sarah in nyc

  Last night I had the pleasure of working with Ari and her family on tying the tzitzit  for her tallit. I had shipped her tallit out to Ari in Arizona.  I sent along one of the sets of tzitzit  that my father had left after he had died. We worked together via Skype.  It really is almost as good as being there. Ari’s father, a physician, wandered by as Ari tied her first square knot. She was having trouble understanding my explanation.   For Ari’s father, those knots were familiar to him as suture knots. He then left the room to take care of other matters as Ari, tied the tzitzit on the first corner and her mother watched. Thanks to Skype, I was able to show Ari in real time how to tie the tzitzit from my dining room table in Manhattan  and she learned the knot patterns in her home in Arizona. Some kids have trouble using their hands. Ari was a quick study.  After she finished the first corner I suggested that Ari’s parents tie the re...

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 fa...

Yesterday, my friend posted about this company tzitzit belts  on Facebook. At first I thought that the idea was sort of interesting, but the more I looked at the product, and the more I thought about it, the crankier it made me. The point of this product is to give the wearer an easy way to wear tzitzit.  They are made in versions for kids and versions for women and men. At first glance it seems like it might be a cool way to do the mitzvah of tzitzit. But then, you need to look a bit more closely. Tzitzit need to be attached to a four cornered garment. This belt is technically a four cornered garment. The tzitzit need to be attached a finger's width from the corner.  You can see that the corners are in the back of this belt and the tzitzit hang from the garment with no relationship to the corners. Tzitzit need to be part of the garment and not pinned  or attached to the garment in a temporary way. The four 'buttons' on this belt are s...

I pushed the bundle of strands through the eyelet. Then I began tying the knots. Not surprisingly, there are many traditions of how to tie tzitzit.I use the traditional Ashkenazi wrap pattern but with the additional embellishment of adorning each wrap with a half hitch knot. I love how using this method makes the wearer of the tallit aware of each and every wrap. it also looks so pretty with the half hitch winding it’s way around the strand. Here is the wrap set of seven wraps completed. another nice thing about this half hitch wrap method is that the wraps don’t get undone if you stop in the middle of wrapping. One corner is now complete. You can see that my fingers are stained blue by the murex dye. it washes off easily.

I know a calligrapher who is notorious for getting his work in late. Occasionally he has been known to deliver an unfinished Ketubah to a wedding, only to finish it after the wedding. In college, I was the student begging her professors for extensions. I find though, that I prefer to get my work done at least a few days before the due date.  For me, it makes for less anxious work. Life,  though, does not always cooperate.  Last Sunday I was hit with the news that several friends were diagnosed with cancer. Then I got a call from another friend letting me know of his divorce. Monday I was then hit with what the Victorians used to call melancholia. I was simply too sad to work. Naomi's tallit was due today as was her brother's tallit, the "Not Mets'" tallit. The bnai-mitzvah are not until early April.  Normally, I wouldn't have to get the tallitot completed until late March. Yesterday, though, as my friend Ruth reminded me,the words that strike terror into eve...

Miriam, and her son, Jacob, who had taken my spring semester tallit making workshop at Ansche Chesed, came by this morning to tie their tzitzit . The way the workshop was structured, students selected a verse, or verses from their torah reading and then painted the neckband/ atara and the corner pieces/ pinot . Students selected the base fabric for their tallit and then i put the whole thing together. The last step is tying the tzitzit . This is a close up of Miriam tying her tzitzit. She chose a wonderful purple for her tallit . She tied the tzitzit for two of her corners ( She had to get to work.) and took her tallit home to finish it there. When I have photos of the completed tallit I will post them. Jacob decided to use techelet , the murex dyed blue wrapping thread for tying his tzitit . You can see some of the lovely decorative stitching on the edge of the pinah/ corner piece . That diamond stitch is just so pretty. Another view of Miriam tying her tzitzit.

Sara-Beth came to pick up her tallit and tie the tzitzit today. She was very happy with her tallit . As someone who has spent lots of time in summer camp, the half hitch knot used to tie the tzitzit was familiar to her from her friendship bracelet making childhood. She chose to use silk for her tzitzit . The silk Sara- Beth chose looks a bit like butcher's twine, but it has a beautiful sheen. Did I mention that she was happy? I also gave her her engagement gift. A challa cover made out of a melange of silks. the text comes from the Friday night services.

Last night, I finished making the eyelets for my son's tallit . Today he was home sick so we took advantagwe of the time together and we tied the tzitzit . He had a bit of trouble at the beginning getting the wraps right, but he worked really carefully and the results were beautiful. When he was done, we recited together the verses that yo say when you put on a tallit . he said the b'racha/blessing and then the Shehechiyanu. Seeing my youngest in his tallit, my father no longer alive to see the moment...Yup, I burst into sobs. You can see the corners of my son's mouth pulled a bit funny in that moment of high emotion. I hadn't expected quite that explosion of sobs. I don't think that he did either. And then the back view. The atara/neckband is still not completed. I still have a week. And I still need to make him a bag. Monday he reads from the Torah at morning services, and then again on Thursday.

In reality shows, the big moment of drama is the reveal. In makeover shows, the reveal is when the formerly frumpy woman comes out with a cute new shape, sexy clothing, good make up and a great hair cut. So much effort has gone into the transformation, the producers of the shows want to pump it for all of the drama that it is worth. I used to lay out the completed tallit on my dining room table when my clients would come to pick up the piece. I now own, thanks to my friend Andrea, a dress making form. So these days I put the tallit on the dummy, as soon as my clients come into my dining room, there is the tallit. It works like the tallit reveal. When I begin working with a client, I listen hard to what they are saying. I pay close attention to the colors and textures that appeal to them, that make them happy. Often my clients don't articulate their needs in words but by talking to them, watching and listening I can usually get a pretty good idea of what would work best for them. D...