Draft. This siddur is waiting for a rav's review. For a halachic question, ask your rav.
Hebrew, then English. Open "What it means" under any line for the explanation.
Before putting on your tallit katan (the small four-cornered garment with tzitzit, worn all day):
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר קִדְּשָׁנוּ בְּמִצְוֹתָיו וְצִוָּנוּ עַל מִצְוַת צִיצִית.
Blessed are You, Hashem our God, King of the world who made us holy with His commandments and commanded us about the mitzvah of tzitzit
On the big tallit the blessing ends "to wrap ourselves in tzitzit." The small one is worn, not wrapped around you. The Shulchan Aruch (the main code of Jewish law) says you may still say "to wrap." The Rema (Rabbi Moshe Isserles, who added Ashkenazi practice to it) records the custom to say "about the mitzvah of tzitzit" and adds: do not change it.
Shulchan Aruch and Rema, Orach Chaim 8:5-6; Mishnah Berurah 8:17After it is on:
יְהִי רָצוֹן מִלְּפָנֶיךָ יְיָ אֱלֹהַי וֵאלֹהֵי אֲבוֹתַי שֶׁתְּהֵא חֲשׁוּבָה מִצְוַת צִיצִית לְפָנֶיךָ כְּאִלּוּ קִיַּמְתִּיהָ בְּכָל פְּרָטֶיהָ וְדִקְדּוּקֶיהָ וְכַוָּנוֹתֶיהָ וְתַרְיַ"ג מִצְווֹת הַתְּלוּיוֹת בָּהּ, אָמֵן סֶלָה.
May it be Your will Hashem, my God and God of my ancestors that the mitzvah of tzitzit be counted before You as if I had kept it in all its details, fine points and intentions along with the 613 mitzvot that depend on it Amen, selah.
The same closing words are said before tefillin. But tzitzit has its own tie to 613. Rashi on Bamidbar 15:39: the letters of tzitzit add up to 600, plus 8 strings and 5 knots.
Rashi on Bamidbar 15:39Say the blessing standing, right before you put the tallit katan on. As it goes on, have in mind that God commanded this so that we remember all His mitzvot and do them. If you are already wearing it, or you will put on a big tallit soon, the Halacha section says what to do.
Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 8:1 and 8:8; Mishnah Berurah 8:2The Torah requires tzitzit only on a garment with four corners. Most clothes today have none, so you could go your whole life without ever being obligated. The Shulchan Aruch (the main code of Jewish law) says so directly. Then it adds that it is good and right for everyone to wear a small tallit all day anyway, to remember the mitzvot at every moment. The small tallit exists so that you can opt in.
Devarim 22:12; Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 24:1The Gemara tells of Rav Ketina, one of its sages, who wore a linen wrap in summer and a cloak in winter, clothes that did not need tzitzit. An angel met him and said: Ketina, Ketina, what will become of tzitzit? Rav Ketina asked: do you punish people for skipping a positive mitzvah, a command to do something? The angel answered: in a time of anger, we do. The Gemara explains the angel's point: are you looking for tricks to get yourself out of tzitzit?
Menachot 41aThe Tur (a code of Jewish law written in Spain in the 1300s) compares tzitzit to a knot tied in a belt so that a person will not forget something. The point of this mitzvah is remembering the mitzvot, he says, and a person needs that at every hour and every moment. He adds: five knots for the five books of the Torah, and four corners so that whichever way you turn, you remember.
Tur, Orach Chaim 24Rashi (the most widely studied commentator on the Torah, who lived in France in the 1000s) gives two explanations. One: it means threads that hang, like a lock of hair. The prophet Yechezkel says a hand took him "by the tzitzit of my head." Two: it comes from a word for looking, as in Shir HaShirim (Song of Songs), "peering through the lattice." So tzitzit are either the things that hang or the things you look at. The Torah's next words fit the second: "You will see it."
Rashi on Bamidbar 15:38The Torah says to put a thread of techelet, a sky-blue dye, on each corner. Look at most tzitzit today and they are all white. The Midrash already says: now we have only white, because the techelet was hidden away. Sefer HaChinukh (a book from Spain in the 1200s that explains each mitzvah) wrote that it had been a long time since anyone was heard to have it. The Mishnah rules that the white strings count without the blue, so the blessing is still said.
