Wearing Tzitzit: Rav Moshe’s question – Sh’lach L’cha
The sidra tells us about fringes on the corners of our garments.
Rav Moshe Feinstein asks a question: Why do we insert tzitzit only if we have chosen to wear a four-cornered garment?
Why not simply say, “You have to have fringes: therefore you have a duty to put on a four-cornered garment to accommodate them”?
Rav Moshe says there are two types of people – some who don’t ask anyone for guidance but make their own decisions, and those who are aware of their limitations and seek a teacher’s guidance.
The first type might feel sure of themselves if there were a clear command to have four-cornered garments for the sake of the law of tzitzit, but they might do it perfunctorily or automatically without wanting to delve into the meaning and message of the mitzvah.
The others are constantly searching for the truth, so having chosen stage one, the type of garment to wear, they then want to know how they can adorn the garment and themselves with extra meaning.
To them it will naturally follow that – as the Torah says – they will “remember and do” all that the mitzvah stands for.
