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Divine Stitches:
Daughter's Tallit

RAHEL MUSLEAH

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at Solomon Schechter of Nassau
County, Long Island, "it would be like
wearing your shirt upside down."
I sewed the atarah onto the tallit by
hand, and four white silk squares onto
the four corners. Next step: making
buttonholes on the squares, through
which the tzizit would be looped. The
tzitzit, the ritual fringes, are attached
to the four corners in accordance With
the Shema prayer, which says: when
you look at the fringes, you will recall
and observe the commandments of the
Torah.
Flora's sewing machine balked at the
fragile material, so a seamstress did
them by hand.
The Thursday night before the bat
mitzvah, we knotted the tzitzit, with
the help.of Flora and The Jewish

I measured the proximity of my
daughter's bat mitzvah by my
progress on her tallit.
Inspired by my sister, who
had made both her sons' tallitot as
well as her own; I asked my daughter
Shira if she'd like me to make her .a
tallit. "Sure," she said.
I grew up in an Orthodox syna-
gogue with a mechitzah (separation of
women and men), so I had no memo-
ries of playing with my father's tallit,
none of that visceral feel of silk and
knots and closeness to father and
prayer.
But I have been wearing a tallit for
seven years, since I fell in love with an
Catalog:
ivory, sky-blue-and-silver Malka
Wind the threads around seven times,
Gavrielli creation in Jerusalem. Instead
tie a double knot. Twist it around eight
of borrowing a tallit off the rack when
times, tie a double knot. Wind it around
I read Torah in my Conservative syna-
11 times, tie a double knot, and twist it
gogue, I wanted my own.
again
13 times, finishing with a double
From among rolls of fuchsia and
knot.
emerald silks in a nearby sari store,.
The windings add up to 39, the
Shira chose a delicate patterned fabric
numerical
value of the letters in the
of lavender, turquoise and white, and a
Adonai
Ehad, "God is One."
phrase,
the
band
that
atarah,
white silk for the
The Sephardic tradition follows this
crowns the top of the tallit.
pattern: ten, five, six and five, repre-
My sister Flora showed me how to
senting the letters in the
fringe the material on two sides. I
Tetragrammaton,
God's name; The
chose a verse for the atarah and traced
five
knots
symbolize
the five senses,
out the letters I was going to embroi-
the
five
books
of
the
Torah, or the first
Ashirah
l'Adonai
der in purple thread:
five
words
of
the
Shema.
will
sing
to
God"
—
to
match
—"I
Shira's name and the words from the
Song of Moses at the Red Sea, in her
The Symbolism
Torah portion.
We
each took a turn at winding and
My satin stitch didn't always look
knotting.
As I took pictures, I focused
satin — it curved to the whim of the
on
how
the
chain of tradition was
letters and my unpracticed hand. The
being
passed
down in a new way.
slanted
differ-
shin
three crowns of the
Tallit, tzitzit, those male-imbued
ent ways, and the lamed looked like it
words, were being transformed into a
had a tiny bite munched out of its
woman's domain.
body where my needle hadn't quite
When Shira put on the tallit, it
met the outline I had drawn.
looked
like it was made for her (well,
But when it was completed, it
it
was!),
wrapping her in its gossamer
looked perfect from far away. Almost.
t'khelet
v'argaman
— the blue and pur-
The purpose of atarah is to make
ple that once adorned the curtains of
sure you always wear your tallit the
the mishkan, the biblical sanctuary. In
same way. "If you didn't," explained
its subtle and beautiful way, the tallit
Flora, who teaches Bible and rabbinics