There are many rabbinical opinions as to how the tzitziyot with techelet should be tied. Courtesy of the Ptil Tekhelet Association
When Noach lay uncovered in his tent, our ancestor Shem immediately took a garment and covered his father. Rashi (Bereishit 9:23) cites a midrash that in the merit of his zeal, Shem’s descendants—the Jewish people—would be given a special mitzvah involving their garments.
Two Types of Tallit
This mitzvah is made explicit in Bamidbar 15:38: “Speak to the children of Israel and tell them to make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments throughout their generations.” This is the obligation of tzitzit, which are typically worn on two types of garments: a cloak-like garment called the tallit gadol (commonly referred to as simply a “tallit”) and the undershirt-like tallit katan (typically referred to simply as “tzitzit”).
The tallit gadol, today worn as a prayer shawl, is the optimal way to fulfill the obligation because it completely enwraps a person. At some point following the Talmudic era, cloaks fell out of style, so the tallit katan was introduced to facilitate fulfilling the mitzvah. Because of the ways in which they are worn, different berachot are recited when donning them: lehitatef batzitzit (“to enwrap in tzitzit”) on the tallit gadol and al mitzvat tzitzit (“on the mitzvah of tzitzit”) on the tallit katan.
One who will be putting on a tallit gadol later should not recite the berachah upon first donning his tallit katan, since the berachah recited on the tallit gadol will cover both.
In the Ashkenazic tradition, a tallit gadol is typically worn by men after marriage, while in Sephardic and other communities, boys start wearing the tallit gadol at bar mitzvah.
When speaking of tzitzit, the Torah says, “. . . and you will look upon it and you will remember all of G-d’s commandments” (Bamidbar 15:39). The Gemara (Menachot 43a) equates the obligation of visibility with daytime. The tallit gadol is therefore not worn at night, with two exceptions: a shliach tzibbur may wear a tallit at night for the honor of the tzibbur, and the congregants wear their tallitot on Yom Kippur, as we shall discuss more below. In neither case is this done specifically to fulfill the mitzvah of tzitzit at night.
The Materials of a Tallit
The Gemara in Menachot (39b) records a dispute regarding whether a silk garment is obligated in tzitzit. Rav Nachman considers the obligation to be derabbanan, saying that only garments of wool or linen are obligated on the Biblical level, while Rava maintains that such a garment is obligated Biblically. This disagreement applies to any garment of a material other than wool and linen. The Shulchan Aruch rules like Rav Nachman, but the Rema rules like Rava. One might think that Ashkenazim, following the Rema, would treat any material as Biblically obligated in tzitzit. In practice, however, later authorities—including the Mishnah Berurah and Rabbi Moshe Feinstein—recommend using wool specifically, so that the mitzvah is fulfilled on the Biblical level according to all opinions.
The obligation of tzitzit only applies to a garment of woven fabric, excluding such materials as leather and rubber. Synthetic materials, like nylon and rayon, are the subject of dispute.
There are several reasons tzitzit should not be placed on garments that are exempt from the mitzvah. Aside from failure to fulfill the mitzvah, one must avoid the possibility of reciting a berachah in vain. Additionally, wearing such a garment on Shabbat outside of an eruv would potentially violate the prohibition of hotza’ah (carrying).
According to the Gemara, wool and linen may be used (separately) for tzitzit on garments of any material, except that wool strings may not be used on a linen garment, or vice versa, as this would violate the prohibition of shatnez. Other materials may be used for strings only on garments of those materials, such as cotton strings on a cotton garment. The Shulchan Aruch questions whether having some strings of wool or linen and others from the material of the garment is valid, rendering such a combination inadvisable.
Later authorities, including the Rema, the Magen Avraham and the Mishnah Berurah recommend against the use of linen strings for a variety of reasons, in part to avoid an accidental violation of shatnez.
How to Make and Insert the Strings
Tzitzit strings must be made and inserted into a garment for the sake of fulfilling the mitzvah. Even spinning the threads must be done with this intention. A number of threads are twisted together to form what’s called a string; a single thread would be invalid. One common practice is to use eight such threads in the string. According to many authorities, one must actually verbalize that they are spinning and twisting the threads for the sake of the mitzvah.
