Skip to main content

Aliza and Eliana's tallitot, completed

I finally completed the girls' tallitot.

As I may have stated earlier they are twins, the children of thoughtful parents who have since they were born been comfortable treating their daughters like sisters and not like a single unit of human being.

They came by yesterday with their parents and a dear family friend to tie their tzitzit.



Eliana had mentioned that she had forgotten all of the details of our design meeting but seeing her tallit reminded he of our discussion. She was happy that I had remembered to include all of the things that she had mentioned.

Aliza hadn't realized just how much she really liked the verse she had chosen for her atara. 
The bags I had made were like the girls, related but not identical. I constructed the ribbon stripe with two widths and colors of ribbon and some machine embroidery. The girls were as impressed as I was with the result. 


We then got down to the work of tying the tzitzit.





I have known these girls since before they were born. Each of my kids has babysat for them. 

I remember a Rosh Hashanah when the girls were maybe four and they spent all of Shaharit standing behind me and playing with my hair creating hairdos for me. 

Yesterday was just a sweet, sweet moment. While we were tying tzitzit my husband brought my youngest home from college. 

There were lots of hugs all around. I am so looking forward to hearing and seeing these girls tomorrow.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

I love hearing from my readers. I moderate comments to weed out bots.It may take a little while for your comment to appear.

Popular posts from this blog

מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים

  וְנֶאֱמָן אַתָּה לְהַחֲיוֹת מֵתִים: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים   You are faithful to restore the dead to life. Blessed are You, Adonoy, Resurrector of the dead. That particular line is recited at every single prayer service every day three times a day, unless you use a Reform or Reconstructionist prayer book . In those liturgies instead of praising God for resurrecting the dead God is praised for  giving life to all.  I am enough of a modern woman, a modern thinker, to not actually believe in the actual resurrection of the dead. I don't actually expect all of the residents of the Workmen's Circle section of  Mount Hebron cemetery in Queens to get up and get back to work at their sewing machines. I don't expect the young children buried here or  the babies buried here to one day get up and frolic. Yet, every single time I get up to lead services I say those words about the reanimating of the dead with every fiber of my being. Yesterday, I e...
2 comments
Read more

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...
3 comments
Read more

Revisiting a beloved piece

About thirty years ago I was asked to make an atara to be a gift  for Jerry.  Jerry was one of the founders of an alternative Hebrew school in our neighborhood. Jerry was also one of the people who forged an alliance between the older mostly German members of our synagogue and the young counter culture former ( and still hippies) that were the new lifeblood of our congregation nearly fifty years ago. At that point, it wasn't the easiest marriage between the old guard and the new guard but Jerry helped to break down the barriers between the suit wearing older folks and the ripped up jeans wearing younger folks. Jerry has prepared thousands of kids for their B'nai Mitzvah. He is a frequent and excellent Torah reader and for many years he organized Morning Minyan. Jerry had often said that his favorite biblical text is the following: (יא) כִּ֚י הַמִּצְוָ֣ה הַזֹּ֔את אֲשֶׁ֛ר אָנֹכִ֥י מְצַוְּךָ֖ הַיּ֑וֹם לֹֽא־נִפְלֵ֥את הִוא֙ מִמְּךָ֔ וְלֹ֥א רְחֹקָ֖ה הִֽוא׃ (יב) לֹ֥א בַשָּׁמַ֖יִם הִ֑...
Post a Comment
Read more