Tallit

Wrapped like a prayer leader

The Gemara pictures God Himself wrapped like a prayer leader. Rabbi Yochanan, the sage who taught this, starts with a warning: if the verse did not say it, it would be impossible to say. The scene is the moment after the sin of the golden calf when God teaches Moshe the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy, the lines we repeat on Yom Kippur. God shows him the order of prayer and says: whenever Israel sins, let them do this order before Me, and I will forgive them. The next card says what this has to do with your tallit.

What light has to do with a tallit

Before the blessing you say two verses from Tehillim about God: dressed in glory and splendor, wrapped in light like a cloak. What does that have to do with a tallit? Rabbeinu Bachya (a Torah commentator in Spain around 1300) links the two. When the Gemara says God "wrapped Himself," he writes, it means in white, as the second verse says. The Torah tells us to walk in God's ways. So we wrap in a white tallit, which he calls a sign of forgiveness.

The blessing says wrap, not wear

The Gemara gives a blessing for each step of the morning: washing your hands, putting on tefillin, and this one. "When he wraps himself in tzitzit, he says: who commanded us to wrap ourselves in tzitzit." You still say those words. The verb is to wrap, not to wear. That is why, right after the blessing, the custom is to pull the tallit over your head and stand wrapped for as long as it takes to walk four amot (a few steps). That is when you say Mah Yakar.

The corners are called wings

The Torah's word for the corner of a garment is kanaf, which also means wing. A tallit has four. Under it you say: "Human beings take shelter in the shadow of Your wings." The paragraph before the blessing asks that the tallit spread its wings over your soul "like an eagle that stirs its nest and hovers over its young."

Not until the wedding?

If you have seen a shul where only married men wear a tallit, here is why. The Maharil (a rabbi in Germany about 600 years ago) recorded a custom that boys did not wrap in tzitzit until they married. The hint: the Torah's command to make fringes is followed by "When a man takes a wife." The Mishnah Berurah (a central commentary on daily Jewish law, around 1900) calls this puzzling: from 13 a boy is obligated like an adult. Still, the Shulchan Aruch rules that the small tallit, the tallit katan, fulfills the mitzvah.

The first light, worn like a tallit

The Zohar (the central book of Kabbalah) says the first light God created let Adam see from one end of the world to the other. When God saw that wicked generations were coming, He hid it. God gave it to Moshe. From Mount Sinai on he had it all his life, and the people could not come near him until he covered his face. The Zohar says he wrapped himself in that light like a tallit, and it quotes the verse you say here: "wrapped in light like a cloak."

וְאִתְעַטַּף בֵּיהּ כְּטַלִּית. הֲדָא הוּא דִכְתִיב... עוֹטֶה אוֹר כַּשַּׂלְמָה.

A robe made of days

The prayer asks for a "robe of the rabbis" in the next world. The Zohar uses that name for the garment a soul wears there. In another place it says what the soul's garments are made of: days. The days a person lived well are kept with God and become "garments of honor." A day spoiled by sin is missing from the garment. The Zohar reads the verse about Avraham, "he came into days," this way: when he left this world he entered his own days and wore them, with nothing missing.

זַכָּאִין אִינוּן צַדִּיקַיָא, דְּיוֹמֵיהוֹן כֻּלְּהוֹן טְמִירִין אִינוּן לְגַבֵּיהּ דְּמַלְכָּא קַדִּישָׁא, וְאִתְעֲבִיד מִנַּיְיהוּ לְבוּשֵׁי יְקָר, לְאִתְלַבְּשָׁא בְּהוּ בְּעַלְמָא דְאָתֵי.

Saying more than you feel

"For the sake of uniting" is a big thing to announce before a mitzvah. The Tanya (the basic book of Chabad Chassidut, by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi) explains the line and then admits a problem. To mean it fully, your heart would need great love for God alone: wanting only to give God pleasure, not even to satisfy your own thirst for Him. His answer is that everyone should practice this intention anyway. Even if it is not completely true in your heart, he writes, a small part of your heart does want it for real.

כִּי אַף שֶׁאֵינָהּ בֶּאֱמֶת לַאֲמִיתּוֹ לְגַמְרֵי בְּלִבּוֹ שֶׁיַּחְפּוֹץ בָּזֶה בְּכָל לִבּוֹ, מִכָּל מָקוֹם, מְעַט מִזְּעֵר חָפֵץ לִבּוֹ בָּזֶה בֶּאֱמֶת

When how much pushes out how good

The prayer asks that your soul and your prayer be saved from "the outside forces." Rav Kook (the first Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel, who died in 1935) explains what happens when the outside takes over. Life sinks into quantity, and quantity cancels quality. The mind chases how much and how many, and what you want gets filled only by outside goals. When holiness grows, he writes, the inside rises and quality flows from its source like a spring that keeps getting stronger. The corners of the tallit keep the eyes from straying out there.

