A Pandemic inspired tallit

My friend Linda is now a rabbi in a sweet little synagogue in the woods of Riverdale, New York, a fancy neighborhood in the Bronx. Linda and I met in 1984 and have been there for one another through the birth and raising of children, and ushering one another as our parents enter the exit ramp of life. In short, we have a long history, Linda and I, (and our families).

Because Linda is a rabbi she has a wardrobe of tallitot, just as a banker has a wardrobe of suits and a factory worker will probably have only one suit. I have already made two tallitot for Linda.

Linda's husband asked if I would make Linda a tallit for her birthday. I made a certificate that could be presented to her. We then met on Zoom to design the tallit. You can see both the certificate and the thoughts underlying the design process here.

Usually, I document every bit of making a tallit here in this blog. I am not sure exactly why, but I was less comfortable doing that about this tallit.

But at long last, the tallit is done.

I took these photos last night. As I reviewed and edited them I realized that the photos are not quite enough. This tallit is meant to be understood in the wearing rather than just in static photos.

The same text is written on both the inside and the outside of the tallit, in black on white and in white on black. There is a midrash about the Torah being written both in black fire on white fire and in white fire on black.

When I was about halfway done embroidering the letters on the atara I wondered who was the idiot who suggested hand embroidery for the letters. I was that idiot.

It was actually a good but time-consuming choice.

Block printing the ribbon that edges the atara and the corner pieces was not quite as time-consuming and makes all the difference in the world.

Linda wanted a tallit that could be worn either as a shawl or flipped back over the shoulders. This tallit does just that.

In a few days we tie the tzitzit together---and as we are all vaccinated in person, in the same room, not on camera but sitting around my dining room table together.

Comments

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...

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...

Food friday - your grandmother's food processor

My grandmother bought my mother this wooden bowl and a chopping knife, known in Yiddish as a hock-messer, soon after my parents got married. Yes, she also got them a dairy set as well. these wooden bowls and chopping knives were a big part of food prep when I was growing up. meatloaf and meat balls were mixed in this bowl. Chopped liver was made in this bowl as well. Sundays we often made chicken salad for lunch made out of chicken left over from Shabbat chopped with vegetables and mayo. That too, was made in this bowl. When I was in college my parents got their first food processor and the chopping bowls were not used as much. Several years ago, my father asked if i would like the bowls and the hock-messers. I was happy to have them. I like the sheer physicality of chopping up a big bowl of stuff into teeny pieces. While the wooden bowls have stood up well to the years of use, the hock-messers had not. The bladed which were bolted into their handles, wobbled. The blades wouldn't ...

sarah in nyc

Search This Blog