There is a popular idea making the rounds lately, sometimes dressed up in song and sometimes in conversation, that the עיקר is the person under the bekitshe. The clothing, the externals, the visible markers of Yiddishkeit are framed as secondary, almost distractions. The message sounds enlightened. Look past the garment. Focus on the פנימיות. But something about this framing deeply troubles me, because it quietly dismisses something our heritage never treated as optional.

Yes, the עיקר is the person. No one serious is arguing otherwise. But reducing the bekitshe, and by extension chitzoniyus, to something expendable is not depth. It is imbalance.

Chassidus never taught that chitzoniyus is meaningless. It taught that chitzoniyus and pnimius must be aligned. Clothing is not a costume. It is not theater. It is a כלי. A garment shapes consciousness. It creates boundaries. It signals identity not only to others, but to oneself. To pretend otherwise is to ignore how human beings actually function.

We were taken out of Mitzrayim for many reasons, but Chazal are explicit that one of the merits was שלא שינו את לבושם. They did not change their clothing. That was not a fashion statement. It was an act of resistance. An insistence on visible difference in an environment that pressured conformity. If externals were irrelevant, that merit would make no sense.

There is a dangerous trend in reframing every conversation about standards as shallow, and every defense of chitzoniyus as missing the point. The irony is that this posture often signals its own form of chitzoniyus, just with different aesthetics. Calling externals unimportant can itself become a badge of sophistication.

The bekitshe is not the essence, but it is not nothing. It reminds the wearer who he is supposed to be. It carries history, submission, and accountability. When we weaken the importance of chitzoniyus, we do not automatically strengthen pnimius. More often, we create a vacuum, and vacuums get filled by whatever happens to be loudest at the moment.

Judaism does not survive on good intentions alone. It survives on structure, repetition, discipline, and yes, visible difference. The goal is not to worship the garment. The goal is that the garment serves the person, and that the person allows the garment to shape him in return.

If we truly believe the עיקר matters, then we should be far more careful before dismissing the tools that have preserved that עיקר for generations. Losing respect for chitzoniyus is not progress. It is usually the first sign that we are slowly forgetting what we are trying to protect.