Tzitzit

            As children, we live by instinct and impulse.  The passage from childhood to adulthood, which we must traverse repeatedly throughout our lives, is the movement to consciousness and self-control, which the tzitzit prayer refers to as “remembering” and “freedom” respectively.

            The third and last of the Biblical passages following the Shma prescribes the tying of a tzitzit to the corners of our garments, a fringe meant to serve as a visual trigger for memory.  “Memory,” in this context, does not signify recollection of a past event, but mindfulness, a state of consciousness which sets the stage for moral choice.

            To describe a mature moral life, Jewish tradition takes marriage as its paradigm, in which our sexual drives are allowed full expression, but within a carefully constructed social and ethical framework.  Its opposite is “whoring,” which stands for an immature life of impulsiveness, of thoughtless and sometimes immoral feeding of our animal appetites. 

            The tzitzit passage concludes with “I am יהוה your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt,” virtually the same words which begin the Ten Commandments.  In both contexts, the fundamental concern is the moral law, and God identifies Himself as the liberator from Egypt, the place of slavery.  In the exodus journey, we escape the bondage of animal instinct and ascend to the freedom of responsible choice.

            When our daughters and sons come of age, we drape them in the garment of tzitzit.  In Jewish numerology, the numerical values of the Hebrew letters of tzitzit/ציצית add up to six hundred.  Each tzitzit contains five knots and eight threads. These three figures add up to six hundred thirteen, the number signifying the entire mitzva framework, the totality of adult ethical and ritual responsibility.

As parents our chief task is to enrobe our children in the garment of responsibility, the vestments of maturity and freedom.