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Concept
Tzitzit
Summary
Tzitzit ( ṣīṣīṯ, tsiˈtsit; plural ṣīṣiyyōṯ, Ashkenazi: ; and Samaritan: ) are specially knotted ritual fringes, or tassels, worn in antiquity by Israelites and today by observant Jews and Samaritans. are usually attached to the four corners of the tallit gadol (prayer shawl), usually referred to simply as a or ; and tallit katan (everyday undershirt). Through synecdoche, a may be referred to as .
The word may derive from the Hebrew root [n-ts-h]. shares this root with the Hebrew for 'lock of hair'. For example, in the Book of Ezekiel an angel grabs the prophet "by the of [his] head;" he could be said to be "dragged by his hair."
A popular etymological interpretation of derives from another word which shares this root. ( 'budding flower') may once have referred to floral ornamentation on clothing. One can hear distinct similarities with contemporaneous Akkadian clothing vocabulary: ('thread', 'edge', 'loom') or (a floral ornamentation). This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the custom of making fringes from extending the threads of embroidery was common in the ancient Near East as the means of strengthening the fabric. The further analyses of the antique iconography suggest that apart from this pragmatic purpose the tassels could also decorate the cloth and as such be a marker of the social status: the more elaborate and elegant the fringes, the higher the position of the owner. In addition to this and given the unique nature of each of the tassels it could also be used as a personal "signet" for sealing documents. This data has led the scholars to assume that the practice itself is of very ancient origins and evolved into Jewish ritual clothing where it was invested with religious meaning.
The ending is the feminine adjectival suffix, used here to form a feminine singular noun. In the Hebrew Bible (), this noun is used to refer to one or many tassels, but later scholars used the feminine plural . In English-language academic texts on Judaica the term is sometimes translated as show-fringes.
Official source
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