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The Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection is the one-stop shop for the Torah inspiration shared by Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe in one simple feed. The Jewish Inspiration Podcast, Parsha Review Podcast, Thinking Talmudist Podcast, Living Jewishly Podcast and Unboxing Judaism Podcast all in one convenient place. Enjoy!
00:00 - Intro (Announcement)
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe from TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. This is the Prayer Podcast.
00:11 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Good morning, almost afternoon, my dear friends. We are in the Prayer Podcast. We are at a totally new episode. We are going to be talking about tefillin, tefillin, our phylacteries, and it is going to be quite a journey. I'm really excited about this and I want to just begin, like I have for many of our previous episodes, by telling you that whatever we talk about in today's class is nothing compared to what is available out there for us to learn about this great mitzvah of tefillin. We're going to talk about the prayers of tefillin and, by extension, we're also going to talk about what tefillin are.
00:54
So, before we actually recite the blessings and learn about the blessings, I want to talk about the mitzvah of tefillin. So the first thing we need to know about the mitzvah of tefillin is that it is a biblical commandment in our Torah, in our very holy, precious Torah. In Deuteronomy 11, verses 13 to 21,. The Torah commands us and you shall bind them as a sign on your arm and they shall be as frontlets on your head, between your eyes. This is Deuteronomy 6, verse 4 to verse 9. Deuteronomy 11, 13 to 21,. The Torah repeats it. And in Exodus, 13, 1 to 10, and then 11 to 16, again, tefillin are a very, very fundamental biblical commandment. It requires kavanah, it requires intention and therefore many people. If you'll see on the handouts and for those of you who are listening on podcast, you have a link in the description where you can download these pages, these worksheets. And if you see, on the top of the page, before we have the blessing, I printed the L'shem Yichud. The L'shem Yichud is focusing our attention to the mitzvah that we are about to perform. It's very, very crucial that we do so before every mitzvah, because it's very common that after you do a mitzvah once, twice, three times, 10 times, twenty times, a hundred times, a thousand times, that it becomes habit and we forget the essence of the mitzvah, we forget the proper intention and focus that we should have in performance of the mitzvah, and that isn't appropriate. Therefore, what we try to do is bring back a consciousness of what we're doing, and that's the L'shem Yichud in the smaller letters up on top.
02:52
Now tefillin we have two tefillins. I'm going to start from the very basics and work our way up. We have two separate tefillins. We have tefillin of the arm and tefillin of the head. Separate tefillins we have tefillin of the arm and tefillin of the head. The arm is placed on our muscle above our elbow, between our elbow and on our humerus, which is the bone between our armpit and our elbow, and at the center point of it, which is the middle of the height of the muscle of the bicep and downward. So this is where it would be placed. You really should have about two fingers between. If you folded your elbow, if you folded your arm, you should have two fingers in front of the house. What we call the tefillin is like the house of the tefillin.
03:42
Now, tefillin need to be placed on the arm, not on clothes. It cannot be on top of your shirt, not on top of your sweater. It should be placed on top of your arm. Then the tefillin of the head, the tefillin of the head, should be placed right at the hairline and back and then there's a string that it wraps around so it stays there on the head and there's a knot in the back and that knot it's very important for tefillin to be properly sized and the knot is between the two bones of the top of the spine, at the top of it, okay. So that's where the tefillin are placed, okay, and between the eyes. So that's the way we would check. We'd look at a mirror or look in your phone's camera to make sure that your tefillin are placed exactly at the top, right by the hairline and between the eyes. Why do we have these two commandments? Our sages teach us that the tefillin, on the other hand, al yodecha, it should be opposite your heart, and then le totefos b'nei necha, it should be between your eyes. Why? They just tell us because when you put it on your arm it's closest to your heart and when you put it between your eyes it's going to be closest to your mind.
05:03
Because a Jew needs to remind themselves constantly not to sway by the enticements and focus our eyes and mind on Hashem at all times. On our arm is that we have to remember that Hashem gets everything done. Hashem gets things done. We sometimes like to persuade ourselves that we have the power and we are doing everything On our arm of accomplishment. We tie with our stronger hand. We tie a reminder on our weaker hand, a reminder. How do people tie? You know, if you look at the logos or symbols for a reminder, it'll be a finger with a knot on it. Where do they get that from? They get that from tefillin. Because we're tying a reminder. We're tying, we're binding the reminder on our arm and on our head, a reminder that our actions need to be committed to the Almighty. We should not think that everything is us. Remember that everything is from Hashem, and to subjugate our temptations, our enticements, to the will of Hashem and not to our own desires. So those are the two tefillin, the two boxes.
