Wrapped in a Robe of Light:

The Story of the B'nai Or Prayer Shawl

By Reb Yonassan Gershom

The beautiful B'nai Or (Children of Light) prayer shawl, sometimes called the "Joseph's Coat " tallis, was designed by Rabbi Zalman Schachter, formerly known as the B'nai Or Rebbe. Over the years, I have met many Jews who bought a B'nai Or tallis simply because it was beautiful, or because they like rainbows --- without realizing that there is a "legend in the making" behind this robe of rainbow light.

Therefore, although B'nai Or (The Children of Light) group no longer exists as such, and even though I am not affiliated with the current Renewal movement he now heads, I still like to tell this story, so that those who still wear this rainbow tallis today will know something of its original history...

The story begins many years ago, back in the 1950's, when Reb Zalman was still a Lubovitcher Hasid. One day, he was meditating on the Midrash: How did G-d create the world? He wrapped himself in a robe of light and it began to shine. Suddenly Reb Zalman had a beautiful inspiration, almost a vision, of a prayer shawl woven in vibrant rainbow colors. It was radical -- and it was beautiful!

Reb Zalman's very first colored tallis was made in the 1950's from an Anderson clan tartan. It was very nice, but he still preferred stripes, not only because that is traditional for prayer shawls but also because he somehow sensed that it should have bands of color, like a spectrum. Reb Zalman later presented the plaid tallis to a Scottish convert to Judaism named Anderson. Other experiments included embroidering colors on a regular tallis, or appliqued stripes, and with each new design, the rainbow vision became clearer.

Around 1961 or so, the present design was ready for the weavers. But in those days, tallis makers were all very orthodox people who were not about to participate in this "crazy idea." Reb Zalman trekked from one Brooklyn tallis manufacturer top another, but was flatly refused by all.

"What is this you want? A Purim (clown) tallis?" one pious old Hasid asked at the Munchatzer tallis factory. "Is this some kind of new sect or something?"

But the design Reb Zalman envisioned was far from being a "clown tallis." Each of the colors, as well as the width and arrangement of the stripes themselves, was based on the seven lower Sefirot (mystical levels) of the kabbalistic Tree of Life diagram, co-ordinated to the colors of the rainbow.

In 1983, when I interviewed Reb Zalman at B'nai Or House in Philadelphia, PA, he explained it to me this way:

GERSHOM: So, you had in mind that the "robe of light" that G-d wraps himself in to create the world, is the spectrum, that it is literally the Primal Light?

ZALMAN: Right. And the spectrum itself has black lines, too, like you see on a spectroscope. Once I started to see it, I asked myself the question, which ones should have black lines? I saw the black lines as a keli, a "vessel of creation." So which of the sefirot [kabbalistic levels] need to be contained? Certainly not Gevurah [strength/justice] and Malchut [Kingdom/material world], because they themselves are vessels. On the other hand, Tiferet {beauty/centeredness) and Yesod [foundation/ego] need strong ego-boundaries. Then there was the question of which stripes should be wider, and how they should be spaced...

So it comes out like this:

[When the tallis is worn over the head] the atarah [embroidered strip) on the tallis is Keter, the Crown, the Source of the White Light, which flows into Chochmah-Binah [Wisdom-Knowledge], still white and represented by the tallis cloth as it is draped over the head.] It then then enters Chesed [Lovingkindness or Grace], which is the wide purple stripe.

GERSHOM: There are two shades of purple. Why is that?

ZALMAN: Because it represents Bereshit, "In the Beginning," the First Day of Creation. So the deep purple represents ultra-violet, just coming out of darkness. The lighter lavender (on either side of the deep purple) already has some light mixed in, the first light becoming visible to the human eye. And the whole stripe is very wide, because the nature of Chesed is broad and sweeping. Which is also why it needs the black lines to contain it.

Now, the next stripe is tekelet-blue, representing Gevurah [strength/rigor]. This stripe represents the Second Day of Creation, when the "waters above" were separated from the "waters below." And since is by nature a container [because it also represents halachah, Jewish law], it doesn't need the black stripes bordering it.

Following the Creation story, the next stripe is the Third Day, Tiferet [beauty]. Vegetation was created then, represented by green. G-d also said "It is good" twice on that day, so there are two green stripes, with the white light of Keter [Crown, one of the upper levels] coming through the middle. Tiferet [as the heart center] needs a vessel, so there are also the black lines.

