Wrapping my tallit around me before I enter into any kind of prayer is essential to me. My own tallit was made within an entire community of women needleworkers, and the ritual of removing it from its bag, opening it, enclosing myself within it is how every moment of prayer starts, often when I’m still alone before a service begins. I’ve written a blessing to help explain and express everything the motion of wrapping means. One version is for those times we pray within a community, and the other for when we pray in solitude.