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

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.