Proposition: Torah commands us to put on tefillin. The command is reiterated in four places: Deuteronomy 6:8, 11:18, Exodus 13:9 and 13:16. For instance, here is Deut 6:
Hear, O Israel! YHWH is our God, YHWH alone. You shall love YHWH your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Take to heart these instructions with which I charge you this day. Impress them upon your children. Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead; inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Yet, the Torah never explains how to make tefillin. Therefore there must be an Oral Torah which contains such an explanation.
Response: 1. Again, if something is not specified, we can do it in any way we like. If we are commanded to bind Torah verses to the hand and the forehead, then we can do so in any manner.
2. Torah does not contain any commandments about tefillin. This is key. Orthodox Jews claim that the commandment to bind tefillin is not from the Oral Torah, but from the written Torah ("d'oraissa"); only the explanation of the commandment is in the Oral Torah. But this is not so. The written Torah itself never commands tefillin. This can be shown very easily through the following thought experiment.
Take a reasonably intelligent person who can read the Torah and who knows the cultural circumstances of ancient Jews. That is, he is able to read the Torah from the ponit of view of the original readers. But, this person does not know anything about the Oral Torah. Now, let him read the Torah, including the passages that supposedly command tefillin. Does this person see that the Torah command tefillin? The answer: no. He would have to know the Oral Torah to know that the written Torah supposedly commands tefillin. But if he has to know the Oral Torah to know that there is a commandment, it means that the commandment is coming from the Oral Torah.
3. Much has been written showing that there is no commandment of tefillin. Instead of repeating what others wrote, I simply refer you to them. Here is an essay by Nehemia Gordon [local] and another one by Meir Rekhavi [local]. Also, SL Aronovitz writes:
The Tefillin issue is a great one. When I was a religious man, I wore both the Rashi and Rabeinu Tam versions, and both types styled after the Beis Yosef (The shin on the shel rosh is different). Yet, in spite of this most careful adherence to this halachic parody of Pascal’s Wager, there remained those who felt that even this wasn’t enough to satisfy the normative performance of the mitzvah, insisting that I follow THEIR versions only. No one among the Rabbinists seem to be satisfied with anything.Posted by Ami at March 20, 2004 04:27 AM | TrackBackThere are some basic questions regarding tefillin that, although asked and researched, have yet to receive an answer.
1) Do we have tefillin that dates back to the 1st Temple? To Davidic times? Or even maybe a set of Rashi’s own? One would assume that somehow, someway, we would discover at least one set of tefillin, and by doing so, would answer all the questions as to how it should be done(or IF it was done at all), since that which is closer to Sinai is considered more credible. This in particular since halacha requires that tefillin and other kodesh are to be buried. The rocky and arid soil of much of Israel seems adequate for preserving such items. [There are indeed ancient remains of tefillin form the Qumran site, and they are similar to what is being produced today. This is not to say that the tefillin are not a rabbinic derivation, and there is still no reason to assume so. It is important to note that the Qumran tefillin have been dated to 100-200 BCE, which is well after the first Temple period.]
2) What style of tefillin did Rashi’s father wear? Or his Rov? And why did Rashi feel the need to change that? If Rashi were only copying the versions of his father and/or Rov, then what exactly did he innovate that now gives him so much credit for defining tefillin? Would it not have already been well known enough amongst Jews? One would think that a Tana or Amora would have an opinion on it, too.
3) How didthe Rabeinu Tam, who being one of Rashi’s own grandchildren and one of the Baalei Tosfos, come up with a different version (subtle as the alterations may be)? One would think that someone that close in time, proximity, and relation would have shared a few notes occasionally.
I suspect that the entire development of tefillin was kind of gradual and somewhat arbitrary, much like some of the other rabbinic explanations. The practice is built to suit a twisted reading of the Tanach. The rabbinists excel at creating complex answers for questions that shouldn’t exist.