A Historical Perspective
Some interpretations of the meaning of tefillin
have faded, and others have been invented to take their place.
By Abraham E. Millgram
Reprinted from Jewish
Worship, published by the Jewish Publication Society.
On one of the tefillin there is a
large Hebrew letter, shin. This was probably meant to indicate that the scrolls
inside begin with the Shema and not with the Ten Commandments, which at one
time were also included in the tefillin. On its opposite side there is a
four-pronged shin, to indicate that only four selections are in each of the
tefillin and not five, as was the case when the Ten Commandments were also
included. But these historic reasons were forgotten and new ones were grafted
onto the mysterious letter.
One explanation is intriguing. The letter shin is combined
with two other "letters" which were discovered in the tefillin, and together they form the
word Shaddai-Almighty God. The two
letters were found in the peculiar knots in the straps; the one on the head
resembles the letter dalet and the
one on the arm resembles the letter yod.
The tefillin are thus to remind the
Jew of his obligation to perform the commandments of Almighty God. This
explanation is obviously contrived, but it has been accepted these many
centuries as the real reason for the shin
on the tefillin.
With the passage of the centuries the universal high regard
for the rite of the tefillin
increased, and new religious meanings and values were discovered in the ritual.
Maimonides found that the tefillin
serve a singular purpose in the religious life of the Jew. They are a holy
institution leading man to humility and the fear of God. The tefillin, says Maimonides, are of a high
degree of sanctity. As long as the tefillin
are on a man's head and arm, he is humble and God-fearing; [he] is not drawn
into frivolity and idle talk; and does not dwell on evil thoughts, but occupies
his mind with thoughts of truth and righteousness. A man should therefore
endeavor to wear tefillin the whole
day.
Rabbi Abraham E.
Millgram was served as a congregational rabbi, a Hillel director, and from 1945
to 1961, Educational Director of the Commission on Jewish Education of the
United Synagogue of America. During several decades of active retirement in
Jerusalem, he published a number of books, including Jerusalem Curiosities (Jewish Publication Society) and A
Short History of Jerusalem (Jason
Aronson).
