I suspect many people wear talitot for different reasons.. so here's mine...

About 15 years or so ago my wife of now 39 years and I had a second wedding (which occurred about a year after she converted).

She created a beautiful chuppah in the form of a tallit. I wear my tallit as a indication of respect for its creator. The fact we may have been commanded to wear fringes (tzitzit) is of little resonance to me. ON the other hand respect for one's life partner does resonate.

First, as to whether wearing a tallit is commanded, I'm not convinced. If we were looking to fulfill the commandment, we would be attaching fringes to our actual clothing, if it had corners. (An example might be the bottom of our shirts/blouses.)

I have two ideas as to why the tallit is coming back into mode. One is that women have claimed it as a symbol of equality. The other is that, as we dress more and more casually to go to Temple, this is a way of being "appropriately dressed" no matter what we're wearing.

I have been making a tallit, as a gift to myself for my 50th birthday - symbolic, I guess, of moving into a more "elder" stage of life. But as I look around my temple, I am more and more reluctant to wear it. So many people are now wearing kippah and talit that I don't want to communicate to others that it's an expectation rather than a choice by adding to the near-majority status that wearers have achieved.

Congratulations for the blog!

Well, I come from a double affiliated congregation in Brazil. I was there the moreh for people seeking to convert to Judaism. And why to use tallit and fringes was clearly explained and understood, since it appears always when we read the Shemah.

But I agree with "still learning". Although it´s not all that reform jews observe (or do), I imagine that we need to know, to study all we could, in order to be able to choose.
Our "classic reform Rabbis" knew and chose. Don´t we have the same rights?

Shabat Shalom
Uri Lam, Brazil

I grew up in a Reform tradition in Los Angeles where nobody wore tallitot or kipot, including the rabbis. Later, I moved toward Conservative and Orthodox traditions, where both were reserved for men, and even head coverings reserved for married women, which I was not (and am not). When I moved to Lynchburg, Virginia three years ago my synagogue, the only one in the city, I discovered that many of the men and women wore tallitot for services where the Torah is read and most of the men and many of the women wore kipot at every service.

It took me about a year to get used to it, then my brother went to Israel and asked me if there was something he could get for me there. I immediately told him I wanted a tallit. He sent me a pretty blue silk one, which I wore for the first time on Rosh Hashonah 2006. Since then, I wear mine for Torah services or when I am leading evening services or playing music, and I wear a kipot that I made myself at every service, Torah study, Hebrew class and Religious School.

Since then, I have used my quiltmaking skills to design original art tallitot and kipot, and have made several on commission for others. I no longer make any excuse for wearing one and respect those who do as well as those who don't. In fact, wearing one of my own designs is my best advertising.

I also grew up in an Orthodox synagogue. I had to sit upstairs or "at the back of the bus" after I was about 4 or 5 years old. As a woman I felt totally excluded from most ritual, even physically prevented from reciting Kaddish for my beloved grandfather, who raised me.

Since 1980 when I joined a Reform congregation, I have worn my self-made tallit at all daytime services and when the Torah is opened. I wear a kippah (I have some self-made and some bought) at all services and other times when appropriate (Shabbat evening, Pesach seder, funerals, etc.). I have attended every flavor of Jewish service, and with the exception of the Orthodox (where I wear a hat), I have worn tallit or kippah, or both, without regard to what others wear. Reform Judaism tell us that it's our choice whether or not to perform a mitzvah, so I'm content to leave it up to the individual.

Not only do I feel a full member of the Jewish people when I do so, I have tangible reminders of the spiritual presence of my ancestors that surrounds me when I do Jewish things.

The simple fact is that G-d commanded us to wear the tzitzit. Wearing the tallit not only allows me to fulfill the mitzvah and remember my grandfather, it asserts the equality of both sexes with regard to ritual observance and G-d's commandments.

The name of this piece of garment comes from ITZTAllit, from which our word, stole. came through the Latin stola.
It means a long loose garment, a robe.
It was the white linen garment our ancestors wore.
The fringes at the end of the garment meant power, as we see on the statues of the Egyptian pharaos.
Biblical tradition preserved the meaning of power when in the biblical story David cut of the fringes of Saul's robe.
The blue thread added to the fringes was the tribal identification.
The custom of the tallit is the reinterpretation one of those useful items or objects which lost its own regular use and became a religious commandment, one of the issues which can be put under the rubric, "old traditions rarely die, they are reinterpreted."
Wearing the tallit, and/or its modified version the Tallit katan Introduced in later centuries when the eastern long robe was not in fashion in other areas of the world. Wearing them in our days, is the expression of belonging to the people of Israel.

