My grandfather had died when I was twelve and he had been buried with his Shabbat tallit; his High Holiday tallit went to me. I loved him deeply, but when my father handed me that prayer shawl, I almost flinched. I would have preferred my grandfather's watch or his ring, his old leather wallet, almost anything but that prayer shawl.
The time was the 1960s, and I was an adolescent rebelling against authority and traditions. In fact, I never even had a bar mitzvah. The tallit seemed to represent the very worst of it, something that would bind me up with religious demands and restrictions: "Go to synagogue. Recite the prayers. Listen to the rabbi. Don't grow. Don't change!" So, I put the tallit away in a drawer and out of my mind.
I continued to search for an identity separate from any traditional group or community. I found one. Then, as the years passed, I found another, and then others. Things kept changing. Finally, I became a husband, a teacher, a parent.
In my late thirties, preparing for my own son's bar mitzvah, I came across my zaida's tallit, still in the drawer, still waiting for me.
As I held it, I smelled a faint trace of his shaving soap. Then came a rush of memories-his whiskery face; his gentle voice; the softness of his shawl against my cheek when I would lean against him. I could see the way he wrapped the tzitzit around his fingers, those fringes tied to the garment that he would tie to himself, fringes meant to awaken the memory of our history, of our covenant. I remember the way he would rise and rock back and forth in prayer and how the prayer shawl swayed with him, as if it might open and spread out like great white wings.
Had the tall it changed so much since I had put it away? No, but I had. I was middle-aged, halfway between the child I used to be and the old man I will someday be. I had all the individuality I needed. What I was craving was peace of mind, wisdom, a faith in something beyond myself, and the quiet strength that my grandfather had drawn from his beliefs. I wondered if I might find it by honoring what he honored and by drawing upon its power. So, I finally accepted my grandfather's gift, in my own way.
This led me to a wonderful ritual for my son's bar mitzvah: a transfer. My father would give Adam his tallit and I would put on my grandfather's. Dad was very pleased with the idea. So was Adam. However, Lee Anne, my ex-wife, Adam's mother, was not.
She had bought a new prayer shawl for Adam. "No problem," I said. "Return it and buy him something else." But it was a problem. Lee Anne's tallit also meant something very important to her. When she was a girl, she had wanted to wear a tallit, but in her synagogue it was only a custom for males. She drew the shawl out of its wrapping. As she held it, it seemed like the most feminine and maternal of objects. She wanted Adam to wear this new shawl so she could feel she was up there embracing and sheltering him just like that garment.
We did not know what to do. Adam could only wear one tallit either mine or hers. But if one of us was going to win, the other would lose, and that would spoil things for everyone.
Lee Anne and I had been long separated, though we remained friendly. We worked well together as parents, resolving matters that seemed more complex than this. So it was unsettling to be so frustrated by a question of ritual. We decided to ask the rabbi. That was what our great-grandparents did when the rabbi was the community's only counsellor, teacher and judge. Even though we considered ourselves modern and enlightened, we took this very traditional approach.
Our rabbi was a professor of religious studies. His regular "congregation" was his classes of university students. He was also modern and, while respecting traditional beliefs, he was helping us create our own unique service. Yet, when we explained our problem he looked very much the ancient sage as he stroked his beard, studying the three shawls spread across his desk.
Even the shawls seemed worlds apart: my grandfather's was a faded white and black Turkish wool, my father's was a smaller white and blue silk. Lee Anne's new tallit was a stylish multicolored cotton, still in its plastic wrapping.
The rabbi's decision was not to make a decision, at least not immediately. Instead, he spoke about the tallit being a reminder of the past, resembling the robes Jews wore over three thousand years ago. The tzitzit which make the shawl sacred are another reminder as they recall our acceptance of the commandments and laws.
To be honest, we were not following very closely as we were both wrapped so deeply in our own feelings. It was only when the rabbi began recalling his personal experiences that we took notice. As he spoke of his mother repairing the tzitzit on his father's tallit before the High Holidays, he kept absently fingering the worn fringes of my father's.
Then it happened: not a decision, but a realization which we arrived at simultaneously,. Lee Anne would accept my father's tallit by making it hers; she would remove the worn tzitzit of my father's ta tallit it and tie on the new ones from her shawl. That evening, ancient rabbinical wisdom was "recovered" through a very modern process.
For his bar mitzvah, Adam received a single prayer shawl made from both shawls representing both sides of his family. As for myself, I was proud to finally wear my grandfather's tallit and soon afterwards, I wrote The Always Prayer Shawl, a story about a boy who left Russia many years ago taking with him a single precious gift, his grandfather's prayer shawl. It describes the life of that boy and that tall it until it becomes time for the tall it to be passed on to his own grandchild.
The story was later published as an illustrated children's book and then became a play. It was a final bar mitzvah gift for Adam which I gave on behalf of my grandfather, his great-grandfather, who had died so long before he was born.