DS cut his tzitzis

shalhevet

Wed, Oct 29 2008, 10:26 am

I don't understand - he cut off one of the tzitzis? You are going to send him to gan in them?

I don't understand what you are saying, but wearing pasul tzitzis is assur - he is wearing a four cornered garment without tzitzis. It is better not to wear tzitzis at all.

amother

Wed, Oct 29 2008, 10:43 am

shalhevet wrote:

What's the big deal if he's only in gan? He doesn't have to wear kosher tzitizit.

shalhevet

Wed, Oct 29 2008, 11:19 am

amother wrote:

shalhevet wrote:

What's the big deal if he's only in gan? He doesn't have to wear kosher tzitizit.

If you think that, he doesn't have to wear tzitzit at all. So don't send him in tzitzit. (are you the OP and does that mean that I did understand your post?) At all. It is assur for a Jewish male to wear a four cornered garment without tzitzit. I am lost. You want to put him in tzitzit for chinuch, but you will put him in a garment that is an issur??? This is like feeding your child treif deliberately. Someone not wearing tzitzit loses the mitzva, but it is not an issur.

Mommy3.5

Wed, Oct 29 2008, 10:37 pm

I don't really see how making him wear passul tzitzit is punishing him. Plus, its a problem making a bracha on them.

Little boys are accident prone and will ruin many pairs of tzitzit. Trust me. I have 5 sons, and things happen to tztzit all the time. Go to your local sefaim store and ask them if they can put new strings on the beged. I have it done all the time. Its not expensive, and most stores tie the strings themselves anyway.

My son once destroyed three pairs of tztzit in one week, Little kids and scissors is practically BEGGING for something to happen. Its not like he did it maliciously. If he didn't cut it, it would have gotten caught in his bike.

Raizle

Wed, Oct 29 2008, 11:01 pm

amother wrote:

shalhevet wrote:

What's the big deal if he's only in gan? He doesn't have to wear kosher tzitizit.

He doesn't have to wear tzitzit at all.
Shalhevet is right, it's better to not wear tzitzit then to wear posul ones and if it's chinuch that you are concerned about then that's what you should be teaching him.

shalhevet

Thu, Oct 30 2008, 4:05 am

I have thought about this thread and I have a couple of things to add:

Firstly, I hope I wasn't misunderstood as saying someone shouldn't put their son in tzitzis. I meant to say it it's either passul tzitzis or none at all, then none is preferable.

Secondly, how would you think of punishing a child by not allowing him to do a mitzva? What kind of chinuch is that? I am teaching you you must always wear tzitzis, except when we have a reason not to? You want to punish him? Don't let him use scissors for three days.

And don't your husbands know how to tie tzitzis? If not, get them to learn - it really isn't a big deal, and then you can keep new strings on hand. I am still waiting for my husband to teach me - our rav says a woman can tie them for a child.

catonmylap

Thu, Oct 30 2008, 5:01 am

shalhevet wrote:

excellent post! I think you said it all.

I hope I remember this thread when we get to ds wearing tzitzis...I'm going to object to him getting techles on his until he's bar mitzvah............the blue strings are really expensive..

HooRYou

Thu, Oct 30 2008, 6:23 am

shalhevet there must be more than one opinion on this. Our Rov told DH specifically not to worry to much about the kashrus of DS' tzitzis since he is not in a place to understand and keep all of the laws of tzitzis (he is also gan age). The Rov's opinion was that he is getting used to the mitzvah of tzitzis by wearing them but if they are posul they he is not oiver any of the halachos of tzitzis.

grin

Thu, Oct 30 2008, 7:36 am

shalhevet wrote:

(one of my girls once cut out a piece of her dress after watching me sew her clothes. boy was I angry!)

shalhevet wrote:

And don't your husbands know how to tie tzitzis? If not, get them to learn - it really isn't a big deal, and then you can keep new strings on hand. I am still waiting for my husband to teach me - our rav says a woman can tie them for a child.

I used to tie their tzitzis - learned from sefer otzar haminhagim. But I had a boy make the initial knot that essentially attaches the fringes to the garment (according to what dh told me; I never asked a rav).

Marion

Thu, Oct 30 2008, 8:02 am

Shalhevet, if you google "tying tzitzis" you should come up with a PDF document showing you how to do it. There's an ashkenazi version and sephardi. My DH doesn't know how to do it, so I taught myself.

2nd, I didn't understand the OP as meaning he completely cut off the strings of one corner. I understood that he "shortened" a SINGLE string. As in, one of 4 (or 8, depending on how you count) that are tied on that corner. I'm pretty sure that doesn't passul a tzitzis. AFAIK one IS permitted to shorten strings that are too long.

shalhevet

Thu, Oct 30 2008, 8:16 am

Marion wrote:

2nd, I didn't understand the OP as meaning he completely cut off the strings of one corner. I understood that he "shortened" a SINGLE string. As in, one of 4 (or 8, depending on how you count) that are tied on that corner. I'm pretty sure that doesn't passul a tzitzis. AFAIK one IS permitted to shorten strings that are too long.

Maybe you are right about the OP; it was very unclear and your explanation is just as likely. And then of course, if it is still below the knots, it's not passul (goodness, I would have to redo tzitzis every night if a shortened string was no good Wink

)

GAMZu

Thu, Oct 30 2008, 9:28 am

amother wrote:

GAMZu wrote:

My son was about to do that- because he saw me evening out some extra long strings. Shoulda done that when he wasn't around.

you tie your own??

Why are you asking me a question anonymously? Confused

I'm not going to answer here just like I didn't when you asked how my screen name includes my baby's name.

Quote:

You want to punish him? Don't let him use scissors for three days.