Here in Eretz Yisrael we’re on the tail end of the longest heat wave on record. In much of the country it’s been 40-45 degrees (104-113 Fahrenheit). One spot near Jericho got up to 49 degrees (120 degrees Fahrenheit). This early heat wave got me thinking about a topic I’ve written about several times in the past: How to keep cool wearing tzitzit. This time I’d like to present a wide range of strategies to accommodate different people’s preference, wardrobe, heat coping needs and halachic perspectives.

Netted Tzitzit

A netted tallit katan is economical and has large holes throughout, so it doesn’t absorb perspiration and is not felt much. On the other hand it’s not very elegant and is problematic from a halachic perspective according to some opinions.

Cotton Tzitzit

A cotton tallit katan (rhymes nicely!) is definitely a good option for a number of reasons. It’s made of comfortable, thin cotton, is low cost and can easily be machine-washed providing you have a technique or device to protect the tzitzit strings. And there’s a real boon for those who wear tank tops: If you prefer to wear three layers it enables you to have a lot less fabric and more ventilation under your shirt. In recent years some manufacturers have started making a special textured cotton weave that looks nice, stays in place better and seems to be highly breathable.

Undershirt Tzitzit

Also known as Perftzit or Neatzit, this has come into very widespread use over the past two decades, largely because it enables you to go from three layers to two. However, in some situations is may not be ideal. The fabric is not so thin, so if you really work up a sweat, once you get two layers of cotton drenched with moisture, you are likely to stay hot and clammy for quite a while. Also, since it’s worn against the skin it requires frequent washing. Whether it’s okay to wear a tzitzit garment directly on the skin is a bit of a halachic question.

Sport Tzitzit

What about for running, gym workouts, hiking trips and jogging? The undershirt tzitzit above gets you down to two layers, but you can also strip down to a single layer with either a cotton tzitzit t-shirt or a DryFit shirt. The design is almost identical; the difference between the two is the fabric, i.e. cotton or synthetic. The advantage of cotton is that it’s more comfortable and is preferable from a halachic standpoint. The advantage of the DryFit (sometimes referred to as Sport Tzitzit) is that it doesn’t absorb sweat and it’s more durable.

Wool Tzitzit

Many Sephardic Jews wear only wool as required by the Shulchan Aruch. (Most Ashkenazim wear cotton at least some of the time because it is permitted by gloss on the Shulchan Aruch written by the Rema.) For them the only question is how to find the coolest wool fabric possible. For traditionalists, the obvious answer is a lightweight traditional tallit katan (see here and here). You do not have to compromise on the elegance of the tallit katan garment and wool is quite durable.

If you think wool will invariably make you miserably hot, think again. It doesn’t absorb moisture and breathes well, so it actually does a decent job in many circumstances.

Wool Undershirt Tzitzit

For years Mishkan Hatchelet has made an undershirt with the exact same design as their cotton undershirt tzitzit, but using a soft, stretchy thin wool fabric. In recent years, several other companies have followed their lead, but using very slightly thinner wool. The end product is a very supple, breatheably and comfortable wool tzitzit garment, that stays in place fabulously and keeps you cool in most circumstances. Although the wool is quite soft, it’s still very slightly itchy, so you can’t get away with wearing a tank top beneath, but need a sleeved undershirt.

Go to Tallit Katan/Tzitzit category>>>

Perhaps occasionally someone buying tefillin doesn’t really ask any questions; as long as they are called “tefillin,” that’s good enough for him. But most prospective tefillin buyers are more discerning. Invariably they want some sort of assurance that the tefillin they are buying is indeed kosher. A customer sent us a message today, posing the question very succinctly:

Are your tefilim [sic] certified kosher?

The spelling mistake can either be attributed to tiny cellphone buttons or daylight on the screen – or perhaps a buyer who knows very, very little about tefillin. So in case the latter applies, I wrote a long reply spelling out the answer step-by-step, which I’m sharing below.

