[Avodah] Women and Tallis

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Apr 06, 2011 at 01:46:04PM -0700, Daniel M. Israel wrote:
> Quoting Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org>:
>> The Mordechai says you're not yotzei the mitzvah at all with a tallis
>> qatan.

> Which would seem to me to imply that if you are choshesh for the  
> Mordechai's position you shouldn't wear a talis katan outside on Shabbos 
> where there is no eruv...

Actually...

R' Shternbuch testified that the Brisker Rav didn't wear a tallis qatan
in reshus harabim for this reason. (I do not have a mar'eh maqom, perhaps
RDE could assist.)

R' Steve Katz testified (Jan 2000
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol04/v04n265.shtml#12>) that R'
Aharon Soloveitchik did not wear tzitzis of any sort outside on Shabbos.

See the thread at
<http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/getindex.cgi?section=W#WEARING%20A%20TALLIS%20GADOL%20IN%20PUBLIC%20ON%20SHABBOS>
or <http://bit.ly/i8Lpwp>.

RHM attributed it to tekheiles being me'aqev, and thus the tassles are
hotza'ah. But I didn't think that was correct, because it's befeirush a
mishnah that tekheiles einah me'aqeves es halavan, and the Rambam pasqens
accordingly. OTOH, it wasn't limited to tallis qatan, so I don't know
what the Brisker inyan is.

So for all I know, RAS and RYBS would have been chosheish for the
Mordechai too, as their uncle did, even without the techeiles issue.


As I asked then, and didn't get an answer that satisfied me...

Why is there a connection between being yotzei the mitzvah and whether
one is wearing the tzitzis? Say I was wearing them because of a /minhag/
to wear them on 4 cornered garments. Or just stam for looks. The extra
buttons on your sleeve are beteilim to the beged without any mitzvah
obliging you to wear them. Why not here too?

> although I was once advised to be machmir in the minimum shiur to avoid 
> the issue of hotza'ah.

R' Yaakov Kamenecki suggested that we call a tallis qatan what we do
not because it is a tallis qetanah -- the gender is wong. Rather, he
suggests the translation "tallis of a qatan". As in the minimum shiur,
Menachos 40b.

Historically speaking, it looks like the idiom started after Ashkenazim
started calling what chazal and earlier rishonim call "tallisos"
or "tallios" by the idiom "taleisim". So I'm not sure it actually is
intended to be good grammar...

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Despair is the worst of ailments. No worries
micha at aishdas.org        are justified except: "Why am I so worried?"
http://www.aishdas.org                         - Rav Yisrael Salanter
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