Light blue (Tekhelet) Tallit Shabbat candles holders

What does the 7-8-11-13 windings pattern mean? There are a number of wonderful interpretations for this pattern of windings. One interpretation is that each set of windings corresponds to one of the four letters in God's name. Another interpretation employs Gematria, Jewish numerology, which assigns to each Hebrew letter a numeric value: aleph is 1, bet is 2, gimmel is 3, and so on. In this second interpretation of the windings of the Tzitzit, the numbers 7-8-11-13 have special meaning: 7+8=15, which in Hebrew is written yod-hay, the first two letters of God's name (the Tetragrammaton); 11=vav+hay, the third and fourth letters of God's name. Hence the first three windings "spell" God's holy name. Thirteen, the last set of windings, is equivalent in value to the word "echad" which means "one." Hence, all four windings can be interpreted to say, "God is one." Yet another interpretation holds that when we consider the windings between the knots, 7, 8, 11, and 13, the first three numbers equal 26, which is numerically equivalent to the Tetragrammaton and the remaining number, 13, is equivalent to "echad" ("one"). Hence the windings tell us that God is One. If we take the sum of the first three numbers (7+8+11) and equate that with God's Name, then the 13 which remain can also be interpreted to reflect the 13 attributes of God, as articulated by Moses Maimonides and set to verse in the Yigdal. By still another interpretation, the Gematria value of the word "Tzitzit" (tzadi-yod-tzitzit-yod-taf) is 600. To this we add the eight strands plus the five knots, totaling 613 in all. According to tradition, God gave us 613 mitzvot (commandments) in the Torah. Just looking at the tallit with its Tzitzit, therefore, reminds us of the commandments, as the Torah says, "You should see them and remember all God's commandments and do them."