Although I have never owned or worn a Tallit, I have wanted one for years, looked longingly at them often, and decided that I would request this to be a joint Chanukah gift this year from my children to me. My hope is that it will not only bring me comfort, it will also bring a Jewish spiritual renewal to each of them, as they have not all chosen a Jewish path for the time (although my adult daughter and mother of two is beginning to think in terms of a Jewish education for her children).

I grew up in rural S.Dakota and there were probably 100 Jews within a 100-mile radius, counting children. We were a combined congregation; all the women wore head coverings and the girls too, and all the men from age 13 wore a tallit at our three services a year (High Holy Days and Pesach). Traditionally a tallit was the only gift a boy received for his 13th birthday, as there were no Jewish studies and no rabbi for 400 miles. I received a Mogen David for my 12th birthday. No hooplah, and no ceremony.

When I joined a Reform congregation in the mid 1980's no one (except for me - I wore a kippah)wore a tallit or a kippah, and none were available for those who wished to don one. I began bringing them to the Temple, and after a while more and more people began using the head covering. I could do nothing for those desirous of a tallit, but soon some men began getting theirs out of their closets, and the young girls began requesting them for their B'nei Mitvot. I am coming on to my second life, nearing my new "13" and so want to feel my closeness with the wearing of the tallit. I should have done it last year when I turned "12!"

Three years ago during my adult b'nei mitzvah class, the subject of wearing kipot and tallitim during our ceremony arose. Until then I had never considered the opportunity. It made me uncomfortable because of the association I have with Orthodoxy and rigidity. I resist following a commandment because it is written to do so. I had to grapple with the possibility that the tallit could spiritually transform my experience on the bemah. I opted to try the tallit, and I found that while enveloping myself during the prayer to don it, I entered a sacred space I had never known. It facilitated an intention to pray. Now I find that during a service touching the fringes or feeling the silk against my shoulders helps me stay focused. This of course has nothing to do with God's commandment, and everything to do with what works for me. I wonder if I wore a tallit every service if it would have the same effect.

I have been wearing a talit for 30 years. It started out as a feminist affirmation of my adulthood. At that time I belonged to a newly "radical" conservative congregation where all the male adults were expected to wear a talit, and so when, after much debate, women achieved full congregational participation, I thought it appropriate to wear one, too. I tied tsitsit for all my women friends who wished to wear one, too. Today the debate whether to wrap oneself in a talit has, for me, shifted from being politcal to being one of trying to achieve personal holiness through observing the commandmants. It's been an interesting shift raising many questions for me about the purpose of ritual and mitzvah observance. I think I feel good knowing that I am now wearing a talit for myself rather than for the movement, but I am grateful to feminism for giving me the ability to be able to alter my practice in a nurturing context.

It seems to me that we are better able to accept wearing a tallit as the performance of a mitzvah, if we can separate that from being commanded. If a mitzvah is what we are religiously obligated to do, then we are obliged to wear one by, as Rabbi Hoffman put it, our history, our community, our tradition and, in that sense, by God, without having to ponder who it was that may have "commanded" doing so.

Classical Reform argued that much of the traditional ritual was a remnant of medieval practices that were incompatible with modern sensibilities, and detracted from spiritual uplift. Critics said that they were merely aping Protestant Christian practice. There was probably some truth on both sides of the argument.

I think Classical Reform was right that choice of what rituals to observe should be a matter of what is spiritually uplifting. Personally I like the talit, which can be beautiful and comforting. The kippah looks a bit silly, but can be an inspiring reminder when a lot of people are wearing it.

I think that Mordechai Kaplan had it right in arguing that what rituals a congregation practices should be developed in the congregation. However, I think there should also be interaction with the center of the movement, which develops guidelines based on the experience and wishes of many congregations. That wouldn't be purely democratic, but would be influenced by congregations' desires and practices.

One idea would be to have a 'custom' of the congregation, perhaps posted, with the understanding that not all have to follow the custom.

For me Shabbat itself is on a different and more sacred level than the details of dress and the religious service.

I can certainly identify with others who have described the feelings of being wrapped in G_d's care, and creating a sacred personal atmosphere. As a Reform Jew, I have chosen to follow this particular Mitzvah because it holds meaning For me. Likewise, the fringes represent all of the Mitzvot, and as I run my fingers through them during services, I pause to reconsider which Mitzvot I have chosen to follow.

My family has evolved from Orthodoxy, to Conservatism, and finally to Reform. Along the way, various members of our extended family have had sometimes heated discussions about which Mitzvot "should" be observed, and which are less important. Ultimately, G_d gifted us with free will and the power to make choices, and I choose to do what is meaningful to me. I can't imagine NOT wearing a kippah to any service, Torah study, etc., or a Tallit during Torah services. I love being a Jew, and it is one more thing that is meaningful and powerful to me. L'chaim!