Next comes Netzach [victory], the Fourth Day, when the sun, moon, and stars were created, so they are represented by yellow. The Fifth Day was when egg-laying animals were made: all the fish, reptiles, birds, and insects. So I reprsented the sefirah of Hod [spendor] with orange, like egg yolks. Notice also that Hod and Netzach are very close together, almost like one stripe, and that they are mirror images of each other. You can't really separate them. In fact, people confuse which is which, and there's a lot of disagreement, some systems interpreting them exactly opposite of other systems.

GERSHOM: Yes, I see how you have designed them very close together, almost like one stripe, but there is still some white light coming through between them. Like Aaron and Moses. Aaron does the Form of the ritual and also channels the blessings. Moses gives laws but also received revelation. Each has both active and passive elements, like the left and right brain, but more balanced, more integrated. That's why you can't really separate them, right?

ZALMAN: Right. Now, the red stripe is Yesod [foundation], which can also represent Ego, so naturally it needs a very strong vessel to contain it. And because the placental mammals were created on the Sixth Day, This one is red, for the blood of life. [Editor's note: Tiferet and Yesod also represent the Higher Self and the lower self, which is why the pattern of the red stripes "below" exactly reflects the green stripes "above," only smaller.]

And last of all, we come to Malchut, the Kingdom, which is Earth, represented by brown, because all things turn brown and return to the earth when they die. King David is also associated with Malchut, not only because he was a king, but also because he received everything [an attribute of Malchut] and has nothing of his own -- not even his life. There's the Midrash that the first Adam gave 70 years of his own life to King David, so that David's very life came from Adamah, the earth. Thus the brown color.

So, the pattern kept coming through clearer and clearer to Reb Zalman, and the quest for a weaver continued outside the Orthodox community. The very first tallis in the B'nai Or pattern was made from reindeer wool by a woman in New Haven, Connecticut. This was lovely, but Reb Zalman still was not satisfied, because the cloth came out more like a blanket than a prayer shawl, and it hung rather stiffly. The search went on...

Then one day, while visiting Montreal, Reb Zalman looked in the phone book and found the listing of "Karen Bulow -- Vetements Religieux" -- a religious vestment company? Would they be willing to do it? After a brief conversation over the phone, Reb Zalman ran ecstatically into the street and hailed the first taxicab! Yes, they could make it, but he would have to buy five of them, because it wasn't worth setting up the loom for only one.

"Of course, yes, I'll gladly take five!" he said with delight.

At last the five original tallaysim were woven: Reb Zalman got one, Abraham Joshua Heschel got one, Everett Gendler got one, Arthur Green got one... And the fifth tallis? I don't know. Perhaps it belongs to all of us, becasue these five tallaysim opened the door for Jews everywhere to begin personalizing their prayer shawls and expressing their own visions of Jewish spirituality.

A few months later, Reb Zalman was hired as a "religious environmentalist" at a Ramah summer camp. So here was this Lubovitcher Hasid, combing the Manhattan garment district for colorful remnants, especially scraps with stripes and bright colors, so that he could teach Jewish kids how to make their own tallaysim. With a rented sewing machine and a trunk full of cloth under his bunk, he set up his "tallisarium, " the very first grassroots do-it-yourself prayer-shawl-making venture.

Years passed, and those Jews taught other Jews, who taught still others. Reb Zalman never copyrighted his deisgn, so that eventually it was picked up and produced by a tallis factory in Israel and marketed as the "Joseph's Coat" tallis. (Although nowadays, some manufacturers have toned down the original psychedylic "neon" "colors to more muted tones.)

Today, multi-colored tallaysim are commonplace -- so much so, that a young man once walked up to the now gray-haired Reb Zalman and asked, "Where did you get your rainbow tallis? I also have one. Yours is exactly like mine!"

Reb Zalman smiled lovingly. "Yes, Baruch HaShem [praise G-d], I also have a rainbow tallis..." He paused, a faraway look in his eyes, "...we're both wrapped in the Creator's Robe of Light."

The vision had come full circle.

©copyright 1983 by Yonassan Gershom. The interview section first appeared in the Winter 1983 issue of B'nai Or Newsletter.  Revised 1987, 1998, 2010. All rights reserved.

The full essay is included in 49 Gates of Light, a seven-week experiential kabbalah course by Yonassan Gershom, based on the Tree of Life and the rainbow pattern of the B'nai Or tallis design. Now available as a full color softcover book or a PDF download -- go to the 49-Gates of Light homepage to read more & order your copy.

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