Holiness: A Dialectic
You shall observe My laws. You shall not let your cattle mate with a different kind; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed; you shall not put on cloth from a mixture of two kinds of material. (Leviticus 19:19)
She then bore his brother Abel. Abel became a keeper of sheep, and Cain became a tiller of the soil. (Genesis 4:2)
It is, however, forbidden for an ordinary priest to wear [priestly garments] except during his service. The [clothes] the priests wear for their service are of wool and linen alone….Whenever the Torah uses the word sheish or bad, it is referring to flax, i.e., linen. Whenever the term techeilet is used, it refers to wool which is dyed sky-blue, i.e., lighter35 than dark blue. The term argaman refers to wool that is dyed red. And tola'at sheni refers to wool dyed with a gnat. (Maimonides Klei Hamikdash Chapter 8)
The Torah ordinarily forbidden one to mix wool and linen. Yet the priest’s clothing is composed of mixtures of wool and linen. Here, not only does the priest get an exemption, but the otherwise illicit garment becomes a mitzvah, a commandment, to wear, a mark of holiness. In this way, holiness has a complex meaning. It offers a pull towards the separate, the categorical, the ordered; but it also offers a pull towards the exceptional. And what is an exception if not that which inverts the rule?
The Midrashic tradition teaches that Cain offered God flax (linen), while Abel offered God wool. Cain was a tiller of soil, while Abel was a shepherd. Rashi teaches that Abel’s deviation from his family’s trade was the result of his perception that God had cursed the ground in the previous chapter.
The prohibition on Shatnez thus points to a memorialization of the division of labor between the two brothers, as well as the fraught competition between them. Perhaps not mixing wool and linen even contains a hidden piece of wisdom for managing competition: don’t allow the wool-makers and the linen-makers to compare themselves to one another lest it end in fratricide. Give them separate lanes, distinct roles and responsibilities. Separation and specialization offer dignity.
But the priest’s clothes point to a more aspirational order, one in which Cain and Abel join together to offer their gifts in a union that is greater than the sum of the parts. The priest, figure of peace and reconciliation, brings the two brothers’ gifts together, where the brothers themselves found only enmity and rivalry.
Shatnez (mixing wool and linen) is normally regarded as some kind of degradation of God’s created order, akin to grafting trees, or creating new species of animals. Yet if we take it in relationship to Cain and Abel, it’s less a challenge to some blueprint of divine creation, and more a challenge to cultural order.
The dialectical relationship between prohibition and exception in shatnez finds further support in the Torah. Ezekiel explicitly addresses the priestly garments:
“When they enter the gates of the inner court, they shall wear linen garments; they shall have nothing of wool on them while they minister at the gates of the inner court or within. They shall have linen turbans on their heads and linen undergarments on their loins; they shall not bind themselves with anything that causes sweat.” (Ezekiel 44:17-18)
This verse seems to contradict the earlier requirement for priestly garments to contain both wool and linen. However, this apparent contradiction actually reinforces the dialectical nature of the prohibition. The priests must observe special ritual purity within the inner court (thesis), yet their garments outside this space must include the forbidden mixture (antithesis), creating a synthesis where both separation and combination serve different sacred functions in different contexts.
Additionally, we read in Exodus, the following instructions for the construction of the Tabernacle curtains:
“Moreover, you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twisted linen and blue, purple, and crimson yarns; you shall make them with cherubim skillfully worked into them.” (Exodus 26:1)
Here again, the most sacred space in Israelite worship incorporates the forbidden mixture of wool (the colored yarns) and linen. The Mishkan itself stands as a synthesis of the prohibition that ordinary Israelites must observe and the exception that defines sacred space.
Rabbinic commentators have long sought to explain the mysterious prohibition of shatnez. While traditionally classified as a chok (a law without obvious rational explanation), many sages have discerned profound spiritual and ethical dimensions to this commandment.
The 13th-century commentator Rabbeinu Bachya suggests that the prohibition teaches respect for the divine order of creation. Just as God separated different species, humans must respect these boundaries. Yet the exception for priests suggests that there exists a higher unity beyond these distinctions, one that only those dedicated to divine service can safely navigate.
The Zohar, the foundational text of Jewish mystical thought, goes further, suggesting that improper mixtures of wool and linen unleash destructive spiritual forces. According to this tradition, the Hebrew word sha’atnez can be divided into satan oz, “Satan is strong,” indicating that improper mixtures empower destructive cosmic forces. Yet in the hands of the priests, these same forces are channeled toward blessing and harmony.
The priestly role in wearing shatnez takes on significance when viewed through Rene Girard’s understanding of sacrifice. The priest, by donning the forbidden mixture, performs a controlled ritual that contains potential violence. As mediator between human and divine realms, the priest occupies the dangerous threshold where mimetic tensions converge - the very point where Cain’s violence against Abel erupted.
The priest’s garments perform what Girard would recognize as the essential function of ritual: channeling potentially destructive mimetic forces into structures that protect the community. By wearing the prohibited mixture, the priest becomes a living synthesis of the primordial rivalry, embodying both agricultural and pastoral dimensions that once led to fratricide. The priest thus stands as a living resolution to the violent founding of human culture that Girard sees in the Cain and Abel story.
The prohibition of shatnez reinforces cosmic order, while its priestly exception points to the need to mediate conflict through dialectic rather than mere separation. Holiness takes on a doubled sense, both the separation of things that don’t or shouldn’t mix, and, the exceptional combination of the unmixable for the sake of heaven. This difference within holiness itself makes all the difference. And helps us appreciate the ambiguity of the opening commandment in Kedoshim: “Be holy for I the Lord your God am holy.”
Shabbat Shalom,
Zohar Atkins