Author: BenG

Recently we received an inquiry from a return customer from Texas. He wrote at length, and along the way he described when he doesn’t wear any tallit katan:

I don’t even wear even the one pair of mine when it’s hot out in Texas heat.I don’t think it’s not derech lavush to wear clothing to make you sweat,
and I have a heart condition where my tachycardia (rapid heart rate)
can send my heart into v-fig (irregular heart rate) if my heart rate gets
up to about 80 to 90 if I forget one of my medications. This is not the
case with the talis gadol which is for appearances in shul, like when
you get an aliyah. But just as we don’t wear tzitzis when we go swimming,
I don’t see the point in wearing tzitzis when it’s going to make you
sweat even more. It’s like wearing a shatnetz parka coat in the heat:
that’s not derech lavush.

Just to make sure all of our readers are on the same page, let me run through that last sentence. What this Jewish Texan means is that since theoretically you might be able to put on a parka coat in the heat if it’s made from a fabric that is prohibited to wear, since it might not be considered wearing per se, likewise you can’t fulfill the mitzvah of tzitzit by wearing a garment that does not provide you with any benefit. Clothes are meant to keep you warm in the winter and cool in the summer, right? So if adding another layer on a blazing hot day, i.e. putting on your tallit katan, does not help you in any way, maybe that wouldn’t be considered wearing, so you’re not doing a mitzvah.

He certainly has a valid point. Citing Beit Yosef O.C. 10, Rabbi Ari Enkin put it this way:

One who is uncomfortable wearing a wool Tallit Katan in the summer due to the heat should certainly consider wearing a cotton one. This is because it is vital that the Tzitzit garment be one that serves a clothing-type function and is a garment that one enjoys wearing. Indeed, there have been eminent rabbis throughout the ages who dismissed the view of the Shulchan Aruch in favor of the Rema and only wore Tzitzit made from cotton.

Still, let me toss out a thought that might apply in certain cases — despite the heat. In a word, what if a garment serves a function other than protecting you from the heat and cold? Allow me to illustrate…

Last week we went to Tiberius for a mini vacation.
There was a heatwave, and it just so happens that Tiberius is typically one of the hottest places in the country. While packing, it occurred to me that I might do well to carefully consider which tallit katan to take along.

As you might imagine, as a long-time tzitzit seller, my personal collection of tallit katans is varied. Usually I wear wool (though I’m Ashkenazi, and many Ashkenazim stick with cotton), but I also have a few traditional-style (not undershirt-style) cotton tallit katans. I always wear an undershirt, regardless of the weather, and I maintain that if you’re wearing three layers of cotton — sleeved undershirt, tallit katan and shirt — cotton is not going to keep you cool, but rather hot and clammy, primarily since three layers of cotton don’t do a good job of wicking perspiration. However, if you opt for a tank top undershirt, that does make a difference, since you’re getting a lot more ventilation on your shoulders and along your sides.

I also took along a DryFit tallit katan, which I wear for hiking, biking, etc. 

So to make a short story long, when we headed down to the Kinneret (a.k.a. Sea of Galilee) I started out with short-sleeve undershirt + traditional cotton tallit katan + button-down shirt. It was baking. You step out of the water, and even without a towel you’re dry in a few moments, and then start heating up fast. You’re first thought is: ‘How long will it take to get to the car, and how long will it take til I start feeling the air conditioner?’ You try to make a dash for the parking lot before the boys notice there’s a stand selling popsicles with a hechsher that no parent could refuse. But of course they spot it, and when they lodge their request, you immediately imagine a bleak scene trying to explain your rush to the car to your wife (“What? Why on earth didn’t you buy them a popsicle??”), so with no great excuse, you get waylaid for a few minutes.

When I left the beach and headed up toward the car, putting on my button-down shirt seemed out of the question. On the other hand, once I was a bit away from the beach, I felt a bit uncomfortable wearing just pants and an undershirt. So I decided to put on my tallit katan, though the last thing I wanted was to wear another layer. Yet with a tallis katan on, just hanging loosely, I felt a bit more dressed. So perhaps you could argue that the tallit katan does provide you with benefit, namely kavod. 

Yeah, but then the moment you put on another layer, is that tallit katan still providing you with some benefit? I don’t have an answer to that.