הרעיון תוהה אחרי מרחבים כמותיים, והתוכן של מילוי הרצון בא ומתמלא רק משאיפות חיצוניות... והאיכות מתחלת להיות נובעת ממקורה כמעין המתגבר.

An opening the size of a needle's point

One explanation Rashi (the main Torah commentator) gives for the word tzitzit is looking, as in the verse "peering through the lattice." The Sefat Emet (Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter of Ger, a Chassidic master who died in 1905) built on that in 1904. A person, he says, has to leave an opening for the soul to shine in the body. He quotes the Sages: open for Me like the point of a needle, and I will open for you like the door of the Temple hall. "Make tzitzit" is your opening. "It will be tzitzit for you" is the one opened from Heaven.

שצריך איש ישראל להניח מקום ופתח שתאיר הנשמה בגוף... ועשו להם ציצית הפתח שיהי' מציץ מן החרכים... והי' לכם לציצית הוא הפתח שנפתח מן השמים.

Who wears a tallit, and from what age?

Communities differ. The Shulchan Aruch (the main code of Jewish law) has a father get his son tzitzit once he can wrap himself. Waiting for a tallit until marriage was the Rhineland custom, recorded about 600 years ago in Sefer Maharil, a book of German customs. Its writer had worn one in other lands since his bar mitzvah. The Mishnah Berurah (a central commentary on Jewish law, around 1900) calls the wait puzzling: from 13 a boy is obligated like an adult. Others note that Rhineland boys did wear a small tallit.

Do girls wear a tallit?

The rule is the same as for tzitzit (see Tzitzit): women are exempt, the Rema writes that they should not, and Peninei Halakhah (a modern law guide by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed) rules that a woman who wants to may, in private.

How do I actually put it on?

Stand, hold the tallit unfolded, say the blessing, and wrap. The Mishnah Berurah: cover your head down to the mouth and throw all four corners over to your left side, for the time it takes to walk four amot, a few steps. The Chabad siddur (arranged by the first Chabad Rebbe): bring the two right corners around your neck to the back, leave the two left ones in front, and you need not cover down to the mouth. Afterward, says the Shulchan Aruch, two corners go in front and two behind, so commandments surround you.

Do I keep it over my head?

The Shulchan Aruch calls it proper to cover your head with the tallit, and the Chabad siddur wants head and body wrapped for the whole prayer. The Mishnah Berurah notes that in the Gemara an unmarried man did not cover his head with it. The Kaf HaChaim (a Sephardic law commentary from the early 1900s) records that customs differ, even inside one congregation, and nobody objects. All agree, the Mishnah Berurah writes, that a tallit folded and hung around the neck like a scarf does not fulfill the commandment.

I am late. Can I skip checking the strings?

The Shulchan Aruch says to look over the strings before the blessing, so that it is not said for nothing. But if checking would make you miss praying with the congregation, the Mishnah Berurah rules that you may put it on unchecked, as long as you know the strings were whole yesterday. If you checked it when you took it off and put it in its bag, you need not check again. The Aruch HaShulchan (a law code from around 1900) goes further: checking is an act of piety, and if the congregation is praying you skip it.

It fell off, or I took it off for a minute. Blessing again?

If you took it off meaning to put it right back on, and did: no. The Shulchan Aruch does require a new blessing, but the Rema cites the view that you do not, and the Mishnah Berurah rules that way, even for a bathroom trip. So do the Ben Ish Chai (a Sephardic law book by Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Baghdad, 1890s) and the Shulchan Aruch HaRav (the code of law of the first Chabad Rebbe). If it fell off completely by accident, the Shulchan Aruch says you do say the blessing again, but not if part of it stayed on you.

Can I use a friend's tallit, or the synagogue's?

Yes. The Shulchan Aruch allows taking a friend's tallit and saying the blessing on it, if you fold it back as you found it. The Mishnah Berurah limits this to once in a while, in the place where it was left, and says to ask if the owner is there. If you borrow one only to be called up to the Torah or to lead the prayers, he reports the custom not to say the blessing. A synagogue's own tallit is different, he rules: on it you do say the blessing even then, since it was bought to belong to whoever wears it.