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 יְהֹוָה פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ וִיחֻנֶּךָּ  May God shine his face upon you and be gracious to you  ( from the priestly blessing

4) לַיְּהוּדִ֕ים הָֽיְתָ֥ה אֹורָ֖ה וְשִׂמְחָ֑ה וְשָׂשֹׂ֖ן וִיקָֽר׃  The Jews enjoyed light and gladness, happiness and honor. (Esther 8:16)

5) א֭וֹר זָרֻ֣עַ לַצַּדִּ֑יק וּֽלְיִשְׁרֵי־לֵ֥ב שִׂמְחָֽה׃  Light is sown for the righteous,radiance for the upright. (Psalms 97:11)

6) נֵר יְהֹוָה נִשְׁמַת אָדָם The lifebreath of man is the lamp of the LORD (Proverbs 20:27)

Sarah wanted the tallit itself to be gold and white to evoke that sense of light.

Each verse appeared twice on the tallit, ( one time on each side)  except for the first text which appears only on the atara.

With the exception of the binding, the atara is all handwork.

 

The letters are hand embroidered and the  embellishments are all done by hand on a base of a linen /lurex. Because Sarah is a rabbi and will often be facing away from her congregation, I made the atara both bigger and flashier than I would for a congregant.

The stripes themselves were made out of different raw silks that I had in my stash. I used different embellishment techniques on each stripe before painting the text onto the silk.

Each stripe was edged with a different combination of ribbons and machine embroidery stitches. 

Using gold and white I felt that I had to find the balance between "Elvis in Vegas" and something totally bland. I think that I was successful. There is SO MUCH gold and yet the tallit isn't gaudy.

Some traditional tallitot have either a seam up the middle that lies on the spine or a decorative stripe corresponding the the spine. I think that the origin of that spine/stripe is a practical one because it allowed a wide tallit to be made on a narrower loom.  While I began making this tallit I noticed a few tallitot in my community that were made with such a decorative "spine" I thought that there was something powerful about the spine of the tallit and the spine of the wearer aligned together.  For me, the "spine" recalled the verse from Psalms 35:9

כׇּ֥ל־עַצְמוֹתַ֨י ׀ תֹּאמַרְנָה֮ יְהֹוָ֗ה מִ֥י כָ֫מ֥וֹךָ

All my bones shall say

 ?LORD, who is like You

Sarah liked the idea, so I constructed a "spine"  out of a mix of ribbons, trim, and embroidery stitches. I tried to get my work to evoke vertebrae.

Here is the back view of the spine.

I decided to make the pinot/corner pieces out of the same metallic linen as the atara.

I serged each square to a raw silk backing.

But as you could see they were too large and impinged on the pretty couched cording stripe.

I  maked and cut to size each of the corner pieces.

Then I had to figure out how to edge the pinot. Often when working on a tallit I will get trim ready for use and may or may not use it.

I had stencilled ribbon with a scalloped lace motif which I had thought would use to  edge one of the stripes.  Instead I used it to edge the pinot/corner pieces.

The eyelet was made with white heavy rayon thread and a fine gold thread. Each element of the tallit is made with extra bits of shimmer. Metallic paints were enriched with extra metallic powder. echoed the scalloped lace motif with a scallop stitch in taupe.

You don't necessarily see all of the small details consciously but they all add up to a pleasing whole.

I tied the tzitzit because a rabbi has other things to do in the days before Yom Kippur.

Over the past several weeks my head has been filled with these texts about light. My head has also been filled with the challenges of making this tallit work as a physical object that will be comfortable to wear and sturdy and function as work wear for for a clergy person.

As I photographed the tallit yesterday I was reminded of a poem we recite on Yom Kippur describing the the appearance of the High Priest on Yom Kippur after he emerged from the holy of holies.

The tallit is due to arrive to sarah tomorrow at noon. I hope that she likes it as much as I do.