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Everything about experiencing the mystery of the prayer shawl points to Yeshua, the Teacher. The tallit is all about Him.
It represents the Word of God, and He is the Living Word. It is most likely that Yeshua always wore a tallit because doing so was required by the Torah and He obeyed the Law of Moses. But there was something special about the Teacher's tallit. In the Word of God, we see instances of people reaching out to take hold of the hem of His garment, the tzitzit, so they would be healed. This was a profound, faith-filled act that, as we will see in this chapter, confirmed that Yeshua was indeed the promised Messiah.
The Scriptures tell us: "But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings" (Mal. 4:2).
The sun of righteousness has been interpreted to mean the Messiah, and the Hebrew term for "wings"is kanaph or kanaphecha. Consequently, the verse has been interpreted to read, "When the Messiah arises there will be healing through His kanaph or tzitzit, the corner of His tallit." This is why those who were ill wanted to grab the corner of Yeshua's garment, the tzitzit, which represents the Word of God. They believed that Yeshua was the Messiah and that there was healing in His "wings."
We read in the book of Matthew: "Then a woman, who was ill with a flow of blood for twelve years, came behind Him and touched the hem of His garment. For she said within herself, 'If I may just touch His garment, I shall be healed.' But Jesus turned around, and when He saw her, He said, 'Daughter, be of good comfort. Your faith has made you well.' And the woman was made well instantly" (Matt. 9:20-22).
I recall with fond memories that when I was 10 years old, my parents took me to see the movie Ben Hur at Radio City Music Hall. What stood out to me was that this Messiah had multitudes and multitudes of followers wherever He journeyed, and those He touched were healed. The movie was actually showing me the fulfillment of Yeshua's Word:
"And when the men of that place recognized Him, they sent word to all the surrounding country and brought to Him all who were sick, and begged Him that they might only touch the hem of His garment. And as many as touched it were made perfectly well" (Matt. 14:35-36).
Of course, I had no idea what that passage said because as a young Jewish boy growing up in the United States in post-Holocaust times, I was never taught about Yeshua. I had no idea the garment He was wearing was a tallit katan, a garment that contained the tzitzit or the kanaph, and that there is healing through the power of His Word.
Still today healing comes through the power of the Word. While Adonai Himself is the One who heals—His name is Adonai Rofecha, "the Lord your Healer" (Ex. 15:26)—He does so through the Word of God.
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As a Jewish boy growing up in the 1950s, it was always exciting to me to think about wearing the tallit. This is because in order to wear the tallit, you had to have had your bar mitzvah.
For years, you would study Hebrew and Jewish history, and Jewish customs and traditions. Then on the day of your bar mitzvah, you would wear a special new tallit and read from the Torah (the five books of Moses, which are the first five books in the Old Testament) and the haftarah (a series of selections from the books of the prophets, called the Nevi'im). You would also give a d'rash (exposition or exegesis) on the Torah reading, and then end with reading a letter of thanks to the rabbi, cantor, and board of the synagogue. The tallit you received at your bar mitzvah would be worn throughout your life for all the major life events. It would then be passed on to your son in your memory when your life here on this Earth ended.
To a Jewish person, the tallit is symbolic of one's Jewish identity because it is used in every major life cycle event. But to those not born Jewish, it is symbolic of the Jewish Messiah. More and more, as I travel to speak in churches, I meet people who are seeking to understand the Jewish roots of the Christian faith. They will blow the shofar, pray the Shema, and don a tallit during prayer. At the synagogue I lead, we keep tallitot (the plural form of tallit) for guests to use during the service, and many are eager to do so. Coming under the tallit often helps a person seek Yeshua without distraction and commune with the Ruach HaKodesh (Spirit of God) in a whole new way.
I do not believe that as followers of Yeshua we are obligated to pray under a tallit, but I have heard many people say that coming under a tallit in prayer helped them deepen their intimacy with Hashem. The tallit does not have special power in itself, but it reminds us of God and His Word, in which we find all power.
So if the tallit can be this significant in a person's relationship with God, you may be wondering: "What exactly is it and how is it used?"
The tallit is the Jewish prayer shawl. It is rectangular and generally white with blue or black stripes, and it has tassels on each of its four corners called tzitzit. The tallit can be large (tallit gadol) and cover a person's entire body, or it can be small (tallit katan), reaching only to the shoulders. But it must be long enough to be worn over the shoulders as a shawl and not just around the neck as a scarf. For a Jewish person, it is typically used in every major life cycle event—from circumcision to bar/bat mitzvah to marriage and even death. But it is most frequently used in prayer.
Tallitot are generally worn at morning Shabbat services and during morning prayers. An exception is the Kol Nidre, the evening service on the eve of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), during which the tallit is also worn. A person wearing a tallit will generally keep it draped over his shoulders, but during times of prayer he will use it to cover his head.
Traditionally men have worn the prayer shawl because Jewish law did not obligate women to wear them and the Torah discourages women from wearing men's garments. But now there are many styles and colors available that are very feminine, so both men and women wear tallitot. The stripes on the tallit are usually blue, black or purple, but they can be any color of the rainbow. The tallit is classically made of wool, cotton or silk, but it can be made out of any material so long as the prohibition against combining linen and wool is observed.
The wearing of the tallit commences in the Torah. We read in the 15th chapter of the Book of Bamidbar (Numbers):
"Adonaispoke to Moses saying, "Speak to Bnei-Yisrael. Say to them that they are to make for themselves tzitzit [fringes, ציצית] on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and they are to put a blue cord on each tzitzit. It will be your own tzitzit—so whenever you look at them, you will remember all the mitzvot [commandments] of Adonai and do them and not go spying out after your own hearts and your own eyes, prostituting yourselves. This way you will remember and obey all My mitzvot and you will be holy to your God. I am Adonai your God. I brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am Adonai your God." (Num. 15:37–41, TLV).
In ancient times, people in most cultures wore some type of blanket-like garment to protect them from the sun during the day and the cool air at night. So the command in Numbers 15 was not for the Jewish people to start wearing this type of garment but rather for them to add the tzitzit on the four corners, which would set them apart from other nations. Even today, Bedouins wear abayas, which can resemble the tallit but lack the tzitzit.
The purpose of the tallit was, in fact, to hold the tzitzitot, or fringes. The tzitzitot were to be tied on each of the garment's four corners so that when we look at the tallit, specifically the tzitzit, we would remember the commandments of God. Today there are T-shirts onto which the tzitzit may be tied at each of the four corners, illustrating again that the tzitzit are most important.
Traditionally on each tzitzit is a blue cord called the tekhelet. According to some, the blue tekhelet is to remind us of God's creation, the ocean, the sky, the tablets upon which the Ten Commandments were written and His throne of glory. This particular color blue was once very hard to acquire and was thus used on special garments.
During antiquity, it was derived from a type of snail found near the Aegean Sea. It has been thought that after the destruction of the second temple, knowledge of the actual source of the dye was lost. For this reason, it is now common for the tzitzit to have only white fringes. It is believed that some of the species that carry the dye have been found, but that is not universally accepted as fact.
There are places in Israel today where you can purchase the tzitzit with the tekhelet. They can be tied on to the four corners of a garment to make a tallit. During one of the tours of Israel that my wife, Racquel, and I co-led with two other rabbis over twenty years ago, we met an Israeli storeowner who sold the tzitzit with the tekhelet.
I purchased a tallit gadol (large tallit) and a tallit katan from him, and I still wear them today. There are also many websites that sell tallitot, some of which include thetekhelet. To learn more about how to purchase a tallit, you can visit our website atwww.GesherInternational.com.
Excerpted from The Tallit: Experience the Mysteries of the Prayer Shawl and Other Hidden Treasures, by Charlie Kluge (Charisma House, 2016).
3 Reasons Why you should read Life in the Spirit. 1) Get to know the Holy Spirit. 2) Learn to enter God's presence 3) Hear God's voice clearly! Go deeper!
Has God called you to be a leader? Ministry Today magazine is the source that Christian leaders who want to serve with passion and purpose turn to. Subscribe now and receive a free leadership book.
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