Women Wearing a Talit
QUESTION: In some of our congregations it is the custom that whoever comes up to the pulpit to participate in the service puts on a falit. In young peoples services for our high schools, boys and girls participate and often the girl put on the talit at that occasion. According to Jewish law and tradition, is it proper for a girl to wear a talit at service?
ANSWER: The commandment to wear a talit with fringes is based upon Num 15:37-4. On the basis of this commandment, the anonymous baraita in Menahot 43a says that women, too, are in duty bound to wear the garment with fringes. However, Rabbi Simon says there that they are free from that obligation. He bases his opinion upon the fact that Scripture in the passage in Numbers uses the phrase:“Ye shall see them and remember,;.."Since Scripture says,“Ye shall see them, that proves that the proper time for talit and tzitzit is the daytime, not the nighttime. This conclusion puts the commandment to wear fringes into the special class of positive commandments“limited by time”(shehazman gerama), and it is a general rule that women are free from the obligation to fulfill positive commandments that are dependent upon time. Of course, being free from the obligation to fulfill the commandment of fringes does not mean that they are forbidden to wear them. It means only that they are not in duty bound to wear them.
When the law is discussed in the Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayim 17.2, Joseph Caro says, following Rabbi Simon in the Talmud (quoted above), that women and slaves are free from putting on the fringes, since it is a commandment based upon time; but Isserles adds:“At all events, if they wish to put on the fringed the blessing over it, they are free to do
garment and even recite Ca Ged a limited positive commandments
50, as is the case with all time