Proud Papa

May 31, 2006 Posted on May 31, 2006 in Personal, Torah | 1 comment

Just a small note to everyone to have you share our joy. Our oldest son (five years old) has taken the initiative to wear the tzit-tzit! We’ve been talking about it for the last year or so, and for the last couple of weeks he’s been asking about it quite regularly, and said that he really would like to start wearing them. So… we sat down with him and explained some more about why we wear the tzit-tzit, what it means, how we are to benefit from it (by way of remembering to make right decisions), etc. This Sunday he & I took one of his Tshirts and attacked it with the sewing machine. By the time we were done we had made a decent-looking tallit katan (if I don’t say so myself).

I had already gotten my two oldest boys a “starter” set of tzit-tzit a year or more ago, so we took the task of attaching the tzit-tzit. I let him do this part all by himself, since he’s been helping me the last few times I’ve changed tallitot. From there, we taught him the blessings, and the proper respect for an object dedicated for holy purposes. We ended the day by having an informal ceremony and time of us blessing & commissioning him in his taking upon himself this mitzvah. I just wanted to share our joy with this post. I know that this is only an external practice, but as I’ve said many times — what we do in the physical is inseparably tied to the spiritual (like cutting my beard), if only an act of working towards a spiritual change. Please pray for our son this week as he begins to take his own steps in walking out his faith, and thank you for sharing our joy with us.