Parashat Bo - 5768

TEFILLIN - THE HOLINESS OF THE WORKING DAY

By Scott Taryle 

As  I write, Shabbat has ended, the havdalah candle has been extinguished taking the last whiff of that magical "palace in time" with it, and another week has begun.  Come Monday, I'll be back at the office, my wife will be back at work at Pressman Academy, and our children will return to school after the winter break.  It has been written that a Jew is supposed to feel some grief and loss at the passing of the Sabbath, yet I often find myself instead eagerly looking forward to the start of a new week, and even (believe it or not) going back to work.

While there is tremendous emphasis in Judaism on the holiness of Shabbat, the "sheshet yamei-massei" or "six days of labor" also possess a dignity, a purpose, indeed a holiness of a different kind.  This is the time in which we labor, build, create, repair and occasionally destroy, write, study and teach, perform tzedakah, and provide a livelihood for ourselves and others.  No matter how menial our jobs, there is something noble about work.

The "six days of labor" are also the only days on which a Jew may fulfill a particular mitzvah which first appears in the Torah in this week's parsha, Bo -- the wearing of tefillin.  In a sense, tefillin are a specially blessing and mitzvah bestowed exclusively on the working day.

The mitzvah of wearing tefillin is derived from four statements in the Torah, the first two of which appear in parashat Bo.   These are the same four passages which are written on the parchments contained inside the leather boxes of the hand and head tefillin.  The first passage  (Exodus XIII, v. 1-10) discusses the commandment to remember our deliverance from Egypt, and states in part, "Remember this day in which ye came out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by the strength of hand the Lord brought you out from this place.  . . .    And it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thy hand, and for a memorial [zicaron] between thy eyes, that the law of the Lord shall be in thy mouth; for with a strong hand hath the Lord brought you out of Egypt.  . . ."    The second passage, which immediately follows in the parsha (Exodus XIII, 11-16), discusses the commandment to tell our children about the Exodus, and similarly states, "And it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thy hand, and for frontlets [totefot] between thy eyes, for by strength of hand the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt."  The remaining two passages contained in the tefillin are the familiar first and second paragraphs of the Shema from Deuteronomy, again referring to a "sign upon thy hand" and "frontlets between thy eyes." 

Halachically, tefillin are never to be worn on Shabbat or on Yom Tov. There are various explanations.  One explanation is that "Man always needs a sign of his bond with God.  Shabbat itself is such a sign, but on weekdays, this sign is tefillin."  (Eruvin 96a, quoted in Tefillin, by Aryeh Kaplan at p. 61.)  In other words, the keeping of Shabbat and Yom Tov constitutes, in itself, a vast, invisible set of tefillin encompassing the Jewish community, making the wearing of an individual, physical set of tefillin on that day unnecessary.  In such a view, tefillin represent a miniaturized, portable substitute for Shabbat which we can carry into our mundane, weekday lives.

I would like to offer a somewhat different view.  Rather than a substitute for Shabbat, tefillin are its complementary opposite, a counterbalance to the Sabbath day and an exaltation of the working week.  Tefillin are an instrument for injecting purpose and holiness into our labor and creative efforts.  Hence, they belong in essence to the realm of those "other" six days of the week.  Indeed, even aesthetically, the stark, black leather boxes and straps contrast sharply with the relaxed, white-draped decore of the Sabbath day.

Tefillin are to be worn only in the daytime, and ideally during the morning shachrit service -- thus, typically before work or school.  In fulfilling the mitzvah of tefillin, we secure one leather box containing parchments over our left bicep, opposite the heart, wind the long adjoining strap seven times around the left forearm, and tie the end of the strap in an intricate pattern, often spelling "Shaddai" (one of the names of God) around our left hand. We secure the other leather box containing parchments over our forehead centered above but "between" our eyes.  In this way we bind together our strength (bicep), skills (hand), and mind (forehead) and connect them with God's name and words of Torah.  It has been said that "Tefillin are Israel's strength."  (Berachos 6a.)  By attaching these words of Torah onto our arms and foreheads, we recall the "strength of hand" by which God delivered us from Egypt, and we daily dedicate the efforts of our bodies and minds in the upcoming work day to noble and righteous ends.

It is no coincidence that the commandment to wear tefillin first appears at the point in the narrative of Exodus in which our people are liberated from slavery in Egypt.  Slavery is, among other things, a degradation of work, of the human body, and through it, the soul.  The slave is denied the ability to direct and control the efforts of his or her own arms, muscles, back, and mind towards a goal or purpose, whether honorable or base.  Slavery is therefore a severance of body from soul, in which the former is treated as a mere tool or machine rather than a being created in the image of God.  When Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to make bricks without straw - - a backbreaking but purposeless enterprise -- he intended both to drain away our strength and to mock and humiliate our efforts by depriving them of meaning.  Tefillin, in contrast, symbolize strength and the ennoblement of our work, our bodies, and our soul.  Liberation from slavery does not mean freedom from all labor, but rather the autonomy and free will to harness and direct our own energies toward a purpose of our choosing.  Through tefillin we exercise that freedom by symbolically dedicating the work of our arms and minds to honorable ends.

Today, in America, we may not be slaves in the literal sense (thank God). but can become slaves in a different sense: to materialism, to cynicism, to vices and addictions, perhaps to our jobs, to all that which demeans us in body or spirit.  When we wear tefillin, we remind ourselves that although human beings must work, we are not meant to be slaves, nor is our labor (or that of our fellow human beings) meant to be demeaning.

Shabbat is holy.  Rest is holy.  But not every day is Shabbat, nor should we live our lives merely from one Shabbat to the next.  The ritual of tefillin recalls that the other six days of the week, and the often physically or mentally exhausting labor we do therein, can and must have dignity, meaning and purpose.

Shavua Tov.