Just about any seller you ask will tell you their tefillin are certified kosher. That can mean different things.

1) All tefillin are assembled from different “parts,” namely the parchments inside, the boxes themselves and the straps. A tefillin seller might have no certification on the boxes or straps, but because the parchments were run through a computer scan, they consider the tefillin to be kosher. This is very misleading, because the computer check is really just a tool to assist the mandatory, detailed inspection performed by a highly trained parchment checker (“magihah“).

2) A tefillin seller might have certification for the leather boxes and straps, and therefore considers the tefillin certified kosher even though the parchments were not properly checked manually. Of course different kashrut organizations maintain different standards.

3) The tefillin maker may use boxes and straps with reliable kosher certification, and he oversees the parchment production process himself (typically because he worked as a parchment writer – “sofer STaM” – for many years). Normally this means he has the parchments scanned with a special computer program and has them checked by a certified parchment checker. If any halachic questions arise, he makes the final judgement call himself.

4) The tefillin maker uses boxes with kosher certification, straps with kosher certification and he oversees the parchment production process himself (typically because he worked as a parchment writer – “sofer STaM” – for many years). Normally this means he has the parchments scanned with a special computer program and has them checked by a certified parchment checker. However, there is a highly qualified outside rabbinical authority who comes in once or twice a week to do a general inspection and to tackle any halachic questions that may arise. Generally these questions relate to the form of the letters; in some cases there may be a slight doubt as to whether a certain letter was formed properly (e.g. a Yud that comes down a bit far and could be construed as a Vav)

Obviously more oversight in the various stages of production, and higher kashrut standards can play a significant part in the final price of the tefillin.

Yesterday I received a question from a prospective customer wondering which type of wool tallit katan would be best for him.

Hi- Is there any halachic disadvantage to choosing the Wool Comfort Tallit Kattan instead of a Classic Wool Tallit Katan? I would rather personally prefer to use the more comfortable one as long as there is no halachic downside…

Really a brilliant question. I say “brilliant” out of a distinct lack of humility because, well, I had the same question for quite a while.

I’ve been wearing a tallis katan for the past 25 years. Over that time period I have worn mostly mesh (for a short time), standard cotton and white-striped wool.

Some people who wear wool wear only wool, primarily for halachic reasons. I usually wear wool, but sometimes wear cotton during the summer. (If I were Sephardic the question would be a bit different.)

I never worn an undershirt tzitzit garment because to me they looked sort of modern. One day, I saw someone at a tallit store in Jerusalem try on a Wool Comfort. Speaking with the salesman, he mentioned that he snips off the side bands, and voila! he has a regular rectangular tallit katan, just without the striping and fringes, and with a super comfortable, stretchy wool fabric.

That made an impression on me, but I didn’t go out and do the same.

A few months later I started to sell a product similar to the Wool Comfort, but with a snap on each side, allowing you to make it like the Wool Comfort with the side band, or open (like that customer who snipped off the side bands). One of the ones we had in stock had a slight defect, and it was my size, so I decided to give it a try.

As a former semi-professional tzitzit tie-er, I can’t bring myself to have someone else tie tzitzit on for me. But as a lifetime procrastinator, it took me a few weeks to find the time to do the tying. Finally it was ready to try on…and I have never gone back.

I still have a traditional wool tallit katan I wear on Shabbos. But I don’t love it, because it sometimes rides up until I start to feel strangled (and testy until I realize what’s bothering me) and because it’s not so great during my Shabbos nap, when I take my shirt off and it gets a bit in the way.

Uh oh. I see that instead of answering Paul’s question, I meandered on a long-worded autobiographical excursion. Let’s get back on track.

