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Hand Painted TallitBeautifully Designed Tallit Sets by Joan Richman"Your worship and beliefs are very personal, your tallit should be also." |
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Definition of Tallit and Reason it is WornIn the Torah it says, "The Lord spake unto Moses, saying: Speak unto the children of Israel and instruct them to make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments...look at it and recall all the commandments of the Lord and observe them..." A tallit (talit, tallis, talis) is a prayer shawl. It is a rectangular piece of material with reinforced holes at the 4 corners. Into the holes special fringes or tassels (called tzitzit or tzitzis) are inserted and knotted in a prescribed way - sort of a macrame. The sole purpose of the prayer shawl material is to hold the tzitzit (tzitzis). The prayer shawl (tallit, talit, tallis, talis) also has an Atarah. The Atarah is a neckband which can have anything on it including writing, a design or picture, but most usual is an embroidery of the blessing recited when putting on the tallit or the last few words of the prayer. The Atarah also identifies the top of the tallit. The prayer recited and transliterated while putting on a tallit is Ba-ruch At-tah A-do-nai e-lo-hay-nu me-lech ha-o-lam a-sher ki-di-sha-nu b mitz-vo-tav v-tzi-va-nu lhee-ta-tayf ba-tzi-tzit which means Blessed are You, Lord, our God, Ruler of the universe Who makes us holy with commandments, and has commanded us to wrap ourselves in the tzitzit. Different Pronunciations of Same WordSince Hebrew has different characters, when it is transliterated to English, there may be several spellings for one Hebrew word. For example, tallit, which means prayer shawl, can also be spelled talit, talis or tallis and the plurals respectively are tallitot, talitot, taleisim or talleisim. Along the same line of thought, until more recently, the most common pronunciation was bas mitzvah, whereas now, it is bat mitzvah (coming of age ceremony for a girl to be welcomed into womanhood). The Hebrew language uses dots and dashes to represent vowels, since there are no vowel "letters" or characters. The Torah does not have any dots or dashes written in it. Also there are letters that are only differentiated by a dot. The Hebrew letters s and t are identical except for a dot (so are b and v), so one can see where some words would be pronounced in more than one way. Hebrew used in a Yiddish context or the Ashkenazic pronunciation often has the t sound changed to the softer s sound. This is the older and mor e Orthodox way. The more modern Aramaic pronunciation used in Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism has the t sound instead of the s. Find out more information about the Hebrew Alphabet. Symbolism of a TallitThere are many interpretations as to why the tzitzit are tied with a double knot and seven winds (or coils), followed by a double knot and 8 winds, followed by another double knot and 11 winds, followed by another double knot and 13 winds, and then another double knot. The winds are made with one of the strings which is double the length of the others and called the Shammash. The number of coils are interpreted and most interpretations conclude the windings are telling us God is One. For more information see:
Tallit Talk
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