Also, this brings up another question. Some poskim hold that wearing a tzitzit garment, namely an undershirt tzitzit, is not the proper way to fulfill the mitzvah of tzitzit, since an undershirt is typically worn to absorb sweat. But if it’s a stand-alone garment, i.e. a t-shirt tzitzit or a DryFit, the main purpose is not to absorb sweat, but to cover you up. (Note that the manufacturers almost always make these products with sleeves, whereas an undershirt tzitzit garment is sleeveless.) So shouldn’t wearing a t-shirt tzitzit garment on your skin be perfectly okay when worn alone, even according to those poskim who frown on undershirt tzitzit?

Recently we received an inquiry from a return customer from Texas. He wrote at length, and along the way he described when he doesn’t wear any tallit katan:

I don’t even wear even the one pair of mine when it’s hot out in Texas heat.I don’t think it’s not derech lavush to wear clothing to make you sweat,
and I have a heart condition where my tachycardia (rapid heart rate)
can send my heart into v-fig (irregular heart rate) if my heart rate gets
up to about 80 to 90 if I forget one of my medications. This is not the
case with the talis gadol which is for appearances in shul, like when
you get an aliyah. But just as we don’t wear tzitzis when we go swimming,
I don’t see the point in wearing tzitzis when it’s going to make you
sweat even more. It’s like wearing a shatnetz parka coat in the heat:
that’s not derech lavush.

Just to make sure all of our readers are on the same page, let me run through that last sentence. What this Jewish Texan means is that since theoretically you might be able to put on a parka coat in the heat if it’s made from a fabric that is prohibited to wear, since it might not be considered wearing per se, likewise you can’t fulfill the mitzvah of tzitzit by wearing a garment that does not provide you with any benefit. Clothes are meant to keep you warm in the winter and cool in the summer, right? So if adding another layer on a blazing hot day, i.e. putting on your tallit katan, does not help you in any way, maybe that wouldn’t be considered wearing, so you’re not doing a mitzvah.

He certainly has a valid point. Citing Beit Yosef O.C. 10, Rabbi Ari Enkin put it this way:

One who is uncomfortable wearing a wool Tallit Katan in the summer due to the heat should certainly consider wearing a cotton one. This is because it is vital that the Tzitzit garment be one that serves a clothing-type function and is a garment that one enjoys wearing. Indeed, there have been eminent rabbis throughout the ages who dismissed the view of the Shulchan Aruch in favor of the Rema and only wore Tzitzit made from cotton.

Still, let me toss out a thought that might apply in certain cases — despite the heat. In a word, what if a garment serves a function other than protecting you from the heat and cold? Allow me to illustrate…

Last week we went to Tiberius for a mini vacation.
There was a heatwave, and it just so happens that Tiberius is typically one of the hottest places in the country. While packing, it occurred to me that I might do well to carefully consider which tallit katan to take along.

As you might imagine, as a long-time tzitzit seller, my personal collection of tallit katans is varied. Usually I wear wool (though I’m Ashkenazi, and many Ashkenazim stick with cotton), but I also have a few traditional-style (not undershirt-style) cotton tallit katans. I always wear an undershirt, regardless of the weather, and I maintain that if you’re wearing three layers of cotton — sleeved undershirt, tallit katan and shirt — cotton is not going to keep you cool, but rather hot and clammy, primarily since three layers of cotton don’t do a good job of wicking perspiration. However, if you opt for a tank top undershirt, that does make a difference, since you’re getting a lot more ventilation on your shoulders and along your sides.

I also took along a DryFit tallit katan, which I wear for hiking, biking, etc. 

So to make a short story long, when we headed down to the Kinneret (a.k.a. Sea of Galilee) I started out with short-sleeve undershirt + traditional cotton tallit katan + button-down shirt. It was baking. You step out of the water, and even without a towel you’re dry in a few moments, and then start heating up fast. You’re first thought is: ‘How long will it take to get to the car, and how long will it take til I start feeling the air conditioner?’ You try to make a dash for the parking lot before the boys notice there’s a stand selling popsicles with a hechsher that no parent could refuse. But of course they spot it, and when they lodge their request, you immediately imagine a bleak scene trying to explain your rush to the car to your wife (“What? Why on earth didn’t you buy them a popsicle??”), so with no great excuse, you get waylaid for a few minutes.

