Zoe's tallit

Zoe is the younger sister of one of my daughter's friends. The girls met in baby group and became friendly again while they were in high school. I mostly remember Zoe as a teeny little girl in a stroller. Working with Zoe was a blast.


Zoe's Torah reading tells of the Exodus from Egypt. One of the verses says " ( and the Exodus) was in the middle of the night". Zoe loved that line.

I do too. there is a table song that is sung , by not all that many people, towards the end of Seder, and that line is the chorus. Like many liturgical poems, it is a run though of Jewish history. In this case the poem refers to all of the many miracles that happened to the Jewish people in the middle of the night . I have a particular fondness for that poem/song, not because we sang it to such a lovely melody, but because my father used to howl it in the very same way that his grandfather did. My father would chant/howl it using the very same Polish accent his grandfather used. It was very funny.

My father's last Seder, he said that he didn't have the energy to do it. We begged him to do it. I'm really glad we were obnoxious enough to convince him to do it. Clearly my own personal connection to the text means nothing to Zoe, but it makes the work more fun for me.

I am beading and embroidering the night sky on the tallit. I'm about half way done.

The corner pieces have a text that comes from the same Torah reading, "So, the word of God should be in your mouths".The text will be divided up among the four corner pieces, and will come together when Zoe holds the corners together to kiss the fringes. I think that's just too cool.