ONE TALIT FOR ALL

The Talmud in the Tractate Sanhedrin (20a) says that the generation of Moses and Joshua was a great generation because the people were involved in receiving the Torah. The generation of Hezekiah was, however, even greater because the people were even more involved in Torah. But the generation of the Talmudic Scholar Rabbi Yehuda Bar Ilai was even greater because in that generation "six students gathered under one talit and learned Torah."

Rabbi Chaim Shmulevitz, a former Rosh Yeshiva of the Mir Chasidim, commented on this metaphor. Six students studying Torah under one talit speaks about Jewish unity – that is the reason that Bar Ilai's generation was the greatest of the three.

If six students can share one talit -- the same talit at the same time – it means that each person is worrying about the other and no one is pulling the talit harder to be more covered than the next.

What a meaningful proposal for our day. As we strive to receive the Torah and transmit it to every member of the Jewish people, we need a large talit which can serve as a national huppah – a talit under which all Jews can gather with respect for each other and with regard for the next person's feelings and beliefs, differing in attitude and faith but united by the three primary loves: ahavat Ha-Shem, love of God; ahavat Torah, love of Torah; and ahavat Yisrael, love of the people Israel and the land of Israel.