שולחן ערוך · אורח חיים

The laws of the corners of the talit. This siman has 12 seifim:

Seif 1: a talit that does not have 4 corners is exempt (פטור); if it has more than four, it is obligated (חייב), and one makes 4 tsitsit at the four corners most distant from one another.

Seif 2: it had four and he cut one diagonally (אלכסון), making it two — behold it became a five-cornered one, and it is obligated.

Seif 3: he folded the corners of his talit and knotted or sewed them, so it is as though he amputated them (קיצען) and it has no corners — even so it did not become exempt.

Seif 4: a talit of cloth whose corners are of leather — obligated; if it is of leather and its corners of cloth — exempt.

Seif 5: it had 3 corners and he made 3 tsitsit on them, then he made it a 4th corner and made a tsitsit on it too — pasoul (invalid), because of תעשה ולא מן העשוי ("you shall make" — and not from the already-made).

Seif 6: one does not fold the talit to place the tsitsit on its corners as it is folded [Glose: but one must place them at the 4 deployed corners]; he placed a tsitsit upon a tsitsit — if he intended to annul the first, he cuts the first and it is kosher; if he intended to add — even if he cut one of the two, it is pasoul [Glose: some validate in any case, and that is the main view].

Seif 7: garments open on the sides toward the bottom, having 4 corners below, and closed above — if the greater part is closed (רוב סתום): exempt; if the greater part is open (רוב פתוח): obligated; and if half-and-half — one treats it לחומרא, obligated in tsitsit, and one does not go out with it on Shabbat.

Seif 9: the corners must be square (מרובעות) and not rounded (עגולות).

Seif 10: the מצנפת (turban) is exempt, even that of the Maghreb lands whose two ends are cast over the shoulders and the body; and although one covers with it his head and the major part — exempt, since its essential is to cover the head, "כסותך" said the Merciful One, and not the head-covering.