Imagine if the groom had to choose the bride's wedding dress on his own. I have a hunch that in some cases she would take one look at his choice and call off the wedding. Yet it's often left up to the Jewish bride to choose a tallit for her fiance.
In the yeshiva world, where the custom is for the kallah or her parents to buy a tallis for the chassan, the choice is fairly straightforward. He'll want the age-old standard: a white wool tallit with black stripes (or white stripes if the groom is Sephardic). All she has to do is find a high quality tallit and figure out which size he needs. At most there will be a question of an ornate atara. (After all, the Talmud says a groom is to be considered like a king.)
Tallit
But what if he comes from a Modern Orthodox background - or isn't Orthodox at all? If that's the case, the bride has a lot of questions on her hands: Does he wear a small tallit or prefer it to drape over his back and down to the back of the knees? Would he like quiet blue stripes or a medley of colors? The issue of color is especially crucial because the bride also has to make sure the tallit doesn't clash with the chuppah or her dress. In fact, the tallit sets the tone for the look of the chuppah.
And if the tallit is used in shul, the wedding tallit she chooses will also have an impact for years to come. Clothes make the man, and it makes a world of difference if he later steps into shul wearing a nondescript tallit or an heirloom quality tallit.
Sephardic Jews have a beautiful custom of wrapping the bride and groom in a tallit during the ceremony. In the Orthodox world, a tallit is generally not used at the chuppah among Ashkenazim, although in Modern Orthodox circles it seems to be catching in.
The Jewish brides that come to me in search of a tallit for a modern groom seem to like handmade tallits, which come in a wide variety of colors and striping patterns. Traditionalists go for the classic white wool with black stripes. A middle-of-the-road option is white with blue stripes.
Another - more expensive - option is a hand-woven tallit. I recently had a Jewish bride who knew exactly what she wanted, so she went with a hand-woven tallit because it allowed her to choose a particular color and pattern. Since a tallit is a very personal gift that the groom will wear for years to come, it may be worth the price to have a special memory of his wedding ever time he wears it in shul.
No matter which wedding tallit she buys, I strongly recommend the bride add a tallit bag with embroidered lettering. A simple tallit bag can be had for as little as (and up to or more) and the lettering should cost only per letter. As long as he doesn't have a very long name (e.g. Jeremiah Eliezer Bloomenkranz) it won't cost much - and if he does, you can always use just his initials.
Jewish Bride's Guide: Choosing a Wedding Tallit
Ben Slobodkin is the owner and operator of Ben's Tallit Shop, an Israel-based webstore that sells tallits and chuppahs to customers around the world. The shop specializes in traditional prayer shawls, bar mitzvah tallits, wedding tallits, handmade tallits and hand-woven tallits in wool, cotton and silk.
Website: http://www.tallit-shop.com/.
Tallit or chuppah questions? Feel free to contact the author at benstallitshop [at] gmail [dot] com
0 comments:
แสดงความคิดเห็น