Monday, March 12, 2007

Tefillin Advice from Facebook

It really is a problem that many people wear their tefillin incorrectly.

Have no fear, there is a facebook group here to save us from the falling tefillin:
My Tefillin Shel Rosh is not on my forehead!

The group has diagrams of correct tefillin positions and pictures of members with tefillin.

It is an open group, so as expected it includes women who wear tefillin, before you go crazy, just remember Rashi's daughters among many women who we have stories about wearing tefillin.

(EDIT - While many stories can not be varrified, one intresting one I suggest you look into is the story of Hannah Rochel Verbermacher, a Hasidic holy woman known as the Maiden of Ludmir)

Other controversies in the group include, the Lubavitcher Rebbe's tefillin placement:
R'Hillel Chayim Yisraeli (Israel) wrote
at 2:23am on March 9th, 2007
I have received my very first hate mail! Yay! I was criticized for the comments I made about Rabbi Schneerson's tefillin. Well, let me tell you, I'm proud of that! And Yes, my Hebrew IS good enough to understand what the Shulchan Arukh says about the proper place of the Shel Rosh! So, rebbe or no rebbe, halakhah is halakhah. Halakhah doesn't play favourites, my friends. A tzaddik is a tzaddik based on the halakhah he keeps, not the halakhah that he breaks. But this is what makes me a misnaged, I guess. Well, I'm proud of it.


More on that can be found here.
A great line is
If you think a dead man is the messiah, though, there's no point continuing this conversation since in my mind there's no difference between you and any other Christian.
And I'd rather be in the company of frum, tefillin-wearing women than a dead halakhah-breaking messiah.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Serraphya-
Just a quick clarification-contrary to popular belief, Rashi's daughters never laid tefillin. That rumor was started by Rashi's adversaries who wanted to convince others not to lay his tefillin/not follow his svarot regarding tefillin by deriding his halachic stances and claiming he allowed his daughters to lay tefillin. As a woman who lays tefillin (not to mention a former classmate of yours)I'd appreciate if you could correct that. Now there are stories of Beruriah laying tefillin, and I haven't seen those refuted, but I wouldn't claim it as certainty without some kind of evidence.
-Eliana

seraphya said...

I actually kind of knew that when I wrote this post. I was just trying to refer to something people knew. I was thinking along the lines of other less well known instances of women wearing tefillin in the past. But, you are right, there is no point in breathing life into a myth, even if people are used to it

ahhhri said...

there are interesting assertions in the Tosfot of Rosh Hashana 33a...

Anonymous said...

B"H
I am sure you didn't realise how much you disrespect Chabad and The Lubavitcher Rebbe. That is a very harsh, evidently ignorant comment/commentator.
He obviously has not learned or read up enough about what Chabad says, and the Rebbe's stance on HALACHA.
You may wanna take that back and re-think that one.
Very unfortunate that erev Yom Kippur there is still total disrespect and loshan hora against a fellow Jew...