Men are often met as uniforms before they are met as human beings. We read the “outside” first: the job title, the competence, the calm voice, the jokes, the silence, the muscle, the dad-energy, the “I’m fine.” We take those signals as the whole story because the outside is what’s available. But the Torah insists that clothing is never the whole story—it’s just the most visible layer.

Parashat Tetzaveh practically lingers over the wardrobe: breastpiece, ephod, robe, fringed tunic, headdress, sash—holy garments designed to make Aaron and his sons look like what their role requires.

It’s easy to assume the message is simple: dress someone like a leader and you’ll get leadership. Look like the Kohen Gadol and you’ll be the Kohen Gadol. The Talmud tells a story that exposes the trap in that thinking. An outsider passes a study hall, hears those vestments listed, asks who they’re for, and is told: the High Priest. The outsider thinks, Perfect—I’ll convert and become him.

In other words: I see the uniform; I want what the uniform seems to represent.

Shammai rejects him outright. Hillel accepts him—but then refuses to play along with the fantasy. Hillel’s line is surgical: You don’t appoint someone to power who doesn’t know the protocols of rulership. Go learn the protocols. The outsider goes and learns, and eventually encounters a boundary: “Any outsider who encroaches… shall be put to death.” He asks: who does this apply to? Hillel answers: even David, king of Israel. And then the outsider has his moment of clarity: if even Israel is warned about approaching the inner sanctum, then how much more so “a simple convert… with his walking stick and his satchel.”

The uniform was never the point. The point was what the uniform covers: knowledge, humility, responsibility, and reverence for what is “inside.”

This is a blunt metaphor for how we misunderstand men. We treat many men as if their outer presentation is the whole self: strong means unbreakable; quiet means uncomplicated; busy means satisfied; successful means okay. And men, trained by culture to survive by performance, often cooperate with the misunderstanding. They “wear” competence the way the High Priest wears gold and linen—because their worth has been measured by what they can provide, protect, endure, fix. Their inner life becomes the Holy of Holies: real, tender, volatile, sometimes frightening, often unvisited even by the man himself. When others demand access—Tell me what you feel. Explain yourself. Be vulnerable on command.—it can feel like an invasion of sacred space, not an invitation to intimacy. The text’s warning about “encroaching” is not a call to distance; it’s a reminder that interiors require protocol: trust, time, safety, consent, and care.

That’s why Hillel matters here more than Shammai. Shammai pushes the man away with a measuring stick; Hillel draws him “under the wings of the Presence.”

Hillel doesn’t shame the outsider for being dazzled by the uniform. He redirects him toward the inner work that makes the uniform meaningful. Many men don’t need more pressure; they need more Hillel. They need people and communities who can say: I’m not impressed by your costume, and I’m not here to rip it off. I’m here to help you learn the protocols that let you step inside your own life without fear.

This is exactly where Purim becomes more than a children’s holiday. Purim is the festival of costumes, but its deeper genius is that the costume is a tool for truth. We hide to reveal. We exaggerate the outside so the inside finally has room to speak. The Megillah is built on hiddenness: Esther’s concealed identity, the political masks of the palace, the reversals that expose what was really happening all along. Purim doesn’t only say, “Take off the mask.” It says, “Notice the mask you’re already wearing—and ask what it has been protecting.” For many men, the mask has been protection from humiliation, from being seen as weak, from failing at provision, from being unneeded, from the grief they were told to “get over,” from the anger that scares them, from the loneliness they can’t name without feeling ridiculous.

So what does it mean to invest in men’s inner lives? It means refusing to confuse appearance with experience. It means building settings where men can show up—not just physically, but emotionally and morally—without being punished for what emerges. Michael Rosenak describes education as “the reflective and responsible task of inviting people to encounters,” encouraging them to “show up,” helping in the conversation, interpreting what happens, and giving it context and direction.

That’s not only a philosophy of teaching Torah; it’s a blueprint for meeting men. Invite them into encounters that are real. Don’t mistake a man’s polish for peace. Don’t mistake his withdrawal for indifference. Help him interpret his own story—because many men have never been given language for what’s inside, only rules for what must remain outside.

Purim is our annual permission slip to practice this: to let the costume loosen, to let the performance crack, to let the hidden become speakable. Not by forcing revelation, but by creating the kind of community where revelation becomes possible. The goal isn’t to make men “less masculine.” The goal is to make men more knowable—to themselves and to those who love them—by investing where it counts: on the inside, where the real story has been waiting.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)