When you want to know whether the chicken you eat is kosher, in some ways the question is straightforward. Assuming you used a kosher species and did the salting right and no issues came up during shechita, if there is any uncertainty whether the trachea and esophagus were cut properly, you take it to a rav and he determines whether it’s kosher or treif. If the cut goes 51% through the diameter, it’s kosher, if it goes 49% through, it’s treif.

When it comes to wearing tzitzit, people have the same question: are the tzitzit kosher? But with tzitzit the matter can get a bit complicated. Here are a few of the questions you might want to look into:

• What is the garment made of?
• Does it meet the minimum size requirement (“shiur“)?
• Are the tzitzit holes positioned properly?
• Who tied the tzitzit?
• What type of tzitzit strings were used?

These questions are not so cut-and-dry. For example, take the last question. Do tzitzit strings have to be hand-spun? That’s a matter of debate in halacha. If you want to play it safe, you’ll want to go with hand-spun strings, which will cost you about $10 more. (For more on the topic, see “Kosher Tzitzit: A Matter of Intent.”)

Most manufacturers are pretty good about positioning the holes properly. They should be 5 cm from both edges. If they are 3 cm or 7 cm away, you could have a real problem.

How about the material of the tallit katan garment? Don’t let anyone tell you cotton isn’t kosher. It definitely is, according to all opinions. The question is whether wool is preferred. It definitely is preferred for Sephardim, since the Sephardic poskim hold that if it’s not wool, it only requires tzitzit according to Rabbinic law, not Torah law. For Ashkenazim that question is a bit more involved.

What about undershirt tzitzit or t-shirt tzitzit? Some poskim say that wearing a tzitzit garment like an undershirt is unseemly, that you shouldn’t be keeping the mitzvah of tzitzit with a garment designed to absorb sweat. It seems to me that this issue does not apply in the case of a t-shirt tzitzit garment because when you wear one layer, whether it’s a button-down shirt, a knit shirt or a t-shirt, that’s a bona fide garment, not a “sweat absorber.” I’ve never seen this question addressed by a qualified rabbinical authority.

Probably the thorniest question is the matter of shiur beged. What’s the big deal over what size you wear? To fulfill the mitzvah of tzitzit, obviously you need a genuine garment (“beged“). If it’s itsy-bitsy, that’s not a real beged. So how big does it have to be? The Gemara addresses the question, but there’s a big debate among the poskim over how to translate the Gemara’s conclusion into numbers. The leading opinions come out to about 20 inches, 22 inches and 24 inches respectively. So you go to your rav and ask him: “Should I go according to the Grach Na’eh, Rav Moshe Feinstein or the Chazon Ish?”

But once you get your answer, we still don’t know if your tzitzit are kosher! How do we measure it? From top to bottom? Or does the neck opening not count, so we have to measure it from the bottom of the neck opening down to the front edge? It makes a big difference!

Some people drive themselves batty over this. (Briskers, among others.) They want to have their cake and eat it too, i.e. they want a large shiur and they don’t include the neck opening when they measure. So they buy a tallit katan in a huge size, and tuck a foot or two into their pants. Or they buy a normal size (i.e. wool Size 6 / Size 24 which has a shiur Chazon Ish) and then they sew up some of the vertical neck opening or have a seamstress add buttons. Wanna hear a secret? I used to be one of those people myself.

So what’s the solution to all of the above? What’s a decent G-d fearing Yid to do? Sorry, but there’s no easy answer. First go through the various halachas to the best of your ability, and then take your questions to a rav.

Oh yeah, and we didn’t even mention the question of techeiles…