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Back to Question of the Week Q: When I put on my kippah, I am inviting and acknowledging the transformation into sacred time and space, and I feel the humility that we can only fully experience in God's presence, as we enter God's house of worship for personal and community spirituality. When I wear my tallit, I am doing the same, plus I treat myself to being "wrapped" in God's Torah and the closeness to God that the tallit creates for me. Also, I was taught that both the kippah and tallit make all of us humans one and the same in God's eyes as God "looks down onto us", in that those physical things that could separate us and "rank" us one from another, i.e. jewelry, fancy clothes, are covered now by our "uniform", devotion to God. I'd like to learn your comments on the tallit? Nancy |
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A: Thank you for your beautiful words about kippah and tallit. Let's get everybody up to speed on the what, why's and wherefore's of tallit, and then I'll share some interpretations (one of which, Nancy, you've already heard! Sorry.). The textual origin of the tallit is in the following paragraph from the Torah (Numbers 15:37-41):
So we're supposed to have fringes (="tsitsit") on the corners of our garments, with a tekhelet-blue thread. Just three problems (1) most of us don't wear garments with corners, and (2) what's tekhelet-blue, and (3) what do fringes have to do with God's mitsvot? Number (1) is the "problem" that is solved by a tallit -- a sort of shawl with four corners on which to put tsitsit -- fringes. According to traditional Jewish law, no one has to wear a tallit, but it would be a shame to not actively observe one of the commandments, given the simple opportunity. In fact, it would be embarrassing, says Rambam, for someone with Torah-learning to be seen praying the morning-prayers without a tallit. (The traditional halakhah doesn't consider women to be obligated to put tsitsit on their garments, but all medieval halakhists agreed that they may do so if they wish. Rabbenu Tam (1100-1171), the greatest halakhic decisor of his generation, taught that not only may women wear a tallit, but if they do, they should say the traditional blessing thanking God for commanding us to wrap ourselves intsitsit. Who knows what strange, modern innovations have led some contemporary Jews to object to the practice of women wearing tallit?!) Now what about this tekhelet-blue? It is a very high-quality sky-blue or sea-blue dye that is derived from a particular type of snail. For many, many centuries, there was no certified tekhelet available, so tsitsit were always white. I've heard that rabbinically certified tekhelet is now being sold in Israel. But here's a cautionary tale. There are two versions of the story of why tekhelet stopped being sold in the first place. One is simply that we lost track of which snail was the correct source, and the claim is that now we've found it again. The other is that even when the snail was available, the rabbis outlawed tekhelet because the tekhelet business was so prone to scam artists! Anyway, tekhelet is a beautiful blue. Some say that it is blue like the firmament, which is like the throne of God. Others say it is a blue that "resembles the sea and the sea is like the grasses, and the grasses are like the trees, and the trees are like the firmament, and the firmament is like the radiance, and the radiance is like the rainbow, and the rainbow is like the [divine] image" (See Ezekiel, chapter 1.) Rabbi Hizkiyah said: When Israel is covered with tsitsit, they shouldn't consider themselves to be wearing tekhelet, but Israel should look at the tsitsit as if the beauty of the Shechinah was upon them. Apropos of Nancy's mention of our "uniform" when praying, there's a story (found in "Midrash Mishlei" 11:5 and elsewhere) about Korach (remember that famous Torah rebel from Numbers, Chapter 16?) taunting Moses by wearing a four-cornered cloak of all tekhelet (very expensive!) with no tsitsit. Moses said: "What's the story? What are you doing?" He said: "you said a little; I did a lot." Moses said to him: "Korakh, you've transgressed against the commandments of the Holy Blessed One, and become haughty in your wealth." This story brings up a question of the balance between two values of the tradition: It is traditional to make ritual objects beautiful; this is known as "hiddur mitsvah" -- the beautification of the mitsvah. This has become especially true for tallit since women have started wearing them (again?). But it is also traditional to make it possible for both rich and poor to feel that they are equal before God in performing mitsvot. Finally, how do the fringes, the tsitsit, help us to remember God and the mitsvot? We've seen one way: by the color of tekhelet. Let me offer two other explanations. The first is based on the ancient custom, in cultures which wrote on clay tablets, of "signing" documents with the imprint of a distinctive set of knots. The knots of the tsitsit, then, are a "signature," but not a distinctive one. They are a reminder that all Jews share in the responsibility for bearing God's name. They are a way to remind us, when we sign our names to a document or a cheque, or when we affect our own reputations -- our names -- through our deeds, that God's name is also on the line. (A similar idea is behind the practice in some Jewish communities of affixing the Hebrew letters Bet"Hei to the top of documents, to stand for "be'ezrat hashem" -- with the help of God.) Another explanation draws on the photosynthetic activity of trees and on the teaching of Saadia Gaon, the tenth century Jewish philosopher, scholar and communal leader. Saadia taught that the function of the mitsvot is to make the ideal real. That is, to take lovely, but amorphous notions such as justice, love, freedom, even God, and make them real in our lives. What does that have to do with tsitsit? Let me start by drawing an analogy to trees. Trees draw invisible, amorphous carbon dioxide out of the air and, with the help of sunlight and water, synthesize it into the carbohydrates that make up the very tangible leaves and wood of the tree. It is as if leaves were solidified air. I imagine the tsitsit to be something similar, as if they were the air surrounding the material of the tallit made into fringes. They make tangible that which is beyond the material. And that, as we saw, was what Saadia Gaon taught was the function of mitsvot: To ensure that that which is beyond the material does not become immaterial. written by Rabbi Jeremy Schwartz |
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