A few years ago the rabbi of a local shul gave an entire Friday night drasha on the topic of נוי ציצית, which obviously is a subject close to my heart. Among other things, he said there are really two questions, one is the beged and the other is the tzitzis. Obviously if you let your tzitzis strings get grungy and frazzled without putting on new ones, that’s lacking in נוי ציצית. A few weeks later I approached him and asked him about the beged. I said that wool invariably looks nicer than cotton, so is cotton a compromise in terms of נוי ציצית? He said no, that if you go with cotton, you just have to make sure that for a cotton garment it looks respectable. (For example, one that looks like one of the undershirts that your wife sees you in and chides you for not going out to buy new ones.)

The next question, then, is if you’re sticking with wool, should you stick with the traditional type of tallit katan, with a nice wool weave, bright white base color, striping and usually fringes along the bottom. Personally I’d say no, that as long as the garment you’re wearing is clean and not old and tattered looking, that you are fulfilling the mitzvah b’hiddur, that you’re not required to choose one type of fabric or tailoring over another.

Still, I had some vague reservations, so I took a sample of the Wool Comfort to our mara d’asra, and he agreed that it was mehudar.

In my humble opinion, in one aspect it might be more mehudar than the traditional wool type, because depending on size you choose, there might be certain questions regarding שיעור בגד, and the v-neck (as opposed to a t-neck) may help you eke out a bit more material from the bottom of the neck opening to the front bottom edge, if that’s how you hold the שיעור should be measured. (This last paragraph may be obscure for those who haven’t dealt with this halachic issue in the past.)

Also, it may have another advantage over other wool tallit katan garments. In Iggros Moshe, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, responding to the question of whether Ashkenazim should prefer wool over cotton, writes that in extreme heat you may not be properly fulfilling the mitzvah of tzitzit wearing wool, because you need a garment that provides you with benefit, whereas a garment that just makes you overheated does not offer any real benefit.

Our customers are often somewhat unclear about the machine-spun and hand-spun tzitzit options we offer on just about every product page. Probably a better term would be machine-twined and hand-twined, but nobody in the tzitzit business uses those terms. And it definitely does not refer to the tying, which is always done by hand. There’s no such thing as a tzitzit tying machine! 

The distinction between the two is mostly a halachic difference. This week we received an inquiry from a prospective customer who was unsure what type of tzitzit he has on his tallit katan.

Hi, I’m looking to buy some tzitzis and I just wanted to get some clarification about handspun vs machine spun. I’ve been wearing the NeaTzit brand tzitzis (with the metal snaps) for years, size 22, with Ashkenaz strings. I’m looking to get some new ones, but I understand that company went out of business, so I was looking at the Cotton Comfort ones you sell with the straps (I’ve tried PerfTzit and don’t like the fit and round neck). When I checkout it gives options for both machine spun and handspun strings. Is handspun the standard, with machine spun considered a kulah? I don’t remember what the NeaTzit ones were; do you know if NeaTzit ever used machine spun? Of course I’m not expecting a psak; I’m just looking for a bit of informational guidance. Thanks, Yehuda

I explained to Yehuda that to some people machine-spun would be considered a leniency. On the other hand all undershirt and t-shirt tzitzit products come with thin machine-spun tzitzit tied on by the manufacturer. Many customers opt to upgrade to hand-spun (or want techelet).

To understand the issue behind the two types of tzitzit strings please refer to this article.

The matter of machine-spun strings versus hand-spun strings closely parallels the matter of hand-matzoh versus machine-matzoh on the Seder Night (but not the remainder of Pesach). Obviously we eat matzah on Pesach because we can’t eat bread, but there is also a positive mitzvah to eat matzah on the night of the Seder. To fulfill this mitzvah, the matzah must be made with intention for the mitzvah. The question then is whether that “mitzvah intention” can be achieved when a person operates the matzah making machine and then the machine does the actual work.

In the case of tzitzit strings production, the same question arises. Hand-spun means that Jewish workers operate the twining machine with their own two hands.

I’m at a loss over how to answer your question whether machine-spun is a leniency or hand-spun is a stringency. The more modern looking tallit styles come with machine-spun tzitzit standard, just like the undershirt tzitzit and t-shirt tzitzit products mentioned above. High-end traditional wool black-striped and white-striped tallits usually come from the manufacturer without tzitzit and almost nobody who opts for such a tallit would tie machine-spun tzitzit on it.

