The Patchwork Tallit

It hangs there

Franken-stitched together—

Woolen squares,

Meaning lost on me.

This tallit—heirloom

Crafted by Bubbe

Generations ago—

Draped forlorn

Overlooked, undusted

Throughout my kinderjohren.

Abba says his Oma

Made it for Saba’s wedding

Before Kristallnacht.

What is it to me, though?

The tzitzits are there—

All four intact.

When Saba died,

He was not buried.

I never met him.

Abba named me

For him. I’d like to know

My name, like I’d like

To know the man

To whom my tallit

Once belonged,

But we don’t even

Have his ashes

To remember.

Abba says it was hard—

Finding fabric, I mean.

Bubbe was poor,

She had the shakes.

Saba was engaged

To a gentile woman,

But they were happy,

So Bubbe tore apart

Sweaters and coats

To make her patchwork

Tallit. The threads now

Are coming undone

From years of neglect

In a box marked Z”l.

It is itchy, much

Like the sweaters

From which it was

Created. Am I like

He from whom I was

Created? In his image?

The tallit—worn during

Shacharit and through

Yom Kippur—is worn

And faded. It is mostly

White and grey with

Blue stripes, and by

The tzitzits—right there—

There’s a stray string.

The loose thread

Asks me to pull.

Help me dissemble—
Go ahead. Take me apart.

But if I do, what remains

Save worthless thread

And squares whose meaning

Are obscured by history?

I’d like to know my tallit’s

Past like I’d like to know

My Saba. I’d like to know

Why Abba named me—

Out of respect? Love?

Or is it expectation?

I, like Saba, am engaged

To a gentile. Like the man

For whom I was named,

I am endowed this Tallit.

Like him, I take my vows;

I will sign my ketubah,

Break glass,

Hear “Mazel tov!”

Beneath the chuppah.

Do I know Saba? No.

But we are close.

I hear him tell me stories

Through the patchwork tallit

Zichrono Livracha.