primary example of this is the  Kohen Gadol, the High Priest, who must wear very specific clothes.  If he does not, he is michusar bigadim, lacking a uniform, and his services is invalid.   The clothes literally make the Kohen – they reveal who he really is and facilitate his holiness.  

So what does the midrash mean, that Isaac smelled the aroma of Jacob’s traitors and blessed him?   The Medrash (Breishit Rabah 65:22) writes that this refers specifically to two individuals, Yosef Meshita and Yakum from Tzirorot who lived at the time of the second Temple and were Jewish traitors, helping the Romans against the Jews, but subsequently regretted their ways and did Teshuvah, suffering great pains unto death in the process.  Rabbi Eliezer Aronson explains that this is the meaning of Isaac smelling the smell of Jacob’s clothes  (traitors) and blessing him.   Clothing makes the traitor, they disguise, but they also can reveal.   Even the Jewish person who looks and acts like a traitor still retains a spark of the Jew within them, the holy soul. 

Whether we dress to be who we are or as someone we are not, whether at times we remove our Jewish clothing and assimilate into the outside environment, ultimately we each carry within us our true nature, that of the Jew who regrets our distance from God, from the Torah and from our people-this is the smell of the traitors which Isaac smelled and blessed his son.