Today I spoke on the phone with a longtime customer from Canada. Let's call him Adam Kahn. Adam wants to buy a tallis and tallis bag for his soon-to-be son-in-law. He didn't say it out loud, but I got the sense that he was a bit surprised by the young man's high expectations for the tallis bag — "compared to my shmata tallis bag," as Adam put it. 

I can appreciate Adam's sentiments (assuming I picked up on them correctly). But even so, here I'd like to present a different perspective on the topic of expensive tallis bags. Much of what I write here may be bad for business, but so be it. I've always been a bit prone to indiscretions here and there. (For example, during parent-teacher meetings, I sometimes got kicked under the table by my wife for letting slip unflattering remarks about the kids.) But I'm not so worried about damage to my business; I'm counting on the fact that in today's age of "short-form" content consumption, very few readers will get even half-way through my wordy blog post.

Case 1 - My son's engagement

When my son got engaged, the kallah got him a tallis and tallis bag for Shabbos, but I insisted I'd be the one who provides him with a weekday tallis and tallis bag. So I sent him off to our tallis bag shelves. He came back with a genuine leather tallis bag set. With the shoulder strap it retails for nearly $200. Most of my customers buy a tallis/tefillin set in the neighborhood of $25-$50. I was about to pipe up with a remark about him having expensive taste, but I kept my mouth shut. Primarily because I suddenly recalled my own proclivity for a genuine leather tallis bag set. Which brings us to Case 2...

Case 2 - My birthday splurge

The first time I spotted a genuine leather tallis bag set it was being toted by Naftali. A lot of people might not have really noticed, but since I deal a lot with tallis bags professionally, I could immediately discern that it was real leather, not PU – like mine. Naftali was sort of a bigshot in shul, so I figured Naftali is one thing, but I’m fine with my budget bags...

Then about two or three years ago, when my birthday was approaching, I decided I’d finally spring for a real leather bag set of my own. Around the same time my wife started asking what she could get me as a present. I told her I’d buy it and she could gift it to me—a quirky plan she gladly accepted.

Now, two or three years later, I have no regrets. The bags look as good as new and have served me well. Had I stuck with PU bags, I probably would’ve gone through another two nothing-to-write-home-about bag sets that I could live with, but never truly enjoy.

Case 3 - Opulence in the tallis bag market

Nachum is a distributor for an established Judaica embroidery company in Jerusalem that caters largely to the chassidic community. He told me that since chassidim often go for grandeur and opulence when it comes to Judaica products, there’s now a strong market for high-end tallis/tefillin sets with fur elements, etc. that can retail for NIS 800 to NIS 1,500 (about $250-$470 at today’s exchange rate) – especially when there’s a wedding coming up.

Likewise we have some commercial ties with a local Judaica store here in town (with no online presence), which also caters largely to chassidim (around half of their customer base). Their sales workers once told me that when there’s a wedding on the horizon, the mechutanim knock themselves out when it comes to exchanging presents, including top-of-the-line tallis/tefillin bags.

Adding it All Up

These cases illustrate the point that maybe, just maybe, what appears to be over-the-top spending might be understandable in many cases. In the end, spending $200–$300 on a tallis bag may not be as extravagant as it seems. It’s a mitzvah item that can last a decade or more, and Judaism values beautifying mitzvot—zeh Keli v’anveihu. If we don’t blink at paying the same for a purse or briefcase, why hesitate here?