Jewish Dopers: your advice, please

In My Humble Opinion
1

Should I wear a tallit when I go to services in a synagogue?

Here’s my background, as I posted in this thread last year (slightly edited):

I have been to many services with my wife (including Rosh Hashanah services last month), where almost all other men wear their tallitot (prayer shawls, for non-Jewish Dopers). I haven’t had one of my own, and have felt this makes me stand out, and possibly gives the impression that I’m not Jewish. (I have a nice knit yarmulke my wife gave me, so that somewhat dispels the impression that I’m a visiting goy.) So I have wondered whether I should get my own tallit and wear it when I go to shul.

My motivation is partly that it is slightly uncomfortable to appear different from all the other men. (Someone once said that, at social gatherings, women are only happy if they are dressed completely differently from all other women, and men are only happy if they are dressed exactly the same as all other men.)

But it is also partly that I don’t want to deceive other people about my identity. My quandary is, which is more deceptive: wearing the tallit or not.

As I watch other men, it is clear that wearing the tallit is something they have done all their adult lives, from the time of their bnai mitzvah or (if they are Orthodox) their weddings. As such, it seems to me to symbolize their long connection to Judaism, and for most, their faith.

I don’t have that long connection to the practices of Judaism, even though I am halachically Jewish. And as an atheist, I don’t have the faith of many Jews. But I have always said that, even if I hadn’t been Jewish by birth, Judaism is the only religion I could have considered joining, because it is one of the only ones that value intelligence, doubt, skepticism, and independent thinking.

I wouldn’t want to lead people to believe that I have been observant all of my life, that I believe in God, or that I am more Jewish than I am. But I also don’t want people to think that I’m not Jewish at all.

So my question for Jewish Dopers is, would wearing a tallit be more deceptive, or give a falser impression of my identity, than not wearing one?

I also welcome your thoughts about what wearing the tallit means to you, or other relevant observations.

Thanks.

2

P.S. It might be helpful to know whether you’re Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, or something else, if you don’t mind saying.

3

I am not Jewish but hey, it’s the Sabbath in half the world already…

Do you take part in the ceremonies, or just silently try to be as unobstrussive as possible?

4

Well, as an adult Jew you certainly have a *right *to wear one, and wearing it could be seen as showing respect for the synagogue and the community. I say wear it if you want to.

Conservative Jew.

5

I would say no. You are a guest and not a member of the club. Unless they require certain behavior or dress of you, dress as you have.

6

I was in a looong relationship with a Conservative Jewish guy a couple years ago. Whenever I attended services, I would dress nicely and wear a kepah (I’d just grab one out of the kepot bin) but that was it. That said, it was a very liberal Conservative synagogue and there was really no one wearing tallitot. Except the one couple who would wear them and they also would shuckle so hard I wanted to grab a hula hoop.

7

Most shuls have a shelf near the entrance with a big pile of yarmulkes and talitot *.
If so, pick up a talit and put it on. That’s why they are there!

If your wife’s shul does not provide them, then I presume the place is Orthodox. They don’t bother providing them, because they assume that anybody coming through the door is an observant Jew like themselves, and already has both a kippah and a talit.

But that also means that they themselves know halacha. And therefore they know that according to Jewish law, you are a full-fledged Jew, by virtue of your birth.
So they know that you are fully entitled to wear a talit.
So feel free to wear one.

In any case ,nobody will interpret your talit as “deceiving other people about my identity”.

I sincerely hope that this is wrong…You are definitely a “member of the club” , simply by having been born that way; and you are married to a woman is not only a member of the club, but a knowledgable and actively observant one.
If you feel like a guest, that’s because you’re a newcomer. So make your self at home, and stop feeling awkward. Put on the talit , or if you want to, buy one of your own.
Even if you’re an atheist…that’s fine. Unlike Christianity where you have to believe first, before you do the rituals, Judaism works the other way round: everybody is encouraged to do the rituals first, and what you believe is less important.
(also, if you don’t mind me asking: why are you asking this question here on the internet? Ask your wife…she knows the facts and the atmosphere at her synagogue a lot better than a bunch of strangers.)

*(or “talisim” ; both words are the plural of talit)

8

The commandment to wear fringes is pretty vague to begin with, so really you can do it if you want.

