Minhag Finds and Questions

[debka_notion]

1. Does anyone know which community has/had the custom to wear a tallit gadol before bar mtizvah? I think it's a custom of one or several of the Sephardi communities but I'm not sure. It came to mind as I saw a boy who was maybe 9 years old, tops, wearing a tallit gadol at shul this week. (I also saw a little girl with a tallit katan with her tzitzit hanging out running around. It's the first time I've seen that, and made me rather hopeful.)

2. Apparently it is a tradition in the Old City of Jerusalem to light Channukah candles during the day without a bracha (blessing) as well as at night (with a blessing, of course). No idea how that tradition came to be or why. But it's an interesting one.

3. No one knows of a reason a tallit katan would have to be perfectly rectangular, do they? I'm presuming they don't, as long as they are 2/3 open at the sides and have 4 corners. (I.e. it wouldn't be a problem for the shoulders to be narrower than the rest of the garment, would it?)

Comments

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

1. Does anyone know which community has/had the custom to wear a tallit gadol before bar mtizvah? I think it's a custom of one or several of the Sephardi communities but I'm not sure. It came to mind as I saw a boy who was maybe 9 years old, tops, wearing a tallit gadol at shul this week. (I also saw a little girl with a tallit katan with her tzitzit hanging out running around. It's the first time I've seen that, and made me rather hopeful.)

I know that Ashkenazim are unusual in that we only give boys (and girls, in egalitarian settings) tefillin three months before they reach the age of majority. Could it be that most Mizrahi and Sefardi Jews do the same for tallitot? I know for a fact that none of them refrain from wearing a tallit before marriage.

2. Apparently it is a tradition in the Old City of Jerusalem to light Channukah candles during the day without a bracha (blessing) as well as at night (with a blessing, of course). No idea how that tradition came to be or why. But it's an interesting one.

The purpose of lighting the candles/lamps is to publicize the commemoration of the miracle. The mitzvah only applies at night, but there's no reason one can't take that beyond the letter. Sounds nice to me.

3. No one knows of a reason a tallit katan would have to be perfectly rectangular, do they? I'm presuming they don't, as long as they are 2/3 open at the sides and have 4 corners. (I.e. it wouldn't be a problem for the shoulders to be narrower than the rest of the garment, would it?)

I'd ask a rabbi on this one. I can't give a specific reason why it wouldn't be kosher (I'm not so well versed in hilkhot tzitzit), but the fact that every tallit katan I've ever seen has been perfectly rectangular suggests to me that there's a reason.

Oh yeah . . .

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

A tallit katan only has to be mostly, open at the sides. As in 50.001%.

Answers

[margavriel.livejournal.com]

1. As far as I know, virtually all communities outside of Eastern Europe. This is certainly the practice in all Sepharadic communities that I know (though I don't know them so well), as well as the Western Ashkenazzic Yekkish communities, which I know much better (because I practice their minhogim, and indeed, spend a lot of time in K'hal Adass Jeshurun in Washington Heights).

In Eastern European communities, men did not wear talleisim [sic] until their marriage. The original reason for this seems to have been that talleisim were expensive, and were often given as wedding presents.

I wonder what is the origin of the practice common in American Conservative synagogues, in which children below bar-/bath-mitzvo age do not wear talleithin, but boys above 13, and in some Conservative communities girls as well, do. I do not know of any evidence of this practice before mid-twentieth century American Conservative Judaism. If anyone has evidence to the contrary, I would be happy to be disproven.

2. Isn't that the universal practice? Chanukko lights are lit in the night with a b^erokho, both at home and in the synagogue, and they are lit without a b^erokho in the morning, but only in the synagogue. Or do you mean that in the Old City, they are lit in the morning even in the home?

3. I don't know, but I think that any four-cornered garment is obligated in tzitzith.