My Coworker and Her Tallis

I have a non-Jewish co-worker who asked me to buy her a tallis while I was in Israel. She was extremely excited about the prospect of having an authentic tallis all the way from the Holy Land. However, she divulged to me that she wanted to have her minister bless the tallis in order for her to use it in some kind of Christian religious rituals. She gave me money to purchase the tallis for her before I left. I wasn't incredibly comfortable with the prospect of buying a non-Jewish woman a tallis, so I very hesitatingly told her that I would see what I could do.

My friend and I looked in quite a few stores for a tallis lacking tzit-tzit and a bracha containing Hashem's name on it. We couldn't find one. We had my friend's husband ask his Rosh Kollel whether I was allowed to buy this woman a kosher tallis and he said absolutely not. My friend suggested that I buy her a scarf that looked like a tallis, but I wasn't comfortable spending her money and using it to deceive her, leading her to believe that whatever I brought her was in fact a tallis.

So I bought her nothing. I was concerned that it would affect our working relationship, since I knew how excited she was about the prospect of having a real tallis. When I returned from Israel, I explained to her that, unfortunately, I was unable to purchase the tallis for her. I didn't go into details why, because I didn't want to offend her.

She had also asked me for some brochures about the history of Jerusalem. That I could do. I bought her a beautiful one at the Tower of David Museum and gave it to her. She was really excited and gave me a hug in return.

I am glad that she could see past her disappointment and that we can still work together. I have been in difficult situations before where similar events caused a relationship to turn sour. She came up to me today to ask me a question and told me how sweet I am to help her. I am so glad there are people who can look past disappointment and move on.