{"id":44849,"date":"2025-06-12T12:04:22","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T16:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/?p=44849"},"modified":"2025-06-12T12:04:22","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T16:04:22","slug":"does-dress-for-success-have-its-roots-in-the-hebrew-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/06\/does-dress-for-success-have-its-roots-in-the-hebrew-bible.html","title":{"rendered":"Does &#8216;dress for success&#8217; Have its Roots in the Hebrew Bible?"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_44852\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-44852\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/06\/Dress-for-Success_credit-Adobe-Stock-.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-44852\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/06\/Dress-for-Success_credit-Adobe-Stock-.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-44852\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adobe Stock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Anyone who has ever followed a \u201cBible in One Year\u201d reading plan or done their own dive into the Bible is soon surprised by extensive passages that deal with how people should dress in the Old Testament. Exodus 28, for example, gives a long, detailed example of how to construct an ephod, a garment explicitly to be used by the priests. It seems like an arbitrary list of details to the casual reader, especially when having just left the high drama of the ten plagues and Israel\u2019s escape from Egypt across the Red Sea. Yet Mark Gerson, author of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/God-Was-Right-Modern-Science\/dp\/1637746172\"><em>God Was Right: How Modern Social Science Proves the Torah Is True<\/em><\/a>, believes passages like this are much more than a simple fashion statement.<\/p>\n<p>Gerson pointed to a Yale study where students who wore business suits negotiated better than those who wore casual clothing. He also noted how sports players dress, knowing their performance will improve if they show up dressed ready to play. Called \u201cenclothed cognition,\u201d it\u2019s a psychological term that refers to \u201cthe idea that what we wear influences how we think, feel and perform.\u201d \u00a0And while a person who is feeling depressed may dress in a way that reflects their feelings, dressing for happiness might have the ability to impact how he or she feels. \u201cOnce again, God was right. Clothing isn\u2019t just about appearance or comfort. It\u2019s a tool for shaping who we are,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/lifestyle\/torahs-clothing-lessons-backed-yale-study-showing-attire-changes-how-you-think\">wrote Gerson<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Referring to the example of the ephod, Gerson wrote that it was about more than ritual. \u201cThese aren\u2019t ritual decorations. They\u2019re instruments of transformation. The priest doesn\u2019t just look holy. By wearing sacred garments, he begins to feel holy \u2014 and that changes how he behaves. The Torah understood long before modern science that clothing shapes consciousness.\u201d According to Gerson, God didn\u2019t just want people to look the part of joining in His holiness. He wanted them to <em>feel <\/em>the part.<\/p>\n<p>Meital Peleg Mizrachi, a post-doctoral fellow in the economics department at Yale University, sees a strong connection between the Jewish tradition and fashion as well. But where Gerson sees a connection between Torah clothing guidelines and impacting mindset, Mizrachi sees a call to good stewardship. \u201c\u201cThe more I dive into the Bible, the more I see there is a longstanding connection between sustainability and Judaism. There are Bible verses commanding us to save the world,\u201d she told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/while-being-israeli-is-not-in-vogue-sabra-academic-blends-faith-and-fashion-at-yale\/\"><em>The Times of Israel<\/em><\/a>. \u201cSustainable fashion might just be a mitzvah [commandment].\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anyone who has ever followed a \u201cBible in One Year\u201d reading plan or done their own dive into the Bible is soon surprised by extensive passages that deal with how people should dress in the Old Testament. Exodus 28, for example, gives a long, detailed example of how to construct an ephod, a garment explicitly&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":44852,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-television"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Does &#039;dress for success&#039; Have its Roots in the Hebrew Bible?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Old Testament dress codes weren\u2019t just about ritual\u2014research shows God\u2019s fashion commands shaped mindset, identity, and sustainability today.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/06\/does-dress-for-success-have-its-roots-in-the-hebrew-bible.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Does &#039;dress for success&#039; Have its Roots in the Hebrew Bible?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Old Testament dress codes weren\u2019t just about ritual\u2014research shows God\u2019s fashion commands shaped mindset, identity, and sustainability today.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/06\/does-dress-for-success-have-its-roots-in-the-hebrew-bible.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Idol Chatter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-06-12T16:04:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/06\/Dress-for-Success_credit-Adobe-Stock-.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Buchanan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Does 'dress for success' Have its Roots in the Hebrew Bible?","description":"Old Testament dress codes weren\u2019t just about ritual\u2014research shows God\u2019s fashion commands shaped mindset, identity, and sustainability today.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/06\/does-dress-for-success-have-its-roots-in-the-hebrew-bible.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Does 'dress for success' Have its Roots in the Hebrew Bible?","og_description":"Old Testament dress codes weren\u2019t just about ritual\u2014research shows God\u2019s fashion commands shaped mindset, identity, and sustainability today.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/06\/does-dress-for-success-have-its-roots-in-the-hebrew-bible.html","og_site_name":"Idol Chatter","article_published_time":"2025-06-12T16:04:22+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/06\/Dress-for-Success_credit-Adobe-Stock-.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Cecilia Buchanan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/06\/does-dress-for-success-have-its-roots-in-the-hebrew-bible.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/06\/does-dress-for-success-have-its-roots-in-the-hebrew-bible.html","name":"Does 'dress for success' Have its Roots in the Hebrew Bible?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/06\/does-dress-for-success-have-its-roots-in-the-hebrew-bible.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/06\/does-dress-for-success-have-its-roots-in-the-hebrew-bible.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/06\/Dress-for-Success_credit-Adobe-Stock-.jpg","datePublished":"2025-06-12T16:04:22+00:00","dateModified":"2025-06-12T16:04:22+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d"},"description":"Old Testament dress codes weren\u2019t just about ritual\u2014research shows God\u2019s fashion commands shaped mindset, identity, and sustainability today.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/06\/does-dress-for-success-have-its-roots-in-the-hebrew-bible.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/06\/does-dress-for-success-have-its-roots-in-the-hebrew-bible.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/06\/does-dress-for-success-have-its-roots-in-the-hebrew-bible.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/06\/Dress-for-Success_credit-Adobe-Stock-.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/87\/2025\/06\/Dress-for-Success_credit-Adobe-Stock-.jpg","width":1200,"height":900,"caption":"Adobe Stock"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2025\/06\/does-dress-for-success-have-its-roots-in-the-hebrew-bible.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Does &#8216;dress for success&#8217; 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