The Reconstructionist in me says that “because everyone else is doing it” isn’t a good reason to follow any of our customs, whether you’re halachically Jewish or not. But as a first step towards forging some of those *cultural *connections with your people that you feel you’ve missed out on? Maybe that’s a good reason if you’re willing to explore it.

9

I suggest you go to the rabbi and tell him you’d like to wear it because you want to connect with your heritage and ask him to teach you the protocol of wearing it*, the blessing for putting it on, how to put it on, etc. Like most Jewish things, there’s Way to Do It. I’m guessing you’ll be about the zillionth guy to ask him this in his career, and he’ll be delighted to explain it to you. You wife may not know the ins and outs as, except in some Reform congregations, women don’t wear them. You are certainly entitled to wear it, but also certainly not required.

BTW, Shabbat shalom.

*It’s my understanding that the tallit is only written at morning services, but I could be wrong. So you would wear it on Shabbat morning, but not on Friday night.

10

That’s my recollection too. I started out in a Conservative congregation, but the family moved when I was 9 and we attended a Reform congregation from then on. Of course, for High Holidays and Festivals, I don’t recall the protocol.

My basic rules for being polite when attending services of any faith, branch, denomination are these:

  1. When everyone stands, I stand.
    B. When everyone sits, I sit.
    III. When everyone bows their heads in reverence, I look at my shoes.
    4th. Hold a prayerbook, bible, hymnal opened to the proper page. The people around you probably have theirs turned to the correct page.

So, unless the OP feels really uncomfortable doing so, there’s probably a rack with talit on them for men who don’t have their own. If you want to fit in with the other men, I’d say wear one.

11

Orthodox Jew here.

To me, wearing a Tallit means that I’m observing one of G-d’s commandments, and the stated purpose of the fringes on the Tallit is to remind one to observe all of the commandments, and to guard one’s heart and eyes from temptation.

I suppose the crux of the issue for you is that you don’t actually believe in the tenets of the Jewish religion, so you feel like it would be deceptive to wear its trappings, but not wearing it makes you stick out uncomfortably in the synagogue. So I’d ask: why are you in the synagogue in the first place?

Are you there because you find value in the ritual, despite not believing? Are you there because it pleases your wife to act as if you’re religious even though inside, you’re not? I think that if one of these reasons justify your synagogue attendance, it also justifies tallit wearing, and you don’t have to feel deceptive doing so. It’s still a symbol of something for you, either the value that you find in Judaic ritual, or your love for your wife. And quite frankly, it’s unlikely that if you’re fitting in rather than sticking out that anyone will ask you and you need to answer in an uncomfortable manner.

12

This is good advice. One nit: in the Conservative movement, many women do wear a tallit, but it is considered optional. Our congregation strongly encourages it for women who are called to the Torah, and some will put one on only when they get an aliyah (Torah honor). My daughter wears one, while my wife usually does not. In my experience at Reform synagogues, I have seen relatively few people wearing them, men or women.

Also, I would say that at least half our congregation (and 90% of the people we socialize with from our shul) are atheists, or at least deeply agnostic. Many are not particularly knowledgeable. They all wear tallitot (talesim feels more Yiddish-y to me as the plural). When non-Jews visit services, we ask that the men cover their heads (hat or kippah), but would never ask them to wear a tallit. If you wear one, we’ll assume you’re Jewish and offer you an aliyah, if you’re new or a visitor.

So, since you’re halachically Jewish, no one will blink if you wear one. Moreover, if the synagogue has strong air conditioning or winter drafts, a nice wool tallit gadol can be quite practical. :slight_smile:

13

Atheist Jew here. Have not attended a service for more years than I care to count. However, when I did, I recall thinking and feeling like the OP and so I couldn’t agree more with cmkeller.

14

I didn’t know that. Thanks.

15

I’m not getting that from the OP.

As for me, someone who “halachically Jewish” ( a new word for me, thank you), I wouldn’t wear one because it implies I have some religious inclinations. And I think that’s deceptive. I also don’t wear a yarmulke, but I guess I should change that if my failure to do so is some kind of insult. I don’t want to be a jerk about it.

Personally, I would welcome the chance to stand out as a non believer if I was at a religious service. Not in a dickish way, but to make it clear I’m a guest and not a member. That’s as an important part of my identity as being Jewish is to the other people there.