Bamidbar 15:38; Bamidbar Rabbah 17:5; Mishnah Menachot 4:1; Sefer HaChinukh 386The Gemara's blessing for tzitzit is "to wrap ourselves in tzitzit." Rav Yehuda, one of its sages, said it every morning, and it is still the blessing on the big tallit. But a small tallit is not wrapped around you. You just put it on. The Shulchan Aruch allows the old wording even so. The Rema (Rabbi Moshe Isserles of Krakow, whose notes on the Shulchan Aruch record Ashkenazi practice) records another: "about the mitzvah of tzitzit." He adds: this is the custom and it should not be changed.
Menachot 43a; Rema, Orach Chaim 8:6; Mishnah Berurah 8:17After the blessing comes a short request: may this mitzvah count "as if I had kept it in all its details, fine points and intentions." The words "as if" are honest. They do not assume you got everything right. The same words close the declaration said before the big tallit.
Siddur SefardThe Torah gives the reason for tzitzit in one line: "You will see it, and remember all the mitzvot of Hashem, and do them, and you will not go exploring after your heart and after your eyes." That is a big claim for a few strings.
The Gemara reads the verse as a chain. Seeing leads to remembering. Remembering leads to doing. Rashi, the classic Torah commentator, explains what tzitzit is up against: the heart and the eyes are the body's spies. The eye sees, the heart wants, and the body does it. The Torah's answer is to give the eye something else to see.
Sefer HaChinukh (a book from Spain in the 1200s that explains each mitzvah) compares it to wearing your master's seal fixed to the clothes you always have on. Your eyes and your mind keep landing on it all day. Nothing in the world, he says, works better as a reminder.
Does it work? The Gemara tells one story, and it is not a polite one. A man who was careful about tzitzit heard of a prostitute overseas who charged four hundred gold coins. He sent the money and made the trip. At the last moment his four tzitzit slapped him in the face. He slid to the floor and sat there. She demanded to know what was wrong with her. Nothing, he said. But there is a mitzvah called tzitzit, and just now the four of them looked to him like four witnesses.
The story does not say tzitzit stopped him from wanting to go. He paid, he traveled, he walked in. It says that when they hit him in the face, he remembered. The Gemara ends: she gave away most of what she owned, came to Rabbi Chiya's study hall, converted, and married the man from the story.
The Shulchan Aruch (the main code of Jewish law) says that when you put tzitzit on, you should have in mind that God commanded this so that we remember all His mitzvot and do them. A reminder only works if you know what it is reminding you of.
Bamidbar 15:39,Menachot 43b,Rashi on Bamidbar 15:39,Sefer HaChinukh 386,Menachot 44a,Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 8:8The second paragraph mentions "the 613 mitzvot that depend on it." The best-known explanation is a calculation. Rashi, the classic Torah commentator, brings it, and it also appears in the Midrash: the letters of the word tzitzit add up to 600. Add the 8 strings and 5 knots on a corner and you get 613, the number of mitzvot in the Torah.
The Ramban (Nachmanides, a leading Torah commentator in Spain in the 1200s) checked the numbers and wrote: "I did not understand this." In the Torah the word is spelled without its second letter yud, so it adds up to only 590. And by his reading of the Gemara, the Torah itself requires fewer strings and fewer knots than that.
There is an answer to the spelling problem. The Tur (a code of Jewish law from Spain in the 1300s) quotes it from a midrash: the word appears three times in the passage, and one of those times it has the letter lamed in front, which equals 30. Split the 30 three ways and each word gets its missing 10.
Siftei Chakhamim (a commentary on Rashi from the 1600s) takes up the strings and knots. He says outright that the Torah did not have this count in mind. The rule of exactly five knots, no more and no less, was set afterward, he writes, so that the total would come to 613 and seeing the strings and knots would do a better job of reminding you of all the mitzvot. So the math was built in on purpose, by a later rule and not by the verse.
The Ramban himself went another way. For him the reminder is in the blue thread. He points to the Gemara's line that this blue looks like the sea, the sea looks like the sky, and the sky looks like God's throne.
Either way, the idea does not depend on the arithmetic. The Gemara says tzitzit is "weighed against all the mitzvot" without any numbers. It learns that straight from the verse: see it, and remember all the mitzvot of Hashem.
Rashi on Bamidbar 15:39,Midrash Tanchuma, Korach 12,Ramban on Bamidbar 15:32,Tur, Orach Chaim 24,Siftei Chakhamim on Bamidbar 15:39,Menachot 43bIt was not obvious, and the Sages argued about it. One teaching in the Gemara lists everyone who is obligated in tzitzit, and the list includes women. Rabbi Shimon disagrees and exempts them.
