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Tallit and Tsitsit: An Explanation

Written by Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Romain Thursday, 16 September 2010

Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Romain of Maidenhead Synagogue addresses your questions. This week's question: Having just got out my tallit for Yom Kippur and my annual visit to synagogue, can you tell me what is the significance to the complicated weave of knots and threads on a tallit?

When thinking of a tallit, most people concentrate on the large piece of cloth itself, but it is the fringes (in Hebrew: tsitsit) that turn it from being any four corned piece of cloth into a tallit or prayer shawl. Whereas some Jewish rituals are relatively late in Judaism - such as wearing a head-covering or lighting Shabbat candles on a Friday night - the fringes go right back to the Bible and are found in Numbers 15.39 where the Israelites are instructed to attach fringes to the four corners of any four-cornered garments that they wore. The purpose was that "you shall look at them and remember the commandments of the Lord". They were reminders of Jewish identity and obligations, akin to us tying a knot in our handkerchief in modern times.

When it no longer became customary to wear four-cornered garments (most of our clothes today are two-cornered or without corners), the tallit was developed specifically so as to enable one to fulfil the mitzvah of attaching the fringes. The fringes are tied (and interpreted) in the following manner : four threads are put in each hole and doubled over, making eight (the eight days from leaving Egypt and reaching the Red Sea); five knots are made (the five books of Moses); inbetween the knots one of the threads is wound around the others thirty nine times in total (the numerical value of the Hebrew letters in the phrase: 'Adonai echad' - 'the Eternal is One'). Those who wish to wear the fringes not only at prayer time but throughout the day can wear the 'arba kanfot' - an undervest with four corners. Traditionally, a tallit is worn at morning services only, with the exception of Kol Nidrei, although the person leading other services also wears it. Being a positive time-bound mitzvah, it falls into the category of observances from which women are exempt according to Orthodoxy. However, Reform does not accept this as being applicable any more and sees the tallit as equally open for women to wear.