What is, “your garments did not become worn out from upon you”? Rabbi Yosei bar Ḥanina said: What was upon them did not wear out, but what they had in their trunks became worn out. Another matter: “Your garments did not become worn out” – Rabbi Elazar son of Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai asked Rabbi Shimon ben Yosei, his father-in-law: ‘Were there looms that departed with Israel in the wilderness?’ He said to him: ‘Those garments that were on them were what the ministering angels dressed them [in] at Sinai; that is why they did not become worn out.’
He said to him: ‘Did they not grow, and the garments became small on them?’ He said to him: ‘Do not wonder about this, as the snail, when it grows, its shell grows with it.’ He said to him: ‘But did they not need laundering?’ He said to him: ‘The cloud would rub them and whiten them.’
He said to him: ‘Were they not burned by the cloud that is fire?’ He said to him: ‘Do not wonder about this. This asbestos is cleansed only with fire; so too, these garments, which were heavenly products, the cloud would rub them and not harm them.’ He said to him: ‘But did they not produce clothes moths?’
He said to him: ‘After their death, maggots did not touch them; during their lifetime all the more so.’ He said to him: ‘But did they not have a foul odor due to perspiration?’ He said to him: ‘They would frolic in the grass meadows of the well, and their scent would waft throughout the world.’ From where is it derived?
It is as it is stated: “The scent of your garments is like the scent of Lebanon” (Song of Songs 4:11). All this goodness, from where was it? It was from “a garden spring, a well of spring water” (Song of Songs 4:15).