His reason comes from the words "you will see it." Clothing for the night, when you cannot see, is exempt. That makes tzitzit a mitzvah tied to a time of day, and the general rule is that women are exempt from positive mitzvot (commands to do something) that depend on time.
The other view was not only theory. The Gemara reports that Rav Yehuda attached tzitzit, blue thread included, to his wife's garment.
The law follows Rabbi Shimon. The Shulchan Aruch (the main code of Jewish law) rules that women are exempt. Can a woman choose to wear them anyway? The Rambam (Maimonides, the great codifier of the 1100s) writes that women who want to wrap themselves in tzitzit do so without a blessing.
The Rema (Rabbi Moshe Isserles of Krakow, whose notes on the Shulchan Aruch record Ashkenazi practice) agrees that in principle a woman may wear tzitzit, and even say the blessing. But he writes that it looks like yuhara, a show of extra piety, and so women should not. His reason: tzitzit is not a duty on the person. Even a man does not have to buy a four-cornered garment in order to become obligated.
That became the accepted practice. The Aruch HaShulchan (a code of Jewish law from around 1900) writes: this is the custom, and it should not be changed. If that leaves you with questions, the question itself is old. The Gemara records both views.
Menachot 43a,Shulchan Aruch and Rema, Orach Chaim 17:2,Rambam, Laws of Tzitzit 3:9,Aruch HaShulchan, Orach Chaim 17:3Short ideas from the Chassidic masters, the Kabbalah and the Mussar teachers.
Rav Kook (the first Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel, who died in 1935) reads the garment as a picture of a person. Your deepest self is hidden. Nobody sees it directly. What shows is your character. He calls a person's traits "the clothing of the soul." And what you actually do comes out at the far edges of your character, the way strings come out of the corners of a garment. Those strings, he says, are the mitzvot of the whole Torah: the place where who you are turns into what you do.
המדות הנפשיות כולן, הנן לבושי הנפש... יוצאים הם המעשים מתוך הכנפים הקיצוניות של המדות
Rav Kook, Olat Re'iyah, on TzitzitThe Zohar (the central book of Kabbalah) says God made many witnesses that stand facing a person. You get up and take a step, and they call out a verse: "Guard your foot when you walk." You open your eyes: "Let your eyes look straight ahead." You start to speak: "Guard your tongue from evil." Ignore them, and they testify against you. Try to serve God, and the same witnesses speak up for you when you need it. Then the Zohar comes to tzitzit: "four true witnesses of the King," hanging from the four corners of your garment.
אַרְבַּע סַהֲדֵי קְשׁוֹט דְּמַלְכָּא, תַּלְיָיא מֵאַרְבַּע זִיוְיָין
Zohar, Parashat ShelachRabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk, one of the early Chassidic masters, reads the tzitzit verse as a lesson in how to live. He takes the word tzitzit as "looking." Look, he says, at what is missing in your mitzvot. He is blunt about it: when a person does a mitzvah, it is impossible that nothing is missing from it. But when you see the gap, and it shakes you enough to cry out to God, then God in His mercy counts the mitzvah "as if he did it as commanded, with nothing missing." Now read the short prayer after the blessing again.
בעשותו מצוה בלתי אפשרי שלא יחסר בה קצת... מעלה עליו כאילו עשאה כמצותה בלי שום חסרון
Noam Elimelech, Parashat ShelachThere are two garments with tzitzit: the big tallit for prayer, and the small one, which this blessing is for. Rav Kook says the small one has its own job. It is the private one. He writes that the small tallit is "alone with a person," worn modestly, tied to his private self. With it, "a person is alone with his soul," and the blessing is said as "inner thanks." The big tallit comes after. Once a person has taken in the light that fits his small, private self, he writes, the soul is ready to rise to something wider.
הטלית הקטן, המתיחד עם האדם בהתלבשותו הצנועה, המתאגדת עמו בפרטיותו
Rav Kook, Olat Re'iyah, on TzitzitOn the tzitzit verses, the Midrash (Bamidbar Rabbah, rabbinic teachings on the book of Bamidbar) tells of a person thrown into the water. The captain holds out a rope: "Grab this and do not let go. If you let go, you have no life." The rope is the mitzvot. The Sefat Emet (Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter of Ger, a Chassidic master who died in 1905) passes on what his grandfather used to say: the Torah gives life to the one who knows that his life comes only from it. The Sefat Emet adds: a person should always see himself as the one drowning.
