When one removes their tzitzis at night to go shower, is there any reason to put them back on before going back to shul for maariv? Also, if one takes a haircut and bath during the day and has a hefsek between taking off their tzitzis and putting them back on for around 45 minutes should one make a bracha? How long of break is considered a hefsek for the talis katan?
Answer:
There is no need (or reason) to wear tzitzis at night after having taken them off (though some wear tzitzis even to sleep, based on Arizal–see Mishnah Berurah 21:15).
A haircut and bath that takes around 45 minutes, would constitute a hefsek, and you could make a new berachah when putting the tzitzis back on. However, it is not common practice to make a berachah, unless the hefsek is unusually long, for instance a two-hour game of tennis. Note that Sephardim would make a new berachah even if the tzitzis are worn again without delay. See Shulchan Aruch (8:14); Mishnah Berurah (8:37) and Biur Halachah, who recommends that when reciting the berachah in the morning, one should have intention that the berachah only covers the tiem up to the time when one takes off one’s tzitzis for the bath, thereby avoiding any doubts.
>>There is no need (or reason) to wear tzitzis at night after having taken them off.
I was surprised to see this.
I recall a teshuva from Reb Moshe where he discusses a pri megadim that said similarly and actually recommended not to wear them because of a safek bracha being that there is a machlokes Rambam and other poskim regarding what constitutes bigdei laylah.
But if memory serves me, Reb Moshe argued not seeing why this was a problem.
I think one could argue as follows:
If you hold that a beged which is meyuchad for both day and night is mechuyav, wouldn’t that be a reason to put the tzitzis back on for a safek kiyum mitzvah as well?
Iggros Moshe (Yoreh De’ah, vol. 2, no. 137) concludes that although there is no prohibition in wearing the tzitzis again (after the shower, at night), there is no mitzvah of doing so, and not even an ‘inyan’. Although as you write, according to Rosh (and Tosafos) clothing worn in the day is obligated in tzitzis even at night, Rav Moshe writes that even according to this opinion, there is no need to take care to wear a four-cornered garment (with tzitzis) at night. Sephardi poskim, it should be noted, write more enthusiastically concerning tzitzis at night, based on sources in Kabbalah.
After some bar ilan searches I finally found it in the igros:
It’s YD 2:137
I did not quote it correctly
It’s not a pri megadim – its a magen avraham.
He does make the same argument l’shitas tosfos and rosh who are mechyaiv beged yom even at night, it would be a kiyum mitzvah.
In the end he says, there is no issur per se but it is still not encouraged.
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