What is wearing a kippah all about? The distinctiveness of the kippot is alluded to in Birkot Hashachar, the start-of-the-day blessing that thanks God for “crowning Israel with splendor” (Brachot 60b). Wearing a kippah is a reminder of G-d (Kiddushin 31a) – a recognition that there is Someone “above” us who watches our every act – and serves as a form of distinction between Jews and non-Jews.

“External actions create internal awareness,” writes Rabbi Shraga Simmons. “It’s easy to remember G-d while at the synagogue or around the Shabbat table, but Jewish consciousness is meant to pervade all aspects of our lives.” That’s where the kippah comes in.

The Yiddish word for head covering, yarmulke, is derived from the Aramaic, yira malka, which means “awe of the King.” The Hebrew word, kippah, means literally “dome.”

To wear a kippah is to proclaim: “I am a proud Jew.”

Likewise, wearing tzitzit daily is a show of Jewish pride. For millenia Jews have maintained forms of attire that distinguished them from the surrounding population, which sometimes exposed them to bigotry and even danger (e.g. refer to this Holocaust-era tallit katan). The tzitzit literally surround the wearer, enveloping him with holiness from head to toe. Verses in the Torah explicitly state that looking at the tzitzit reminds us to keep the mitzvot at all times to help us overcome unseemly impulses, and wearing tzitzit is the equivalent of all the mitzvahs combined.

When someone puts on a kippah, he is making a statement regarding his commitment to Judaism and the Jewish people. But initially it can be quite a struggle. One young professional dealing with “the kippah quandary” describes standing in front of the mirror in the restroom before a job interview, debating whether he should take it off to avoid making too big a statement. “But then I realized that not wearing my kippah would be an even bigger statement. A statement about denial of who I am. A Jew. A religious Jew. So for me, going in without a kippah would be a statement that I am less-than-fully committed to those ideas around which I base my life. So, in I went – tasteful kippah and all…” (And yes, he did land the job.)

When Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein was almost killed by an antisemitic terrorist at his synagogue in Poway, Calif., he came away with a reinforced commitment to wear his kippah and tzitzit proudly in public: “From here on in I am going to be more brazen. I am going to be even more proud about walking down the street wearing my tzitzit and kippah, acknowledging God’s presence.”