Kippahs - need better name

Orthodox Jewish men keep their heads covered at all times, wearing a skull cap, or kippah (a Yiddish word for the cap is yarmulka). Although some Jews do not wear kippot at all, most non-Orthodox Jews wear them at prayer, in the synagogue, or when they study the Bible or Talmud. The head covering may be used to proclaim that the human being is subject to God, as did Rabbi Huna, who "never walked four cubits with uncovered head, for he used to say: the Shekhina, God's presence, resides above my head" (Kiddushin 31a). The head covering has become a symbol of Jewish self-affirmation in society.

No Jewish custom is more difficult to explain than the wearing of a hat in the synagogue. The Torah has no ruling about it. THe Talmud observes simply: "Men sometimes have their heads covered, and sometimes go bareheaded; women always cover their heads; children always go bareheaded" (B.T. Nedarim 30b). This pointed to complete freedom of choice as far as men were concerned.

Male head covering may perhaps have become fixed in deliberate opposition to Christianity. Paul rebuked those kept their head covered in prayer (1 Corinthians 11:2-5). In pronounced contrast, Jews insisted that men wear hats when praying or reading from the Torah.

In the Shulchan Arukh, Jewish code of law, we find three rulings that were gathered in from ordinances issued at various times. Each is more restrictive than the one preceding, indicating a process of evolution, and, perhaps, mirroring the increasing outside pressure upon the Jews. In viewing these laws, we conclude that law and custom had remained fluid until very late in Jewish history, hardening at a period when external oppression, internal strictness, and literal interpretation reached their height.

Another explanation may be suggested. In the Middle Ages the king, as the Head of State, kept his head covered while his courtiers bared theirs as a sign of humility. In the same manner, the Torah reader, as spokesman for God, was to have his head covered, symbolically expressing the majesty of God, the Head, whose word he proclaimed. Further, to the medieval Jew, the Jew-hat was a mark of humiliation imposed by the Christian community. He may have responded by making it a badge of honor. Forced upon him as a sign of shame, it became for him an emblem of proud self-identification. In the synagogue, where he was free to develop his own pattern of conduct, he insisted on the hat, as if to say: You force us to wear a hat in the street in distinction from you. We choose to wear it in the House of God, where you remove it, for we deem ourselves royal princes rather than outcasts, and may keep our heads covered in the presence of the King of Kings. Thus the hat of humiliation was transformed into a crown of distinction, a token of self-identification, the symbol of Jewish pride and self-respect.

This emotional attachment may explain why Jews have held on to to the wearing of the hat with such tenacity. As a custom, anchored in the emotions of the people, the covering of the head has exerted a greater power than many a well-established law that has been modified or abolished. No change in Jewish practice has met with greater resistance than the rule of American Reform Judaism permitting worship with uncovered heads. In many Reform congregations, rabbis and cantors again wear kippot and their use is growing among the members -- men and women alike.

The term tallit (tallis in traditional Ashkenazi pronunciation) first occurs in Rabbinic Hebrew, making its first appearances in the Mishnah (Nedarim 3:5, 4:1, Kiddushin 4:14, Bava Metzia 1:1, Meilah 5:1, 6:4, Keilim 28:7, 29:1-2, Ohalot 8:5, Zavim 4:7). But it is clear from context that rather than referring specifically to the stringed fringes of a four-cornered garment like tzizit does, the word tallit actually refers to the four-cornered garment itself. In fact, another Mishnaic Hebrew word that means something like "wash cloth" is derived from tallit — matlit (Shabbat 24:5, Bava Kamma 10:10, Keilim 10:4, 27:6, 27:12, 28:6, Negaim 11:5-6, Taharot 9:9). Nonetheless, as Rabbi Eliyahu HaBachur already noted in his Sefer Tishbi, in rabbinic parlance the word tallit refers to a special four-cornered garment that has tzitzit and is worn during prayer [HaBachur (there) also asserts that the grammatically-correct plural form of the word tallit is taliyot (as does Rabbi Tanchum HaYerushalmi in HaMadrich HaMaspik), not talitot and certainly not the more popular Yiddish misnomer talleisim)Where does the word tallit come from?Rabbeinu Bachaya (Kad Ha'Kemach s.v. tzitzit and in his commentary to Num. 15:38) explains that the term tzitzit refers to the fact that when a person wears tzitzit, he ought to be careful to avoid sinning because he is supposed to be cognizant of the fact that Hashem "sees" him (relating to the "peeking" meaning of TZADI-YOD-TZADI discussed in Part I). On the other hand, the term tallit alludes to Hashem as being uplifted and raised above all, just like Daniel described Him as netilat min ara — literally, “lifted from the earth” (Dan. 7:4).Rabbi Nosson Shapiro (Matzat Shimurin fol. 11b) offers a kabbalistic explanation that sees the word tallit as derived from the Aramaic word talyuta used by Targum Onkelos in reference to a young person coming of age (Gen. 8:21), but exactly what he says is beyond my level of expertise.Rabbi Nosson of Rome (in Sefer He’Aruch) offers two etymologies for the word tallit: firstly, he cites in the name of Rav Matzliach Gaon that the term tallit refers to the fact that the garment in question is "place upon (on top of)" one's other clothes. According to this, tallit is related to the word natalin the sense of "lifting (see Targum to Gen. 50:13). Alternatively, he explains tallit as related to the triliteral root TET-LAMMED-LAMMED, tillel in Late Biblical Hebrew (see Neh. 3:15) and Biblical Aramaic (Dan. 4:9). Rabbi Ernest Klein (in his etymological dictionary of Hebrew) also follows this approach of seeing the word tallit as related to telalim meaning “shade/shadow/covering.” That term is cognate with the Hebrew tzel, which means same thing. This cognancy reflects the interchangeability of the letters TZADI and TET. As is his wont, Dr. Alexander Kohut in He’Aruch Ha’Shaleimclaims that the word tallit derives from Persian, but this theory has not gained much traction.David Curwin of the Balashon Blog brings to the fore another theory for the etymology of tallit. He relates in the name of the late Rabbi Dr. Seth Mandel that tallit derives from the same Greek etymon as does the Rabbinic Hebrew word itz’tala — they are both borrowed from the Latin stola and Greek στολή (stolē). Indeed, Rashi (to Sanhedrin 44a, see also Bechorot 34b) defines itz’tala as tallit (and Rabbi Tanchum HaYerushalmi in HaMadrich HaMaspik also notes the similarity between those two words). [For more about the word itz’tala, see my earlier essay “Noble Clothes” (Nov. 2024).]

- Rabbi Reuben Chaim Klein, “What’s In a Word”, Korach 5785 Part 2