06:24
Tefillin is to attach oneself to Hashem. Our sages say that by binding it, you're attaching yourself to Hashem, to the mitzvah, you're bringing awareness of Hashem into your life and enhance your spirituality. Our sages tell us that tefillin is equal to the entire Torah. This is the Talmud, and Kedushin, the entire Torah, is equivalent to the performance of the mitzvah of tefillin, is equal to the entire Torah. This is the Talmud. In Kedushin, the entire Torah is equivalent to the performance of the mitzvah of tefillin.
06:49
Also, we know that ukshartam le'os al yodecha it's one of the three mitzvahs that are called an os a sign. It should be bound as a sign on your arm. Why a sign? There are three mitzvahs that are called a sign the bris circumcision, the Shabbos and the tefillin. These are the only three mitzvahs of the 613 commandments that are called an os a sign.
07:21
Why? Because these serve as a constant reminder of our relationship of Hashem, which is why, by the way, just as a side note, we do not wear tefillin on Shabbos, because we need to always have testimony and testimonies. With two, we put our bris on our flesh right, so we have that on us from eight days throughout our life. That we can't be removed. It can't be changed. That's the Abrahamic bris. And then we have another mitzvah has to accompany it every day. During the weekday, we have tefillin. During the Shabbos, we have Shabbos, so we don't need the tefillin. That's why we don't wear tefillin on Shabbos. So tefillin are so powerful.
08:13
Yet tefillin are not made out of gold. You'd think every other mitzvah, for example a menorah oh, it's special for you to have the menorah made out of gold or silver. We try to make every mitzvah. We try to beautify the mitzvah in the greatest way possible. To fill in Leather Leather. You take it from the hide of a kosher animal and that's the only animal that you can make it from. You can't have leather from any other animal, but from a kosher animal. Why? Because the verse says the Torah of God shall be in your mouth. Our sages tell us that the fillings should be only made from an animal that could be in your mouth, meaning that it's kosher that you're allowed to eat from, from what can be in your mouth. That's what the Talmud and tractate Shabbat teaches us.
09:09
Now there's a three-pronged connection when we talk about tefillin. There is the tefillin shel yad, the hand, the arm tefillin, the tefillin shel rosh, the head tefillin, and then there's the third part, which is the kesher shal rosh, which is the knot of the head tefillin. Our sages tell us that the yad represents Hashem, the hand tefillin represents Hashem. The rosh represents the righteous and we'll explain what that means in a second. And the kesher shal tefillin, the knot of the tefillin, which is also like a chibur, is the friendship, the connection, conversation. Our sages tell us that the hand is talking to Hashem, that is, communicating with Hashem. The Rosh is the tzaddik, the righteous, that we are trying to be inspired from, to learn from, to be guided from. And then the Kesher Shel Rosh is the friendships, our friendships, the connection, the conversation, the helping to bridge between us, our righteous, and the Almighty. Our sages tell us that these three, the trio, are also Shachris, mincha and Mariv, the three prayers that we have the Shachris and Mariv, both have the Shema. Those are the two boxes of the tefillin the arm tefillin and the head tefillin. And the Mincha is the bridge between the two and that's the Kesher Shalrosh, that is the knot of the head.
10:49
Tefillin, it is garment for the skin. It is garment for the skin, for the soul. Really, just like you dress a poor person, a person who does not have tefillin, who does not sorry. So garment equals tefillin. A poor person, our sages tell us the shekhinah, the presence of Hashem, is in exile. We clothe those who are poor. Our relationship with Hashem is bound like tefillin, our clothes for the shekhinah. When shekhinah is enriched, we too become enriched and we are saved from poverty, which is why our sages tell us that those who are cautious and careful with the mitzvah of tefillin are guarded from poverty.
11:44
Now, what's the proper timing for tefillin? The proper timing for talis and tefillin is after dawn, not at dawn but later. Which is why in many of the sedurim, many of the prayer books that we will find, we will see that the tefillin is put on after the morning blessings, almost right before Baruch Shammar, before the verses of praise of Pesuket Dezimra. Why? Because people would wake up at the crack of dawn, they would start prayer, but it's too early to put on tefillin yet, so they put the tefillin on when it's already a little bit more light On Shabbos. You'll notice that in those same prayer books they put on the talis earlier in the prayer, because on Shabbos it's usually a little bit later that we start our prayer and there's a special uniqueness to the Shabbos that it needs to be that we need to pray earlier, so most people actually pray a little bit later on Shabbos. That it needs to be that we need to pray earlier, so most people actually pray a little bit later on Shabbos. Even though people, mostly at 6 am they'll get up, it's too early to put on towels and fill in. Then On Shabbos they'll wake up later and they can put on their towels.
