Getting Started on Rachel’s tallit

Rachel’s grandparents joined our synagogue about ten years ago as empty nesters. They are truly dear people who have really added a great deal to our community. They asked me to make a tallit for their granddaughter Rachel.

Rachel is a spunky sprite of a kid who owns a company making video photomontages for events.

Rachel is a kid who goes to Jewish day school and clearly has paid attention in school. Running through the texts was just easy . She’s opinionated- a character that I like a whole lot in a kid.

When one’s client is a twelve year old  there is often what I think of as the Malibu Barbie moment. A thematic or color whim, suddenly becomes really important for the client. My job is to direct that Malibu Barbie moment so the tallit will work for my client not just at age twelve but also as they  wear the tallit ten or more years after the bat-mitzvah.

Rachel had two such desires. one was for the base color to be brown, because she at the moment is loving blue and brown. Rachel’s mom shot me a look of panic.  After looking at both brown and black Rachel was ready to choose black as the base color for her tallit.
Rachel waked into my apartment wearing a chic little back and white hounds-tooth winter coat that she had received as a Chaukah present. she was having a moment of loving black and white check. The ocean/stripes are bordered with black and white checkerboard. the corner pieces will each be mad up of a different black and white pattern.

I can comfortably justify the black and white patterning as referring to the woven pattern in a traditional tallit.Often larger stripes have a woven checkerboard pattern running through the center of the stripe. I like to make the corners variations on a theme./ I find that it can help remind the wearer of the tallit that there are may ways to connect to the divine.

I ordered the silks and they arrived yesterday. I am looking forward to beginning work on this tallit