Tallet Customs

This page is a work-in-progress

Spelling Note: This page uses the standard Sephardic spelling of Tallet (instead of tallet), as seen in the 10th/11th Century manuscript of the Mishna, known today as the Kaufman manuscript. See bottom of https://sites.google.com/site/londonsephardiminhag/tallet for image

Textual Sources §

Overview and General §

R’ David Bar Haim video - shows various customs mentioned by Geonim and Rishonim, based on Midrash: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHijhmFCFXY

Midrash Sefer Tehillim: “All my limbs shall say ‘Who is like You, O Lord?’” (35:10)- With my neck, I fulfill the precept of wrapping oneself in fringes [tzitzit].

All in front
All in back
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Ṣiṣioth All in Back §

Rav Sa’adyah Gaon and the Radbaz both say that one should wear a tallith with it draped over the neck and then both sides thrown back over ones shoulder so that all sithsith are on ones back, in order to fulfill the words of a midrash https://judaism.stackexchange.com/a/57195/19574

Ṣiṣioth All in Front (draped over shoulders) §

Nehar Miṣrayim Halakhoth Ṣiṣith 4 (1908 CE):

ד) במצרים רובא דרובא דהמוני עם משלשלין כל הארבעה ציציות לצד פניהם והטלית מקופל על צוארם וראוי להודיעם שלפחות בשערת העטיפה. יברך ויתעטף בו ראשו ורובו ויעמוד כן כדי הילוך ארבע אמות ואח״כ ישלשלנו על כתפו.

“4) In Egypt the most common way is that one drapes all four ṣiṣioth to their front and the tallit is folded on their neck. And it’s appropriate to inform them in their time of wrapping. He blesses and wraps his head and most of his body in it and will stand up in the space of four cubits and afterward will drape it over his shoulder.”