When I left the beach and headed up toward the car, putting on my button-down shirt seemed out of the question. On the other hand, once I was a bit away from the beach, I felt a bit uncomfortable wearing just pants and an undershirt. So I decided to put on my tallit katan, though the last thing I wanted was to wear another layer. Yet with a tallis katan on, just hanging loosely, I felt a bit more dressed. So perhaps you could argue that the tallit katan does provide you with benefit, namely kavod. 

Yeah, but then the moment you put on another layer, is that tallit katan still providing you with some benefit? I don’t have an answer to that.

Also, this brings up another question. Some poskim hold that wearing a tzitzit garment, namely an undershirt tzitzit, is not the proper way to fulfill the mitzvah of tzitzit, since an undershirt is typically worn to absorb sweat. But if it’s a stand-alone garment, i.e. a t-shirt tzitzit or a DryFit, the main purpose is not to absorb sweat, but to cover you up. (Note that the manufacturers almost always make these products with sleeves, whereas an undershirt tzitzit garment is sleeveless.) So shouldn’t wearing a t-shirt tzitzit garment on your skin be perfectly okay when worn alone, even according to those poskim who frown on undershirt tzitzit?

The question has been floating around for decades, but is still very pertinent. Can you fulfill the mitzvah of tzitzit on a mesh garment.

I came across three good online sources, so that should probably be your first stop:

Din Online – Mesh Tallit Katan – Concise and clear, a good place to start
Mi Yodeya – If I wear a synthetic and/or mesh garment with Tzitzis, will I fulfill the mitzvah of Tzitzis?
Yeshiva Har Bracha – Tzitzit on a Synthetic Garment – scroll down to the section headed, “Synthetic Tzitzit Distributed in the Army”

In the Yeshiva Har Bracha article, Rabbi Melamed concludes with an argument that today’s synthetic garments are vastly superior to those made a few decades ago, and they are now much more commonplace; rather than a fringe textile (no pun intended) they account for 70% of all garments manufactured worldwide. 

In the Mi Yodaya piece, I see that I left a comment some thirteen years ago, suggesting that since the mesh doesn’t really cover you, perhaps it cannot be considered a wearable garment. However, in retrospect, I think the piece of Gemara that came to mind discusses whether a given garment is viable only in terms of the size factor.

By the way, just yesterday we received a shipment of mesh tzitzit from a new supplier that makes them with softer material and much smaller holes.

In time of war, you often find plenty of irreligious IDF soldiers who want to wear olive drab tzitzit, which they sometimes refer to as their ‘bullet-proof vest’ because they want to fulfill mitzvah of tzitzit to help protect them from harm.

But it seems that a band of criminals in Netanya took this more literally: they sewed a real bullet-proof vest inside a tzitzit garment.

My big problem with this is that it renders the tzitzit not kosher. If they used the type of vest that’s closed on the sides, since they combined the two items to create a single garment, that new garment is no longer considered a four-cornered garment. It’s “not a crime” to wear it, but you certainly cannot say a bracha on it, and you wouldn’t be fulfilling the mitzvah of tzitzit, i.e. the strings would become essentially a decoration.

In this post we’ll be comparing different types of all-white tzitzit strings in terms of length, thickness and quality.

Until around 15 years ago, tzitzit strings came in just thin or thick. Then many manufacturers introduced medium.

I’d say there’s a fourth type, extra thick. But the thing is, they’re not labeled as such. However, it’s plain to see that Mishkan Hatchelet makes their “thick” strings considerable thicker than the other brands.

Thickness is not standardized. Therefore one company’s “medium” might be just slightly thicker than another company’s “thin.” The “medium” made by Mishkan Hatchelet is just slightly thinner than some companies’ “thick,” and could pass for thick. 

The length generally correlates with thickness. Standard tzitzit length is as follows:

• Thin – 50 cm
• Medium 55 cm
• Thick 60 cm

Most of the manufacturers also make extra long versions, e.g. medium 65 cm, thick 70 and thick 80 cm (and occasionally even 90 cm strings).

This refers to the length of the strings when doubled. For example, a packet of thin strings typically has three 100 cm long strings for each corner, plus one extra long shamash string. When you insert the string and tie the first double knot, you’ll have around 44 cm from the double knot at the edge of the tallit, to the tips of the strings. By the time you’re finished tying, that will probably contract to 30-35 cm, depending on the tying custom and how tightly you tie. The minimum overall length from the start of the first knot to the tips is 24 cm according to the Grach Naeh, and 30 cm according to the Chazon Ish.

