Israelite Info Part III: Tzitzit Everywhere

Hello again!
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about what an Israelite looks like. The point was that an Israelite looks like a person, more or less; However, towards the end of the post, I hinted that if you observed closely, you would find some things unique about them. In this post, we will talk about one of those things--the ever-present tzitzit ("zeetzeet").

     "What is a tzitzit?" you might wonder, "Does it have any relation to tzatziki sauce?" Well, ponder no longer! A tzitzit is a type of tassel, usually worn on the corners of a garment. Alone, a tzitzit looks like this:

Pic from karaite-corner.org

     They are usually a combination of blue and white. They are woven to contain a certain number of twists and knots. They can be made at home, and are usually bought or created in sets of four.

Pic from gotcrochet.com

     For most Israelites, putting on their tzitzit in the morning is part of their morning routine, just like brushing their teeth. We receive this conviction from Numbers 15:38 (KJV), "Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue" and Deuteronomy 22:12 (KJV), "Thou shalt make thee twisted cords upon the four corners of thy covering, wherewith thou coverest thyself.". There is also some evidence that Yeshua himself wore the tzitzit, compounding the point that we should wear them  (Matthew 9:20), "Just then a woman who had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding came up behind him. She touched the fringe of his robe". Now, if you follow the link for that last verse, you'll see a variety of translations: some of the time, it is called "the edge of his cloak", and sometimes, "the fringe of his garment", so there is room for debate there. I'm not going to get into that; I'm on the side of the debate that the "fringe" in question is the same fringe commanded in the Old Testament to the children of Israel.

     Now, to the specifics. Israelites are not the only people on the planet who wear tzitzit. Jews also wear them, though they wear them in a different way. They wear their tzitzit connected to a tallit, a prayer shawl: 

Note the fringes on the corner of the shawl.
Picture from theshofarman.com

Or, they wear their tzitzit on a tallit katan, a type of undergarment. It's a rectangular piece of cloth with a hole in the middle. The tzitzit are connected to the corners of this garment, and it is worn with one's head through the hole, underneath one's everyday clothes.

Pic from templestudy.com

    The thought behind wearing the tzitzit on a separate, special garment is as follows: The verse from Deuteronomy specifies that one should wear the tzitzit on "the four corners of thy covering". Some historical context is needed here. Due to the technology at the time, most clothing was made from rectangular pieces of cloth, draped, wrapped, sewn, and worn in different ways. As the clothing was made from rectangular cloth, all garments had "corners". (A great explanation for the process and different types of clothing items can be found here). Nowadays, very few clothing items have what can be called "corners". So, the reasoning follows, if there are no corners on your clothes, wear something with corners. Jews follow this reasoning, as do some Israelites.

     The "type" of Israelite I am (no denominations, rather a way of thinking) reasons that corners were called for because everyone had corners on their clothes. The clothes were not special; they were just what people wore. Ergo, today, we don't need special clothing to put the tzitzit on, so we just attach them to our everyday wear. Typical methods are clipping the tzitzit to belt loops using a small carabiner or attaching them using a lark's head knot.

Shown here, the lark's head method on a skirt I own

    It may seem from what you've read here that the wearing of tzitzit is an arbitrary-type law. It is not so; the expressed purpose of tzitzit given in Numbers 15:39-40, "And it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it, and remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them ; and that ye seek not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring: That ye may remember, and do all my commandments, and be holy unto your God."

     So, much like a red string tied around your finger, tzitzit are for remembrance of the Law. When we wear them, they serve as a constant reminder as to how we should act.

     Have you ever seen tzitzit in your everyday life? Have you considered wearing them or known someone who wears them? Let us know in the comments!