Empty Talit; Full Heart

Seeking Embrace in Difficult Times

In many Jewish circles, a bridegroom receives his first talit, or prayer shawl, from his beloved as a wedding gift. From that time on, he wraps the square cloth around himself each morning at prayers, letting the knotted and looped strings at its corners fly freely as he sways to the cadences and melodies. My bride Dina gave me my talit 36 years ago. Wearing it on the first morning of our married life, I remember feeling that God was giving me a hug. I finally understood why, unlike other commandments, which become obligatory for Jewish men at the age of thirteen, the talit is delayed until marriage. How can you really appreciate the embrace of God until you have experienced the embrace of a spouse?

As our married life went on, my talit became more than a symbol of receiving a hug; it was a vehicle for dispensing hugs, as well. During the Priestly blessing on holidays, fathers spread their talit to encompass their children. Together in a posture of love, they receive the blessing of God, conferred by God’s representatives, the Priests, also enveloped by their talitot. Those were moments of tenderness and exquisite love in my ritual and family life. 

My children sensed the love too. While there were moments in our relationships that we were, like all parents and children, at loggerheads with each other, no child ever carried the conflict into the synagogue by refusing to come under my talit. They must have sensed that doing so was the “nuclear option,” that would break my heart, winning the argument, but losing the relationship. 

This holiday season I was worried. My youngest son was off studying in Israel for the year, and, for the first time, there was no younger child in the wings to take his place under my talit for the Priestly blessing. My talit was empty. I didn’t know how I would react emotionally to an empty talit. 

I surprised myself. On Yom Kippur and the first days of Sukkot, or Tabernacles, I did quite well. I attributed this to the fact that I know that my son’s absence was due to the fact that he was where he belonged: In the Holy Land, with sincere teachers and students, studying God’s law. 

Then came October 7th.  With the brutal attacks and kidnappings perpetrated by Hamas came the realization to this father that my son was 6000 miles away, in a zone of uncertainty, and I was incapable of giving him a hug. 

Of course there were answers that consoled me. A solicitous Yeshiva, concerned relatives, and friends are all there to serve in loco embracus (Ok, so all my Latin is from Harry Potter). Even more, my son is of an age that he is able to start doling out his own hugs in the service of his people. In fact, one of the projects which he and his fellow students undertook was tying the strings on mini talitot to send to the front, where even secular soldiers have been requesting them, you might say, as a talisman. 

But then I sustained another loss. A close friend and congregant, who ran our charity fund and always had the right words to comfort others, suddenly passed away. One of the personal kindnesses that this man did each year was to insist on lending me his talit to use on the night that began the penitential season that culminates with Yom Kippur. I felt each year like a child again, rejuvenated and embraced by the talit of this fine Jew. His death left me not only unable to issue a hug, but unable to receive one, as well. 

And so I must come full circle. 

I believe that the idea of a talit representing embrace and protection has biblical roots. When Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge and were banished from Eden, God did not leave them defenseless. The Lord made for the Man and his wife coats of hide and dressed them. Despite their defiance, and even when they were to be punished, the first humans were the recipients of God’s kindness in clothing the naked. And when the Moabite convert Ruth, who returned with her destitute mother-in-law, Naomi, to Bethlehem, and began collecting forgotten stalks of grain in the field of Naomi’s kinsman Boaz, she begs him, “Won’t you spread the corner of your garment over your maidservant?” Boaz emulates God’s behavior towards Adam and Eve. He protects Ruth, and marries her. Their descendant is King David, from whom, tradition tells us, will emerge the Messiah and redemption.

It is God’s turn again.

God who gave Adam and Eve a protecting hug, no matter how far they had fallen, and who saw fit to compound eternal monarchy from under the protective talit of Boaz who saw past the background and circumstances of Ruth, must extend His talit over my child and yours, over Israel and the world. Despite our disunity, notwithstanding our many mistakes, regardless of our frayed knots and severed strings, we need a Divine hug.