Machine-spun tzitzit are typically shorter than hand-spun, i.e. machine-spun thin are shorter than hand-spun thin and machine-spun thick are shorter than hand-spun thick. Also generally the thick is a bit thinner than typical hand-spun thick.

Aesthetics

Some tzitzit manufacturers make their strings a bit whiter than others. Some have a few burrs and spurs, while others have better finishing. Some hang down straighter than others. And some have better reinforcement on the tips. Established tzitzit string makers of high repute include Mishkan Hatchelet, Srulovitz, K’Nesher, Netzach and Zeibert.

Want to replace an atara? Add a tallit lining? Great! It shouldn’t be too tricky, time-consuming or expensive. Below you’ll find some helpful tips to do the job right.

Sewing on an atara

The most common tallit sewing job is to sew on a different atara. With very few exceptions (namely Chabad talleisim) a tallit almost invariably comes from the manufacturer with an atara already sewn on. It’s quite routine for tallit sellers to remove the atara and sew on a different one. (And BTW, the removed atara is perfectly usable.)

Sometimes we get a customer who adds an order comment asking us to remove the atara, because they plan to sew one on themselves. However, we typically advise customers to remove it on their own. It should require just 5-10 minutes of easy work with a stitch cutter to take out the stitches, and it’s worth it, because it helps to see exactly where and how the atara should be positioned. 

And if you don’t do the sewing yourself, you can take the tallit to a seamstress, show her how the atara is currently sewn on, and tell her to make sure she sews on the new atara exactly the same way. For a professional seamstress, that should be all she needs to know; since there’s no cutting involved, and no edges to make, it’s just a straightforward stitching job.

Here are three quick tips, whether you do the sewing yourself, or go to a seamstress:

1. Make sure the atara is very close to the edge, but very slightly below, to make sure it doesn’t chafe the neck
2. Line it up using the stripes, not the creases; don’t assume a crease running down the center is really at the center
3. Use plenty of pins, otherwise the atara might jostle out of place once you fire up the sewing machine

Typically the atara you sew on is not going to be the same size as the one removed. So what about the stitch marks? Not to worry: sometimes they won’t show at all, if they are visible they are quite faint, and in any case, it’s very easy to iron them out. To iron out stitch marks, it goes without saying that you’ll want a low wool setting. If you’re very nervous, you can lay down a piece of thin cotton between the tallit and your iron. The ironing should just take a minute or two, since you just have to iron a very small area.

Tallit lining

A tallit lining is just a piece of plain white cotton cloth positioned on the opposite side of the atara. You should be able to buy a yard of plain cotton from any fabric store and sew over the edges. For the length, you’ll want it to go just a bit beyond the tips of the atara, and then for the width (i.e. from the top edge going down the tallit) typically a lining is approximately 50 cm (20 inches).

Tallit side bands

Tallit side bands are made from either a special synthetic ribbon, plain cotton or the same fabric as the tallit. The synthetic type is quite similar to a standard white atara, but with a different pattern and narrower. Cotton is often used on chassidic tallits, which typically have fairly wide side bands, but it’s fine to use cotton instead of the synthetic ribbon, and you can make them any width, up to the width of the corner squares. Side bands are not highly visible, but still some people will prefer cotton if they don’t like the shiny look of the synthetic type.

Sidebands should be sewn so that they touch the corner squares on one end, and the lining on the other. Occasionally someone will opt for side bands on a tallit without a lining; in that case the side bands should extend up to the point where the lining would have ended had there been a lining, i.e. a bit before you reach the ends of the atara. If you go beyond that point, you’ll have unsightly stitch marks running across your atara.

Tallit middle band

A tallit middle band is always made of the synthetic ribbon described in the previous section. Be sure to position is right on the middle crease, whether or not the crease is perfectly centered. If you just have a hole right in the center and don’t really like the idea of a shiny middle band running the entire length of the tallit, you might consider just sewing on a very short strip to cover up the hole. The aesthetics are debatable. Note that a tallit with a middle band rarely folds up as nicely as a tallit without one.

Tzitzit

Some of those doing sewing work on a tallit want to tie on tzitzit as well. Although it’s certainly great for the tallit owner to do the tzitzit tying himself, tzitzit tying is a very involved topic which is beyond the scope of this post.