Tzitzit strings must be spun by a Jew of at least bar or bat mitzvah age. There are different opinions regarding machine-spun threads. For those who permit them, the person operating the machine must state that the tzitzit are being made for the sake of the mitzvah.
One takes four of these strings and passes them halfway through a hole in the corner of the tallit. The hole must be within three fingerbreadths of the corner, generally accepted to be about two and a half inches; it may not be closer to the corner than three-quarters of an inch.
The strings are pulled even so that there are eight strings, four on each side. The strings must be long enough so that after they are wrapped and tied, the hanging part of the strings will be at least eight inches long. One string must be longer than the others, in order to wrap it around them.
There are different customs regarding how many times the long string is wrapped around the other strings. The common Ashkenazic practice is to tie a double knot and wind the long string around the others seven, eight, eleven and thirteen times, each group of windings followed by a double knot. These windings are not Biblically mandated, but they are the optimal way to fulfill the mitzvah.
If a string is too long, there is a practice not to trim it with a metal tool. Optimally, one should bite it, burn it or use a non-metal implement. If one did use a metal utensil, the tzitzit remain valid.
The one inserting the strings and tying the knots must also declare that they are doing so for the sake of the mitzvah.
Tallit Miscellany
The Beit Yosef cites an opinion that tzitzit should be threaded through two holes rather than one. In this way, both sides of the strings are on the same side of the garment, making their nature as four folded strings more apparent. In a number of communities, particularly Chassidic communities, this is indeed the practice when it comes to the tallit katan, which is a “private” garment. When it comes to the tallit gadol, however, due to its public nature, wearing it with two holes would be considered haughty.
According to some Rishonim, tzitzit strings must be the same color as the tallit. For example, an orange tallit should have orange tzitzit. The Shulchan Aruch advocates for this approach, but the Rema confirms that Ashkenazic practice is to use white strings regardless of a garment’s color. The Mishnah Berurah says that one should wear a white tallit with white strings.
The Torah commands that tzitzit strings include among them a string dyed a shade of blue called techelet. The secret to producing techelet was lost during the Byzantine era, though some are of the opinion that it has been rediscovered. Regardless, techelet and tzitzit are separate mitzvot, so the absence of the former does not preclude fulfilling the latter.
There is a lot more to say about tallit and tzitzit—a fascinating topic for future study!
The Tallit and the Yamim Noraim
There are some unique connections between the tallit and the Yamim Noraim.
On Rosh Hashanah, during the Tashlich ceremony, many have a custom of shaking out the hems of their garments as a symbolic “casting away” of their sins. In a practice attributed to the Arizal, this is traditionally done using the corners of one’s tallit katan. Given that the stated purpose of tzitzit is to remind us of Hashem’s mitzvot, it seems appropriate to invoke such remembrance as we strive to discard our sins.
As noted above, a tallit is typically only worn by day. On Yom Kippur, however, the custom is for a man to wear his tallit for the Maariv service, and then throughout the daytime services until Yom Kippur has ended. This custom is attributed to Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg, based upon the Yom Kippur recitations of G-d’s Thirteen Attributes of Mercy. The Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 17b) teaches that G-d wrapped Himself in a metaphorical tallit when He taught Moshe Rabbeinu these attributes.
Finally, the combination of the tallit and the kittel—a white robe traditionally worn by men on Yom Kippur—carries additional symbolic meaning. Some consider this pairing to be a sign of our angelic status on Yom Kippur. Others see in it a reminder of our mortality, the garments resembling traditional funeral shrouds.
Rabbi Jack Abramowitz is the editor of OU Torah and the author of twelve books including The Nach Yomi Companion (2023), The Complete Targum Onkelos (2022), and Ask Rabbi Jack (2020) all published by Kodesh Press.
In This Section
The Artistry of the Tallit by David Olivestone
Out of the Blue: Return of Techelet by Dr. Ari Greenspan