12:58
We don't wear tefillin on Shabbos, as we mentioned earlier. Now it's called an os. It's also called a zikaron, a reminder, a remembrance. It's an os, a sign of our connection and a reminder of our holiness, of our body. That means our sages are telling us that the holiness of the body is key. Therefore, cleanliness is required, which is why, by the way, under the age of bar mitzvah, a boy does not wear tefillin. If all men are required to wear tefillin, then why not before the age of 13? Because they're not capable of being conscious of having a clean body and a clean mind when they're wearing their tefillin.
13:45
So now the first paragraph of tefillin. Okay, there are four different paragraphs of tefillin. The first is the chapter talking about Petah Hamar which is on the second side, on page 10 of your, and that inside the tefillin. What's inside the tefillin? There are four.
14:08
In the tefillin of the head there are four separate parchments, each one with a different portion of the Torah not portion, as in the portion that we study every week, but a different section of the Torah that is talking about a specific mitzvah. On the tefillin of the head, there's four separate parchments and each one has one of those portions. On the tefillin of the hand it's one parchment that has them all together On one parchment. The obvious question is why would you separate them? Why would you have a one box which has all of the four portions in one scroll, which is the hand to fill in, and then you have four separate ones for the head? So, like we mentioned earlier, the hand to fill in is the one that is representing our relationship with God and therefore there's only one God, one parchment that is representing our relationship with God and therefore there's only one God, one parchment that's represented in the one. But now the four that we have in our head, on our head to fill in, are telling us that there is different channels. There's different channels that one can connect, and we spoke about the four in a previous episode of the prayer podcast. We talked about the four aspects. We spoke about many different ideas having to do with the number four, and it's important for us to keep that in mind.
15:42
But, regarding this specific understanding, we'll see in a moment that we talk about holiness holiness of the body, of the physical holiness and then we talk about the spiritual holiness, and that is why we have the two portions that talk about the redeeming of the firstborn child and the redeeming of the firstborn animal. The redeeming of the firstborn animal, because our sages teach us the Torah teaches us that the eldest have a higher level of spiritual sensitivity. In order to have spiritual sensitivity, you need to have physical sensitivity, you need to have a heightened level of physical holiness, which is again something that's very key. When we talk about tefillin. It's very important for us to have physical holiness in order to attain spiritual holiness. We have many mitzvahs pertaining to body holiness, like tzitzis, tefillin, matzah. To body holiness, like tzitzit, tefillin, matzah, carbon pesach, the paschal lamb, the offering, the bris. Therefore, after death an important thing to note after death, we take care of the body with unbelievable sanctity because the body is holy too. Now, not holy to the point where we idolize the body. That is the Roman way, that's the way the Greek worked, that's not our way. They idolize the body, we don't idolize the body, which is why some people are less inclined to go work out, because they don't want to fall into that trap of like look at my body, my body, my body, it's a very. You got to be careful, you have to be healthy, and that's a commandment in the Torah, as we mentioned just recently.
17:43
Now the second two parshas deal with reward and punishment. That's the Shema, a portion of Shema and the portion of Ahayim Shemoah. That's reward and punishment. We accept the burden of God's presence, o Malchus Shemaim, and that's dealing with the neshama aspect, with the soul aspect of our lives. So the first two are dealing with our physical aspect of holiness and the second two are with our spiritual holiness. Now we have four sides to a box. Right, we have four sides. Now the truth is you have six, and our sages tell us those are the six days of the week and that encapsulates the Shabbos. But for the sake of the tefillin, we have four sides that are visible to us. Our sages tell us that that's the four sides of the altar, the Mizbeach, and they represent the four aspects of the soul the guf, the nefesh, the ruach, the neshama, the four different aspects, and we need to dedicate them all to the Almighty.
18:48
The term tefillin itself means separation, the term of separation, separation in thought, separation in action. A daily reminder is tied to us to remember the ways of Hashem. Now the Chavetz Chaim brings. He says that I want you to know. He writes that the mitzvah of tefillin is so great, is a protection for a person. You want to surround yourself with bodyguards, where to fill in. So you're going to ask me I see this coming here.
19:37
So what's with women? So the truth is there are women that have worn tefillin in the history of our people. It's not a mitzvah that women are commanded to perform. It's a time-bound mitzvah and women are not commanded to time-bound mitzvahs. Now, if you want to learn more about this, we can talk about this. We'll probably get to this next week, because next week we're already going to talk about the morning blessings and we're going to talk about the blessing that the man says shaloh azani isha and what the woman says shaloh azani kirtzono. We're going to talk about that next week and we're going to delve into this a little bit more. But the truth is is that a woman has her spiritual closeness with Hashem in a very different way than a man does and in a much more real way. So they're obligated to less because they have more, naturally. So you don't have to bound them to it like you need to for a man, but for many women that doesn't suffice, and we're going to talk about that a little bit more next week. We'll explain that in more detail.
