sarah in nyc

Today I got a thoughtful reply from My Rabbi. Sorry that it has taken me a little time to think this through. I agree with you that this really is most ugly, and enraging. I mean, the Jews for Jesus who make this for themselves ... what can you do? This is the least of the things we would argue with them about. But to give this to practicing Jews is surely meant to deceive and to weasel their ways into the normative Jewish community. Halakhically, we tend mostly to focus on the tzitzit themselves, and less the garment to which they are attached. So it is the tzitzit strings -- not the garment that bears them -- that must be from wool spun specifically for the purpose of tzitzit, and tied by someone themselves commanded to follow this mitzvah (male or female, even according  to  the Shulhan Arukh). Arguably, if you removed all the decorative pinot and the atara, and removed the tzitzit that are there now, and threw all those things away or burned them, I think you could ...

Yesterday was my synagogue art show. I was delighted to meet one of the readers of this blog ( and her husband) who came from Brooklyn—and biked most of the way to see the show and say hello. It always sorts of amazes me that I have readers that just found this blog and are loyal readers.    The show was better attended than I had expected, but my expectations were really low. I always wonder after the effort of getting my work together, schlepping my stuff, setting up and being there if such a show is really worth the enormous physical effort. I don’t like sounding like a sore head, but when I think about  the financial payback for all of the effort it’s just depressing.   At the show my friend Ruth brought me  the object pictured below.   What do you think it is? Actually, at first glance it looks an awful lot like a tallit.  but looking at it a bit more closely, it may not be a tallit at all.   This object was a gift from a...