After the long and arduous process of Moses’ unrealized negotiations with Pharoah and his hardened heart, and after all the plagues, this week’s Torah portion, Bo, describes the deliverance from slavery and the beginning of our ancestors' wandering in the desert. In preparation of their escape from Egypt, the Israelites prepare and partake of the first Passover Seder, consisting of the meat from the commanded sacrifice, matzah, and maror (bitter herbs). And, as the Israelites experience the first taste of freedom, the Torah introduces what is to be a symbol of God’s deliverance.
In two different verses, the text records: "It will be to you a sign (Hebrew: ot) on your hand and a reminder between your eyes - in order that God’s Torah will be in your mouth - because with a strong hand, God delivered you from Egypt.” The second mention of this comes as the final verse of the Torah portion “And it shall be a sign on your hand, and as totafot (there’s not really an English word for this, but the best translation is ‘ornament’) between your eyes because with a strong arm God brought us out of Egypt.”
Generations after the exodus from Egypt, the rabbis of the Talmud interpreted these references as the foundation of the mitzvah of tefillin. Each weekday morning, the leather boxes of tefillin are placed on the arms and between the eyes of Jewish adults and the leather straps are wrapped around the arms and heads. Within the boxes of the tefillin are the words of four separate passages from the Torah - two paragraphs of the Shema expressing God’s oneness and God’s sovereignty, and the concept of reward and punishment and the obligation to uphold the relationship with God through mitzvot. The remaining two paragraphs come from this week's Torah portion dealing with the exodus from Egypt, including these two verses of reminder. So, what exactly is it that we are to remember through the very physical act of putting tefillin on our arms and on our foreheads?
There is no event more central in our people's history than the exodus from Egypt. In remembering it, we recall not just a moment in history, but our own personal link to each of the past generations dating all the way back to the Exodus. And, we take ourselves back to the time when out of the oppression of slavery, the community of Israel became a nation and forged a common bond through our relationship with God. In Egypt, the Israelite slaves were involuntarily bound to Pharaoh and were subject to the lashings of the Egyptians. Perhaps, our tefillin remind us that we are bound only to the service of God and the straps of the tefillin remind us that we are free of the lashes of slavery?
Maimonides, in his description of the laws of tefillin, suggests that tefillin are not only about linking ourselves to history or the people of our past, but about engaging ourselves in another way. For Maimonides, tefillin challenges us to live a better life, to allow its meaning to change who we are and how we act in this world. He writes: "The sanctity of the tefillin is great, for when tefillin are on the head, a person should be humble and in awe of Heaven. He is not to be drawn towards levity and idle talk, nor does he entertain evil thoughts, but rather, he opens his heart to the words of truth and righteousness." Bound by the tefillin, a Jew, according to Maimonides, becomes physically ready for prayer and emotionally aware of the possibility to participate in bringing about future redemption.
There is a great teaching in the Talmud which suggests that not only do people wear tefillin, but God also wears tefillin. Rashba, the great 13th-century Spanish commentator, provides a beautiful explanation of God's tefillin and ours. He points out that the tefillin on our arms is placed next to the heart which is the root of understanding and the tefillin around the head encircles the brain which is the mechanism through which the heart's understanding is communicated to the rest of the body. The Rashba then offers a metaphor in which he pictures tefillin to be like a tree: the tefillin of the arm as the root, the tefillin of the head the branches. Contained in both the head and arm tefillin are the four Torah passages. On the arm, all four verses are placed in one compartment – like the root of a tree, all of the sections are bound together. On the head, however, each passage is in a separate compartment - like the branches of a tree, they are separate from one another.
As a metaphor for the Jewish people, the Rashba says the tefillin of the arm draws together all four verses, symbolizing the unique union between God and the Jewish people. Like the root of a tree, this bond with God is the foundation of our existence, and the platform from which our worldview comes. When this root is securely in place -- when we achieve this relationship with God, then we are able to exist in the outside world, preserving our distinctiveness and our community.
Shabbat Shalom.