התורה נותנת חיים למי שיודע שעיקר החיות רק מהתורה
Sefat Emet, Parashat Shelach, on Bamidbar Rabbah 17:6The practical laws. For a final ruling, ask your rav.
Strictly, no. The Shulchan Aruch (the main code of Jewish law) rules that someone who is not wearing a four-cornered garment is not obligated in tzitzit. Then it adds: it is good and right for everyone to wear a tallit katan (the small four-cornered garment) all day, to remember the mitzvot at every moment.
Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 24:1The Mishnah Berurah (a central commentary on Jewish law, from around 1900) says the custom in his time was not to. The blessing on the big tallit covers the small one if you have it in mind. Saying both back to back, he writes, makes one unnecessary. The Aruch HaShulchan (a law code from the same years) says a real break, like walking to shul, changes that. If you wear no big tallit, like most Ashkenazim before marriage, the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (a short 1860s law guide) rules: say this blessing on the small one.
Mishnah Berurah 8:24; Aruch HaShulchan, Orach Chaim 8:18; Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 9:9No. Three checks. Size: the Mishnah Berurah says no blessing unless the tallit katan is at least three-quarters of an amah long, front and back (an amah is 18 to 24 inches; views differ), not counting the neck hole, with the sides mostly open. Fabric: Peninei Halakhah (a modern law guide by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed) writes: no blessing on nylon or polyester, like mesh tzitzit, since it is disputed whether that fabric needs tzitzit. Strings: the Shulchan Aruch says to check them first, so the blessing is not in vain.
Mishnah Berurah 8:17; Peninei Halakhah, Likkutim I 8:6; Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 8:9If you got dressed before washing your hands, the Shulchan Aruch says to put them on without the blessing. Once you wash, take hold of the strings and say it. The Rema (Rabbi Moshe Isserles, who added Ashkenazi practice to it) rules the same for dressing before daybreak. If you slept in them, it is disputed. The Shulchan Aruch says to say it in the morning. The Mishnah Berurah notes that some disagree, and a blessing in doubt is not said. The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch rules: no blessing on a tallit katan you slept in.
Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 8:10, 8:16; Rema, Orach Chaim 18:3; Mishnah Berurah 8:42; Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 9:9It depends what you had in mind when you took them off. The Shulchan Aruch requires a new blessing every time. The Rema cites a view that you do not if you meant to put them right back on. The Mishnah Berurah says the later authorities rule that way, even if you went elsewhere in between. But if you meant to leave them off for a while, you say it again. The Shulchan Aruch HaRav (the first Chabad Rebbe's code of law) gives the example of a few hours.
Shulchan Aruch and Rema, Orach Chaim 8:14; Mishnah Berurah 8:37; Shulchan Aruch HaRav, Orach Chaim 8:23The Shulchan Aruch says a tallit katan is best worn over your clothes, so you always see it. The Arizal (Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, the 1500s Kabbalist of Tzfat) wore his underneath, and the Aruch HaShulchan says the custom is not to wear it on top. The strings: the Magen Avraham (a 1600s commentary) says they should be out, and the Mishnah Berurah and Shulchan Aruch HaRav agree. Many Sephardim, following the Arizal, keep them in. Even if you tuck them in, the Mishnah Berurah adds, have them out for the blessing.
Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 8:11; Mishnah Berurah 8:25; Aruch HaShulchan 8:17; Peninei Halakhah, Likkutim I 8:4Women are exempt. The Shulchan Aruch explains that tzitzit is a mitzvah tied to time: it applies by day, not at night. The Rema writes that a woman who wants to wear tzitzit and say the blessing may, as with other time-bound mitzvot. But, he adds, it looks like a show of extra piety, so women should not, since even a man need not go get a four-cornered garment. The Aruch HaShulchan writes that this is the custom and should not change. Peninei Halakhah writes that a woman who wants to may wear a tallit in private.
Shulchan Aruch and Rema, Orach Chaim 17:2; Aruch HaShulchan, Orach Chaim 17:3; Peninei Halakhah, Likkutim I 8:8וְעָשׂוּ לָהֶם צִיצִת עַל־כַּנְפֵי בִגְדֵיהֶם לְדֹרֹתָם וְנָתְנוּ עַל־צִיצִת הַכָּנָף פְּתִיל תְּכֵלֶת׃ וְהָיָה לָכֶם לְצִיצִת וּרְאִיתֶם אֹתוֹ וּזְכַרְתֶּם אֶת־כָּל־מִצְוֺת ה׳ וַעֲשִׂיתֶם אֹתָם וְלֹא־תָתֻרוּ אַחֲרֵי לְבַבְכֶם וְאַחֲרֵי עֵינֵיכֶם
They shall make tzitzit for themselves on the corners of their clothes, in every generation, and put a thread of blue on the tzitzit of each corner. It will be tzitzit for you: you will see it, and remember all the mitzvot of Hashem, and do them, and you will not go exploring after your heart and after your eyes.
