1

Today, it seems that everybody wears a talit katan. Where does this practice come from and when did it start?

Improve this question
4
  • Related: judaism.stackexchange.com/q/135473/6592
    – shmosel
    Jul 20 at 20:29
  • More than half of most communities I'm aware of do not wear tallit katan, so "everybody" is seemingly inaccurate. What you apparently intend is "every man", and even that is inaccurate.
    – magicker72
    Jul 20 at 20:42
  • is tzitzit not the talit katan? what is the difference?
    – Jewish Context
    Jul 21 at 0:07
  • Is the question on the tzitzis, or the tallis katan? The title seems a little misleading, because everyone agrees that if you wear a tallis katan, you need tzitzis on it.
    – MichoelR
    Jul 21 at 1:53

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
5

The Shulchan Aruch OC 8:3 brings the custom to wear tallis Katan;

טליתות קטנים שלנו שאנו נוהגים ללבוש

Small fringed garments (talit katan) of ours that are customarily worn

The Be’er Hagolah says the source is the Terumas Hadeshen, the Agur, the Maharik and others. This places the custom to at least early 15th century and probably a bit earlier.

Improve this answer
1

My understanding was that tallis katan orginated because in the past the type of clothes people typically wore had corners on them and therefore required tzitzis. Once clothing styles changed and people were not longer wearing clothes that required tzitzis the Rabbis didn't want the mitvzvah to be ignored so they made a Rabbinic ruling to go out of your way to pro-actively wear a garment that requires tzitzis.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .