Distance tzitzit tying, and long ties

Via the magic that is the internet I just finished tying tzizit with Daphi in Jerusalem.

Daphi is getting married in a few weeks and she and her husband plan to exchange tallitot under the chuppah. I had made Daphi her first tallit that she began to wear as a bat mitzvah a dozen years ago when she was living in New York.

Daphi’s grandparents were friends and colleagues  of my parents. Her grandfather was a sharp cookie, a powerful man who made the lives of rabbis just much better.

 

The man Daphi is marrying is the grandson of one of my mother’s friends from her teenage years, Rochelle. I grew up with Rochelle’s daughters. We went to school together.

Skype allowed Daphi and I to tie the tzitzit together, Daphi in Jerusalem and me in New York.  As she tied the knots we talked about her grandmother Jaqui, about eating meals at Rochelle’s table before she had died, about the sorts of elegant meals Rochelle set out.  I thought about all of the threads of family and connections that were woven together from Montreal, from Brooklyn, and Brookline, the Upper West Side and Jerusalem that all are part of that tallit.