Sunday School. Old Testament. Male teacher. Hezekiah rends his biblical clothes at the bad behavior of his people who were refusing to follow G_d. It is not mentioned quite strategically where and that’s probably a good thing, but, he does.

Me, raising my hand: Maybe this is a little close to home because I’m wearing a shirt that was hand-embroidered in Ukraine during this war, but, making clothes back in the day was no small thing. You had to harvest the fiber, rhett the flax if it’s flax, spin the fiber, dye the fiber, weave the fiber–hours upon hours upon hours of work for each item.

And it’s women’s work, I added.

Peter’s eyes flew wide as he saw where I was going with this. I didn’t have to say, Did they ask their wives’ okay for such back in their day? Did they mend the clothes afterwards? Who? Did they help out with the work to make the replacements?

So what I did add was, So tearing your clothing was like tearing your heart open to all the world to see. Because everybody knew. They knew.

“I hadn’t thought of all that,” he answered.