שְׁקוּלָה מִצְוָה זוֹ כְּנֶגֶד כׇּל הַמִּצְוֹת כּוּלָּן ... רְאִיָּה מְבִיאָה לִידֵי זְכִירָה, זְכִירָה מְבִיאָה לִידֵי עֲשִׂיָּה.
This mitzvah is weighed against all the mitzvot together... Seeing leads to remembering. Remembering leads to doing.
שֶׁמִּנְיַן גִּימַטְרִיָּא שֶׁל צִיצִית שֵׁשׁ מֵאוֹת, וּשְׁמוֹנָה חוּטִין וַחֲמִשָּׁה קְשָׁרִים הֲרֵי תרי"ג.
The letters of the word tzitzit add up to six hundred. With eight strings and five knots, that makes 613.
וְלֹא הֲבִינוֹתִי זֶה, שֶׁהַצִּיצִת בַּתּוֹרָה חָסֵר יוֹ״ד, וְאֵין מִנְיָנָם אֶלָּא חֲמֵשׁ מֵאוֹת וְתִשְׁעִים.
I did not understand this. In the Torah the word tzitzit is written missing a yud, so it adds up to only five hundred and ninety.
אם אין אדם לובש טלית בת ארבע כנפות אינו חייב בציצית וטוב ונכון להיות כל אדם זהיר ללבוש טלית קטן כל היום כדי שיזכיר המצות בכל רגע.
If a person does not wear a four-cornered garment, he is not obligated in tzitzit. But it is good and right for everyone to be careful to wear a small tallit all day, so that he remembers the mitzvot at every moment.
קַטִּינָא, קַטִּינָא! סְדִינָא בְּקַיְיטָא וְסַרְבָּלָא בְּסִיתְוָא, צִיצִית שֶׁל תְּכֵלֶת מָה תְּהֵא עָלֶיהָ? ... טַצְדְּקֵי לְמִיפְטַר נַפְשָׁךְ מִצִּיצִית?
Ketina, Ketina. A linen wrap in summer and a cloak in winter: what will become of tzitzit and its blue thread? ... Are you looking for tricks to exempt yourself from tzitzit?
כי עיקר מצותה על זכירת המצות ובכל שעה ובכל רגע צריך לכך דוגמא לדבר כאדם המזהיר לחבירו על ענין אחד שקושר קשר באזורו כדי שיזכרנו.
The main point of this mitzvah is remembering the mitzvot, and a person needs that at every hour and every moment. It is like a person who warns his friend about something and ties a knot in his belt so that he will remember it.
וְאֵין דָּבָר בָּעוֹלָם יוֹתֵר טוֹב לְזִכָּרוֹן, כְּמוֹ נוֹשֵׂא חוֹתָם אֲדוֹנָיו קָבוּעַ בִּכְסוּתוֹ אֲשֶׁר יְכַסֶּה בָּהּ תָּמִיד, וְעֵינָיו וְלִבּוֹ עָלָיו כָּל הַיּוֹם.
Nothing in the world works better as a reminder than wearing your master's seal fixed to the clothing you always have on, so that your eyes and your heart are on it all day.
מִצְוָה אַחַת צִיוָּנוּ ה׳ אֱלֹהֵינוּ וְצִיצִית שְׁמָהּ ... עַכְשָׁיו נִדְמוּ עָלַי כְּאַרְבָּעָה עֵדִים.
There is one mitzvah that Hashem our God commanded us, and its name is tzitzit... Just now they looked to me like four witnesses.
הַכֹּל חַיָּיבִין בְּצִיצִית, כֹּהֲנִים, לְוִיִּם וְיִשְׂרְאֵלִים, גֵּרִים, נָשִׁים וַעֲבָדִים. רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן פּוֹטֵר בְּנָשִׁים, מִפְּנֵי שֶׁמִּצְוַת עֲשֵׂה שֶׁהַזְּמַן גְּרָמָאּ הוּא.
Everyone is obligated in tzitzit: priests, Levites and Israelites, converts, women and slaves. Rabbi Shimon exempts women, because it is a positive mitzvah that depends on time.
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