Tallis Hamefoar and Malchut are very similar tallits made by rival manufacturers. Hamefoar is made by Mishkan Hatchelet and Malchut by Talitania. If you saw them worn on someone in synagogue, you probably wouldn’t notice much of a difference, except perhaps a slight difference in the striping pattern.

If you put both tallits side-by-side and took a good look, many people would agree that Hamefoar has a nicer weave, but in my opinion the finishing work on the edges is a bit better on the Malchut. I happen to have a Malchut I’ve worn as my weekday tallis for about two years, and it’s holding up quite well.

In contrast to the Malchut and Hamefoar, another popular tallis, the Tashbetz, has a more pronounced box weave designed for optimal nonslip properties. Unlike Malchut and Hamefoar, which come with either black striping or white striping, the Tashbetz is available in five stripe colors: black, white, white-silver, light blue and gray. 

Also, the size options differ somewhat:

 

	Size 45 (XXS)	Size 50 (XS)	Size 55 (S)	Size 60 (M)	Size 70 (L)	Size 80 (XL)	Size 90 (XXL)
Tashbetz	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
Hamefoar		✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
Malchut			✔	✔	✔	✔	✔

לא מעט לקוחות שואלים האם כדאי לקנות ציצית צמר או ציצית כותנה. היום קיבלנו פנייה מאישה שמעוניינת לקנות ציצית לבעלה ומסתפק איזה בד מתאים.

אני צריכה ציצית דאורייתה אך לא צמר (חיים במיאמי פלורידה ומאוד חם כאן) הבנתי שיש ציצית ניצת שהיא מבד נמתח והיא גם לפי דוארייתה. אשמח אם תוכל לעזור לי למצוא את מה שאני צריכה (אני קונה מתנה לבעלי אז פחות מתמצאת בדרישות ההלכתיות לכן אשמח לעזרתך).

כך השבנו לה:

לקנות ציצית זה באמת מסובך לפעמים – גם לגבר עצמו.

כשבאים לקיים מצוות ציצית דאורייתא, יש הבדל מסוים בין אשכנזים לספרדים. לפי הפוסקים הספרדים, רק בגד מצמר חייב בציצית מן התורה, ואילו הפוסקים האשכנזים מקלים יותר, ולדעתם גם בגד כותנה חייב בציצית מן התורה. לכן רוב הספרדים נזהרים ללבוש בגד ציצית עשוי צמר, ובין האשכנזים, חלק גדול לובשים כותנה.

לי אישית (אני אשכנזי), יש גם צמר וגם כותנה בארון הבגדים. הרבה אנשים רק שומעים את המילה “צמר” ומתחילים להזיע. אני חולק עליהם! כשמזיעים, כותנה סופג זיעה, ואתה נשאר עם הלחות עליך, אבל לצמר יש תכונה מיוחדת שהוא אינו סופג זיעה ונושם טוב.

בשנים האחרונות התחילו לייצר בגד צמר מאוד נוח, מבד ייחודי קליל ונושם ואלסטי. אם אתה לובש גופיה תחתיו, לדעתי, אין עליו (
Wool Comfort או Wool Comfort with Snaps). אבל למי שרוצה ללבוש רק שתי שכבות (טלית קטן ועליו חולצה) צמר לא בא בחשבון. הם צריכים גופיית הציצית הפופולרי העשויה מכותנה. יש לדעת שיש פוסקים שאומרים שבגד כזה בעייתי קצת, כי זה נחשב ל”בגד זיעה” ואין זה נעה להשתמש בבגד זיעה לקיום מצווה.

כשמונים אחוז מההזמנות שלנו נשלחות לארה”ב. דמי המשלוח בין 6 ל-12 דולר בהתאם לעלות ההזמנה. אם שולחים לחו”ל, לא אין תוספת מע”מ.