Reflections on my Tallis

My tallis seems to have a mind of its own. Upon entering the sanctuary and finding a seat, I dutifully remove it from its matching bag, unfold, wrap around my torso, find the approximate midpoint on each side – always left side first – and fold over each of my shoulders. Two minutes later one half of the tallis has become askew and waits to be refolded. Two minutes later the other side falls completely off. At least one time during the service I’ll step on a tzitzit causing me to grab onto my chair to prevent myself from falling on my wife or whoever is unfortunate enough to be sitting nearby. As the Shema draws near, I initiate the tzitzit hunt, knowing that, invariably, one of them will furtively bury itself behind my back or become entrenched in some hidden space between the seats. Where could it possibly be? It was there when I put it on. As the opening words of the Shema are intoned I frantically trace the ends of the cloth to each corner. The knotted threads are united and wrapped around my fingers in the nick of time: “and they shall make themselves fringes, (kiss) on the corners of their garments”. At the end of the Shema the insubordinate corners return to their hidden locations and the cycle of folding and falling begins anew. Having lost my tallis clips a week after my Bar Mitzvah, and being unprepared to invest in another pair of silver plated clips adorned with a garish Jewish star, there seems to be no salvation from this skirmish that doesn’t involve either crazy glue or push pins. At the end of the service, having completed the battle, I dutifully refold the tallis and return it to its matching bag – only to have one or more tzitzit get caught in the zipper, precipitating a drawn out struggle to free it from clenched metal jaws.

It is for these reasons that I am now working with a small, elite technology team to create the first ever IPhone tallis app. While I have yet to fully vet the device with religious authorities, I am hopeful that it will meet all, if not a few of the halachic requirements. For everyday use, with the iphone in full operating mode, the tallis app will provide downloadable prayers (both in Hebrew and in transliteration) for donning the tallis, along with a web link to the full Sacharit service, torah portions and a bagel calorie counter. At a small extra cost, gps locators can be placed on each tzitzit for easy location as the Shema approaches. Carefully camouflaged earphones allow you to listen to your favorite music while appearing to be praying or listening to the rabbi. These additional features can be disabled in Shabbat mode, however, the radio can be left for all of Shabbat allowing you to discretely listen to “Car Talk” during the extended Bar Mitzvah portion of the morning service.

But, while I am working on the Tallis app, as well as other possible tallis innovations (the spandex tallis, the survival tallis for Yom Kipper, a Kevlar tallis for the IDF), I must admit that there is a simple pleasure in enclosing myself in my trusty white and blue one purchased in Jerusalem many years ago. There is something comforting about enclosing myself within its folds. Perhaps it is tactile; perhaps it is something more than skin deep –something ancient, visceral, and pre-conscious.

As the Shema approaches and my search for each fringe ensues, I find myself mouthing the words: “Bring us together in peace from the four corners of the earth”. I think of my tallis as representing the Jewish people. We are unruly and uncooperative. Each individual segment has a mind of its own and seems determined to go its own way. Segments of our people have been lost and then rediscovered. When will all of our corners be settled – each in its place- each understanding that we are all of the same cloth? How long will we court danger through baseless hatred for each other - “Tzinat Chinam” – the same baseless hatred that precipitated the destruction of the Second Temple? But we are wandering Arameans and we are an unruly and stiff necked people. Wrapped in the folds around me and clinging to the cloth, I ponder that each of us has a role to play in bringing together the disparate corners and the fringes of our people.

Perhaps, as we struggle to bring together each corner of our tallesim, so too does God strive to gather God’s people from the four corners of the earth. Together we wrap the tzitzit around our fingers and close our eyes. We pray that there will come a time when the Jewish people will come together in peace and, as one, proclaim the belief that unites us: Sh'ma Yisraeil, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad.