Before I start, let me just say that I intended to write this post.
Try buying tzitzit on the internet. Just try it. I learned something quite fascinating at about 4:30 AM last night. You may not have known this, but there are lots of different types of tzitzit. Not just techelet and non-techelet, oh no. You can get levels of “intention” wound into the tzitzit. True. Behold:
Thin tzitzit, machine spun – $4.90
Thin tzitzit, hand spun – $9.50
Thin tzitzit, hand spun, lashonot – $11.50
Thin tzitzit, hand spun, niputz lishmah – $19.50
Thick tzitzit, hand spun – $13.50
Thick tzitzit, hand spun, lashonot – $14.50
Thick tzitzit, hand spun, niputz lishmah – $27.50
Now, let’s go through these. Apparently, machine-spun tzitzit is the “lowest class” you can get, because obviously machines don’t spin themselves for the mitzvah of tzitzit! (By the way, after much deliberation, I bought machine-spun. Scientifically speaking, I figured anyone making tzitzit probably, you know, intended to make tzitzit.)
Anyway, if you’re going to go for hand-spun, you’ve got even more options. Lashonot meant the person intended to make tzitzit before even spinning it. Niputz lishmah means it was carded with intention (I don’t know what carded means). Also because I realized I don’t know what any of this means, I went for the machine-spun option.
And I mean, do they actually tell these people: “OK, make these with intention!” “Make these without intention!”
“Here you go, I made this batch without intention.”
“Are you sure? You didn’t think about it at all?”
I read in Jewish Liturgy as a Spiritual System that in ancient times, there was a big emphasis on the mindset of the priests performing the sacrifices. Rashi also said something on a recent parsha (yeah, I’ll never remember exactly what) that a guilt offering (I think that was it) absolutely could not have been taken as if it were a sin offering—or else!…but the person bringing the guilt offering could accidentally think he was bringing a sin offering. It was all about the priest. So I know the intention thing didn’t just pop up last night.
Nevertheless, I have a hard time finding it more important that some stranger had a better mindset before spinning the tzitzit than I do when I actually wear the stuff. Because I don’t really have much control over some stranger who made my tzitzit, how dare he get in the way of whether my mitzvah is “acceptable”?
But all in all, I’m pretty excited to soon be one of the three women in the world who wears a tallit katan.
*Picture: The Jewish Catalog
EDIT: I’m pretty sure the guy who sold the strings to me saw this, because he just revoked his business from me.