20:42
Now, if you look at the tefillin of the head, there are two shins on both sides of the house. One shin has three prongs and one shin has four prongs. Very interesting. You take the letter shin. The letter shin is numerical value of 300. So you have two shins. That's 300, and 300 equals 600. Very good, you have the three prongs and the four prongs is seven. And then you have Shin, and Shin is the number Sheish, which is six. So you have 600, seven and six is 613.
21:23
Our sages tell us that this is one of the signs that the Tefillin equals to the entire Torah. When someone performs the mitzvah of tefillin properly, it's as well, but tefillin is as if they've fulfilled the entire Torah. Now let's begin with the blessings of the tefillin, and then we will talk a little bit more about this. So, before placing, before tying the tefillin on the arm, it's placed on the muscle on the left arm, on the weaker arm, and before tightening it, as we're about to tie it on ourselves, we recite the following blessing Baruch atah Adayinoy Eloheinu melech ha'olam asher kidishanu b'mitzvay sov v'tzivanu lehoniach. Tefillin, blessed are you, hashem, our God, king of the universe, who sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to put on tefillin. Now, once that is done, we wrap the seven straps around our arm and then we place the tefillin of the head on our head, above the region between our eyes, and we say the following blessing Once the tefillin are placed in their place, we say the following blessing Bar the tefillin are placed in their place, we say the following blessing Blessed are you, hashem, our God, king of the universe, who sanctified us with his commandments and commanded us concerning the mitzvah of tefillin.
23:09
The first one was commanded us to put on tefillin and the second is concerning the mitzvah of tefillin. Immediately after, while tightening the tefillin on our head, we say Baruch Sheim K'vod Malchusol Olam Va'ed, blessed is he, blessed is his name, whose glorious kingdom is forever and ever. Okay, so now the tefillin are on the hand. Tefillin. We placed it in the right place, we recited the blessing, we wrapped seven around our arm, between our elbow and our wrist, and then we put on the tefillin on our head, we tightened it, we recited the blessing and then we said Then we tightened the fingers, we tighten the strap around our fingers.
23:56
We put three straps on our middle finger and then one going around our ring finger and then coming around, and that would create like a shin on our hand and a dalet and a yud on our fingers, and that's the name of Hashem. The shin, the dalet and the yud are the names of Hashem. And what do we say while we're strapping that around our finger On our left hand? We say I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness, in justice, in kindliness and in mercy, and I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you shall know Adonai Hashem. Okay, so now we know how to put it on. We recited the blessing.
24:55
What is Ve'erastich? Our sages tell us, ve'erastich means erusin. We are engaged to the Almighty, we are attaching ourselves with the Almighty. Also, when we do this properly, we are mi'usharim, we are elated, we are joyful that Hashem chose us. And that's what we're doing. When we're saying that, we are committing ourselves. But we're also saying tzedek u'mishpat, chesed v'rachamim, that we are committing ourselves to tzedek u'mishpat, to justice and to justice, to justice and to righteousness. And you know what the reward for that will be Chesed v'rachamim, kindliness and mercy. And then v'eras tichli be'emunah. And then, when I have the proper emunah, when I bound the emunah properly on myself, then v'yadatah as Hashem. Then I will understand at a greater level the relationship with Hashem. So it's all at a greater level, the relationship with Hashem. So it's all as a result of the five things tzedek mishpat, chesed, rachamim and imunah. When I have the proper righteousness, justice, kindliness, mercy and faithfulness, then I can get a little glimpse into who and what our relationship with Hashem is. So just a few little short things.
26:22
We mentioned previously that we have the boxes.
26:29
The two boxes, the most important part of our tefillin, are the parshios, which is the portions of the Torah, the parchment that's inside the tefillin.
26:39
We have the bayit, which is the box containing the parchments.
26:43
We have the titura, which is the wider base that the bayit, that the box is sitting on.
26:50
We have the ma'avarta, which is the opening in the base that the strap goes through, and then we have the ritzuot, the ritzua, which is the strap that we wrap the tefillin on ourselves. These five different components are all made out of leather, out of hide of a kosher animal. So again we have the four portions that are inside the obligation to remember the Exodus, the responsibility to transmit Judaism to our descendants, which is why we talk about the redeeming of the firstborn. We're showing it in action by the redeeming of the first animal. We recite the Shema, which is the proclamation of God's unity, and the mitzvah to love Hashem, and then the implications of our fulfillment of the Torah is also in our tefillin. Now the two boxes represent, like we mentioned earlier, the two ways in which we must serve Hashem Thought and action Tefillin of the head controlling our thought. Our thoughts need to be directed properly and our actions need to be with the right intention, and that's why we have the to fill in on our arm.
