Why Always Wear White?

Kohelet 9:8

“There is joy in clean laundry.

All is forgiven in water, sun and air.

We offer our day’s deeds to the blue-eyed sky,

with soap and prayer, our arms up,

then lowered in supplication.”

Ruth Moose’s poem “Laundry” turns domestic chores into divine dimensions, somehow straddling the physical and metaphysical aspects of our lives. She may have gotten the idea from Kohelet, focusing on fresh laundry as a symbol of a humble, grateful, and good way to enjoy life:

בְּכׇל־עֵת יִהְיוּ בְגָדֶיךָ לְבָנִים וְשֶׁמֶן עַל־רֹאשְׁךָ אַל־יֶחְסָר׃

Let your clothes always be freshly white-washed, and your head never lack ointment.

Kohelet 9:8

Erica Brown explains this further in "Ecclesiastes And the Search for Meaning":

“Kohelet’s unexpected, strangely domestic advice in the middle of chapter 9 reminds the reader that there are only three certainties in life: death, taxes, and laundry.

Anomalous as it may seem in a book of observations about mortality and meaning, we recognize the pleasure of putting on clean clothing and the newness it conveys.”

But is this advice about the pleasure of clean clothing - often a rare privilege in the ancient world, not taken for granted and perhaps a symbol of status and leisure? Or is it this symbolic referring to some other sort of attitude to life lived well?

Stands of commentaries differ - some choosing to read this as simple housekeeping and others reading it as metaphor for piety.

Scholars such as Jacob Wright point out that like other quotes in Kohelet, this one also has Sumerian roots:

“This passage parallels Siduri’s speech in the (much older) Gilgamesh Epic: Let your clothes be clean. Let your head be washed; in water you may bathe. Look down at the little one who holds your hand. Let a wife ever be festive in your lap. This is the lot (of humans).

Since our time is short and little lies beyond the grave, we must enjoy our days under the sun. This is our “portion.” In Ecclesiastes,our portion lies nowhere else than in the enjoyment of life with the one you love. Here Ecclesiastes overlaps with the Gilgamesh Epic. Yet where Gilgamesh includes a “little one,” Ecclesiastes features labor.”

The debate over the meaning of this verse and whether we should read it as literal or metaphorical counsel was important enough to be quoted at length in the Babylonian Talmud’s Tractate Shabbat:

“Rabbi Eliezer taught: “Repent one day before your death” [Mishna Avot 2:10]. His disciples asked him, Does then one know on what day one will die? He replied: Then all the more reason that one should repent today lest one die tomorrow, and thus one’s whole life is spent in repentance. And Solomon too said in his wisdom, “Let your garments be always white; and let not your head lack ointment.”

Rabbi Johanan b. Zakkai taught: This may be compared to a king who summoned his servants to a banquet without appointing a time. The wise ones adorned themselves and sat at the door of the palace… The fools went about their work… Suddenly the king desired the presence of his servants: the wise entered adorned, while the fools entered soiled. The king rejoiced at the wise but was angry with the fools. “Those who adorned themselves for the banquet,” he ordered, “let them sit, eat and drink. But those who did not adorn themselves for the banquet, let them stand and watch.”

So is this verse about literal laundry - human dignity and cleanliness - or is it about a pious attitude in which clean clothing and an always anointed head stand in for piety and righteousness?

Perhaps, as always, both.

Erica Brown suggests that

“What is clear from the two interpretive strains that run from the world of ancient commentary to modern scholarship is that this verse was read both literally and metaphorically, the laundry representing both laundry and purity through repentance, Torah study, or good deeds.”

This verse may be the reason why white became the unofficial color of atonement, often worn on Yom Kippur? We never do know when we will breathe our last, and this Day of Atonement is often seen as a ritual manipulation, imagining our death as a device to get us to be on our best behaviour and live up to our highest potential - just as Kohelet suggests.

For so many of us, at times of illness or distress, even clean laundry and body may be a privilege or luxury longed for. Yet an attitude of presence, always ready to be in the presence of the most sacred mystery is about more than the literal truth - it is about our deepest layers. Maybe what Kohelet is reminding us is to be truly present in whatever task we take on and however life meets us, with our head high, and with as much human dignity and delight as possible, here and now, no matter what?

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