What to Expect when we make a tallit together...

Last night I was at a Shiva House. Two different people asked me about the possibility of making atallit with me and they wanted to know what it is like. So partially in answer to them, here is the answer.

First of all, I can't tell you what your tallit will look like before we meet. Each tallit is made specifically for the client.

First we study the text around putting on a tallit. Wew look at the third paragraph of the Sh'ma which is the biblical source for out wearing a tallit. We also look at the verses and intentional prayers recited when we put on a tallit. Looking at the biblical and rabbinic texts together my client gets a better sense of what a tallit is legally but also some of the larger spiritual job that a tallit needs to fulfill.

Then, I pull out lengths of silks and wools for my client to try on. A tallit needs to feel right on the body. A tallit that is too itchy or too slippery distracts the wearer from prayer.This part of the process is always fun. The feel of fabric on the body is a very personal thing. This piece of the process is usually very easy to figure out.

Then we need to think about the size of a tallit. Some people want a large shawl style tallit. Others want a smaller scarf type tallit. The size also helps to determine the fabric choice.

The tallit is our uniform for the task of prayer. We need to create a tallit that helps the client be prayerful. We then start poking around in Jewish texts to find the theme for the tallit. The texts might come form the bar- mitzvah readings or it may come from a completely different source.

Some Torah readings have terrific stories but no appropriate text. Others are jam packed with wonderful choices. For some clients a line from Psalms, or an entire Psalm might be the jumping off point for designing a tallit. During this point of the process, my client and I thumb through Jewish texts, throwing ideas back and forth while we both sketch possible ideas. It's a classing brainstorming session.

After not very long we narrow down the ideas. Often a pentimento of a rejected idea is present in the final design. many of my clients are in their early adolescence, a moment of transition from childhood to adulthood. The Tallit will often acknowledge both their childish self as well as looking towards the adult that they are becoming.

During this meeting I also take in who my client is. The colors that make my client happy. All of this information goes into the tallit as well. Sometimes, it is clear that my potential client is not ready to have a tallit at this moment. Sometimes, my client would prefer an off the rack tallit from a Judaica store. If this is the case, then they go home, with no hard feelings.
Then the client goes home, and I get to work.While I work, my client lives in my head. As I make each design decision, I want the piece to work, but I am also thinking about my client's happiness. The client comes back, usually a few weeks before the bar or bat mitzvah, and we tie the tzitzit together. Having my client tie the tzitzit serves to transfer the ownership of the piece, from me, to the client. The father of one bat mitzvah girl once described the experience to tying tzitzit with me as both deeply silly and deeply spiritual.

Connecting with the past

A few months ago I had a craving for my father’s chicken fricassee. If my father were still alive I would have called him up and he would have talked me through the process of making it. My father is no longer alive so I turned to my cookbooks and the recipes I found for chicken fricassee were nothing at all like the stew of chicken necks, gizzards and wings in a watery sweet and sour tomato sauce that I enjoyed as a kid. I assumed that the dish was an invention of my father’s. I then attempted to replicate the dish from my memory of it and failed. A couple of weeks ago I saw an article on the internet, and I can’t remember where, that talked about Jewish fricassee and it sounded an awful lot like the dish I was hankering after. This afternoon I went to the butcher and picked up all of the chicken elements of the dish, a couple of packages each of wings, necks and gizzards. My father never cooked directly from a cook book. He used to re...

The light themed tallit has been shipped!!!

I had begun speaking to Sarah about making her a tallit in the middle of August. It took a few weeks to nail down the design. For Sarah it would have been ideal if the tallit were completed in time for her to wear it on Rosh HaShanah., the beginning of her year as senior rabbi of her congregation. For me, in an ideal world, given the realities of preparing for the High Holidays I would have finished this tallit in the weeks after Sukkot. So we compromised and I shipped off the tallit last night. I would have prefered to have more time but I got the job done in time. This tallit was made to mark Sarah's rise to the position of senior rabbi but it was also a reaction to this year of darkness. She chose a selection of verses about light to be part of her tallit. 1) אֵל נוֹרָא עֲלִילָה God of awesome deeds ( from a yom kippur Liturgical poem) 2) אוֹר חָדָשׁ עַל־צִיּוֹן תָּאִיר May You shine a new light on Zion ( from the liturgy) 3) יָאֵר יְהֹ...

A Passover loss

My parents bought this tablecloth during their 1955 visit to Israel. It is made out of linen from the first post 1948 flax harvest. The linen is heavy and almost crude. The embroidery is very fine. We used this cloth every Passover until the center wore thin. You can see the cloth on the table in the background of this photo of my parents and nephew My Aunt Sheva bought my mother a replacement cloth. The replacement cloth is made out of a cotton poly blend. The embroidery is crude and the colors not nearly as nice. The old cloth hung in our basement. We used the new cloth and remembered the much nicer original cloth. I loved that my aunt wanted to replace the cloth, I just hated the replacement because it was so much less than while evoking the beauty of the original. After my father died my mother sat me down and with great ceremony gave me all of her best tablecloths. She also gave me the worn Passover cloth and suggested that I could mend it. I did. Year after year ...

sarah in nyc

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