28:04
Now we need to work our way up. We first need to do action and then we need to have the right focus. We need to have the right focus. We start with action. Even if we don't understand what we are doing, it doesn't change our obligation. Later you can figure out how to make it more meaningful In every action in life. By the way, you don't say, well, until I don't understand why I have this responsibility of supporting my wife and children, I'm not going to get a job. No, get a job, you'll figure it out later.
28:41
Right, first you get into action and then you can add meaning to it, and you can add understanding to it. And we have to add thought to it. And that's why we place our action, our arm to fill in first and then our head to fill in. It's also because our actions need to be guided by our intellect. And you know it's not enough for us to talk the talk, we have to walk the walk.
29:14
You know, there's the story about a great philosopher who lived a very promiscuous lifestyle and his students once caught him in the act of inappropriateness and they said to him how is it possible you have such incredible thoughts? You're such a wise, brilliant man, how can you act in such a lowly way? And he said well, now I'm just me. I'm not a philosopher, now, I'm just acting like me. That's not the way we are as Jews. We combine the two, we tie the two together, so to speak, on ourselves, saying our actions and our thoughts cannot be separate. We can't say, well, I'm a Jew in the synagogue, but when I'm not, I'm just like everybody else, or I act this way when I'm here, I act another way when I'm there. We have to combine those two. How do we do it? By bringing those two together, by connecting them both to ourselves.
30:13
So now we mentioned very briefly that we have the shin, the dalet and the yud. The first letter is embossed on our tefillin, outside of the head tefillin box. So we have the shin, we also have the shin on our arm. We have the second letter is the dalet. We have the dalet on the strap of the hand, tefillin by the knot, and we also have it on our fingers. And then we have the Yud, which is at the back of our head, the knot, and also a Yud on our hands. So we have twice the shin, the Dalet and the Yud on us so that at every moment of wearing tefillin, we have this tremendous closeness and connection with the Almighty while wearing wearing tefillin. We have this tremendous closeness and connection with the Almighty while wearing our tefillin.
31:01
Now there's another very interesting side note, when we're already talking about tefillin. So we're living in a modern world today where we have access to unbelievable things. You can search up the Chinese Journal of Medicine has a remarkable article written by a Chinese medicine professional, and they found that the points, the pressure points of the head, where the tefillin rests and where the arm is placed, are the exact points that are needed to be manipulated for spiritual connection. And you say like, wow, what a coincidence. No, it's not a coincidence. Hashem, who created this world, who created medicine, who created the human being, knows exactly what he's doing. Okay, it's not a coincidence. We are just able to reveal, sometimes, the hidden secrets of the beauty of our Torah.
32:02
Now the Ben Ishchai says an incredible thing. He says that if you count the number of days that the tefillin are worn every year, it's 301 days a year, because you have to exclude the days of holidays and Shabbos. You take out Shabbos. You have 52 weeks in the year, 52 Shabbos a year and you also have holidays Together. It leaves us with only 301 days a year that we wear the tefillin. You know what the numerical value of 301 is? Eish fire. Our sages tell us that one who is careful with wearing tefillin is protected from the fire of Gehenna of purgatory. Tefillin are the protectors that will save us from that fire.
32:56
My dear friends, it is such a powerful mitzvah. It's such an incredible privilege and opportunity for us to have such an incredible mitzvah that we can perform every single weekday of our lives and to be careful with this mitzvah to ensure that our tefillin are constantly checked appropriately and that they're authentic, because unfortunately, there have been too many stories where people go on Amazon and they try to find cheap tefillin. No, that's not where bona fide scribes put their tefillin for sale. You need to make sure that they're written by a God-fearing Jew, produced with proper materials of hide of a kosher animal. And, my dear friends, god shall bless us all to have tefillin to merit for the mitzvah of feeling that closeness and connection to Hashem every day of our lives. Thank you, and I look forward to continuing our journey together with our tefillin, with our prayers Next week. I look forward to continuing the blessings, the morning blessings. Have a magnificent week ahead.
34:11 - Intro (Announcement)
You've been listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe on a podcast produced by TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. Please help sponsor an episode so we can continue to produce more quality Jewish content for our listeners around the globe. Please visit torchweb.org to donate and partner with us on this incredible endeavor.