16

If it does to you then you should not wear one but it wouldn’t imply that to most of the rest of us.

He is a member of the club. Atheist schmatheist. I was in my hard atheist phase in my run up to my Bar Mitzvah and was still one of my Rabbi’s favorite students because I cared enough to be asking the questions and having the debate.

He is Jewish by Law and he is, by his actions, at least somewhat choosing to identify with that identity. From my secular Jewish perspective he should wear one (again many places have extras about) because in his congregation not wearing one is standing out for no need. From an Orthodox perspective it is at least one commandment that he is following than what he was doing before. If non-belief kicked one out of the club then many Jews would be kicked out. But that’s not the way it works.

Along that line this recent Pew Poll is of note. To heck with belief, even being “religious” is just not considered all that important of an aspect of being Jewish by most American Jews. 94% of American Jews are proud of their heritage; 75% have "“a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people;” 69% believe that living an ethical life is an essential aspect of Jewish identity; 56% believe that working for justice and equality is essential aspect; 49% say that intellectual curiosity is a key aspect of Jewish identity; and 42% believe that their sense of humor is! Being observant? Only 19% believe that matters and "most Jews say a person can be Jewish even if that person works on the Sabbath or does not believe in God. "

His wife is an educator in the Schul school … odds are that at some point they will be given an Aliyah (an honor in which you come up on the bimah, that raised part, often opening the ark or saying the prayer before and after Torah and Haftarah readings). He must wear one then.

Believe in God (in any concept, personal or not) or not you are Jewish, you are part of the mishpachah, part of the congregational family as well, and are not decieving anyone by wearing it. Of course if you were uncomfortable wearing one few would bat an eye either.

17

Thank you DSeid, that’s all interesting and helpful. I haven’t been inside a Synagogue since around 1968, so, although I knew that many Jews were not observant, I had no idea that apparently many Jews who go to services are not believers.

Still, I would be very uncomfortable wearing any religious garb, despite being proud of my heritage. I don’t have “a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people.”

18

I follow along, but since I don’t know Hebrew, I only read aloud in English when that is called for.

We’ve discussed it, and she feels that I have a right to, but should do whatever makes me comfortable. I’m asking here to check that if I do wear a tallit, that I’m not going to be misleading/bothering/upsetting/offending anyone.

We just arrived in Las Vegas three months ago, and aren’t members of a synagogue yet. We attended Rosh Hashanah services at a shul where the rabbi is the husband of one of my wife’s co-workers. (My wife is head of the upper school at a private day school, not associated with a synagogue.)

She has taught me the blessing for putting on the tallit, although I’ll probably need reminders for the next few times.

See my reply to DSeid below.

Thanks for this thoughtful response.

We don’t go on a regular basis, but for holidays and other special occasions. As a matter of fact, at two recent services at two different shuls, my wife was honored: asked to open the ark at Rosh Hashanah (I was invited to join her, but declined), and giving a Dvar Torah at the second.

I go because I like to do things with her, and to show my support and love for her. Her job gives her a fairly prominent position in the local Jewish community, and part of my concern about wearing the tallit or not is that people not get the impression that she married a goy.

Thanks.

As it happened, after the Rosh Hashanah service that led me to writing (but not posting) the OP, I asked my sister to send me a tallit that had belonged to our great uncle. It is classic old-style, simple and with several repaired holes. I wore it on the Shabbat after Yom Kippur, when my wife did the Dvar Torah.

I had been leaning to wearing one, and was hoping the consensus here would support it. I will probably continue.

Thanks, all.

19

The whole discussion reminds me a little of when I was going through my militant atheism phase in my early twenties. The few times I was in a church for a wedding or funeral, I made damned sure that I didn’t bow my head to a non-existent god. So there’s everyone with their heads bowed in prayer while I made it a point to keep my head upright and my posture erect. It was the principle of the thing.

I was a dick.

This is not what I think is going on with commasense. He doesn’t want to be deceitful, and I respect that. The whole point is that I don’t think it’s giving up any integrity in this case to be respectful and not stand out like a sore thumb.

ETA: And yet again, I’m a day late and a dollar short in my response.

20

You are absolutely ok wearing one. Wear it if you want to. Your motives and feelings are your own.

Conservative atheist Jew.