Hello and blessings… In my humble opinion, I don’t think the Sages were wrong; rather, science is what is wrong.
The matter of “tradition” is problematic, because you can look at certain communities that transmitted things mainly through tradition, and some of it was partly forgotten by them, and today thanks to the restoration of Sephardic Jewish law they are returning to the right path.
Second, I mentioned the Ethiopians, whom responsa Yabia Omer ruled are Jews. And the Ethiopians do not put on tefillin because it is not part of their tradition, and their tradition is from the First Temple period. So tradition is problematic. Especially when there are Karaites with a different tradition. And there are Bible scholars who claim there were four sects — Essenes, Boethusians, and Sadducees, in addition to scribes-rabbis-Pharisees. And by a political move of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai they became the majority and got sovereignty. The word tradition is very problematic, because when there is no Jewish law, or priests and prophets to return the people to the right path, tradition can get confused. I understand this is an age-old dispute, this subject… Why, according to Maimonides, is it ruled in Jewish law that we do not expound the reason of the verse even when the reason is explicitly written in the Torah? If possible, I’d like to know from where in the Talmud he learned that. And what is Nachmanides’ opinion on the matter.
By the way, I wasn’t talking about animal suffering, because you can make tefillin from an animal that died. Or an animal slaughtered according to Jewish law and feels nothing during the slaughter. (The methods of raising them are indeed animal suffering, but that’s not the topic here.)
There’s no connection to animal suffering at all, but rather to the place of animal skin in human life. Why should one use the skin of a dead animal? You won’t see a monkey doing that… and it eats and drinks and lives and it’s not cold and not hot and it doesn’t need belts and shoes. And if you say that you’re human and therefore better — you depend on physical things and it doesn’t. Especially since the work of human hands wears him out. And that’s a fact I see every day, that the sages of the Talmud were completely right when they said that. A car, even though it is useful, kills masses. An atomic bomb can destroy entire countries. Shoes ruin the health of the feet (knee problems, back, foot, poor blood flow, etc.). It turns out that almost everything man has invented in the world has come to his detriment.
Today’s medicines are deadly; they don’t help at all, and they’re chemical and pollute our water.
The fruits and vegetables and grains have undergone genetic changes. They don’t even have a smell anymore.
By contrast, in the past medicine was produced directly from nature. And as it sounds, it only came in order to relax the digestive system that had gone wrong, and that’s also the beginning of alcoholic drinks, which started out as medicine.
But show me one thing man invented that serves him 100% without harming him.
Whereas the Holy One, blessed be He, created a forest where everything there lives in perfect harmony and no one disturbs anyone; there is a food chain. And man can eat a fruit (which is not harmful) and enjoy it and drink clean water and recite a blessing, and he doesn’t even have to worry about all the worries people have today.
It’s no accident that it’s called the Tree of Knowledge… man always wants to know, to produce, instead of living and believing that God manages everything for him. This is the first sin from the beginning of time that we keep committing, and the proof is that the punishment was that man descended from the Garden of Eden to here (there are other interpretations, but that is the plain meaning). Why not live in the Garden of Eden that the Holy One, blessed be He, left us here, instead of trying to outsmart Him with all kinds of scientific methods? And to make leather straps and say that only leather straps may be tied, when there is a completely different “tradition” claiming that tying and seeing are only a metaphor to understand how attached we need to be to the commandments of remembering the Exodus from Egypt, where we were slaves (who want to do everything with their own hands) instead of enjoying God in the wilderness. We preferred to go back to being slaves rather than eat the food of angels, and we cried also for meat. And for the onions and garlic and watermelons that were in Egypt. All the greatest sins of the Jewish people are connected to this — lack of faith and lack of balance with God.
Man, in the test of results, is only destroying for now. (There are those trying to restore and plant and return nature to what it was.) Therefore He commanded remembering the Exodus from Egypt, so that we understand that only God rules here in the world and He knows what is best, and we only need to open our hands and receive and enjoy the radiance of His Presence. Sorry for drifting a little to a different topic, but I hope you understood my point.

I completely lost you. If you want to discuss it, formulate one question at a time, briefly and clearly, and we’ll discuss it.

With God’s help, 3 Shevat 5777

To Daniel — hello,

Tefillin are not only a sign of the Exodus from Egypt, but of the whole inseparable bond between the Holy One, blessed be He, and the Jewish people. Like the beloved in Song of Songs who asks her lover, “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death…” — so we bind upon our arm opposite our heart the seal that reminds us every single day of the bond that cannot be separated between the Jewish people and its Creator.

One of the purposes of tefillin is to internalize within us the Torah of the Lord, as it is written: “So that the Torah of the Lord may be in your mouth, for with a mighty hand He brought you out of Egypt.” In contrast to colorful and exciting pagan worship, the Torah of the Lord places the head first — clear thinking and values that sharply and clearly distinguish between good and evil, black upon white.

Every person in the camp of Israel in the wilderness saw the black cube. That is how the Tabernacle appeared from the outside, entirely covered with goat-hair curtains. All the splendor of the gold, blue, and purple was hidden inside and seen only by the priest who came to serve. Outwardly, simplicity shone. And so we turn our head and our arm into a sanctuary for the name of the Lord that is called upon us, radiant with inner splendor.

With blessings,
S. Z. Levinger

According to Yehuda Blo in the post “How Did the Women of the Hebrew Bible Paint Their Eyelids,” on the blog “Notes from the White Ark,” Egypt in the ancient world was called chem, “the black one,” after the fertile black silt soil the Nile brought to Egypt.

Perhaps one could say that the black color of tefillin symbolized the fertility of the soil, which for Egypt came from the Nile, and for us comes from faith in God and the performance of His commandments, by whose merit our days will be multiplied upon the good land that the Lord gave us, and in it we will produce choice fruits in matter and in spirit.

Michi, sorry — if you can spell out what wasn’t clear. I’m claiming that tradition is not good proof, because there are examples of different traditions. It is known there was already dispute from the days of the Second Temple. So you have one side’s tradition, without proofs, while the other traditions don’t practice it because of lack of proofs.
The second part is my supposedly philosophical opinion about the place of animal skin in human life — that it is something totally unnecessary — and more opinions about human customs. Including the claim that all the works of human hands in the world are unnecessary and have only harmed the world instead of elevating and preserving it (the Garden of Eden). And I spoke based on the words of the Talmud in tractate Berakhot that support this claim, which says, “The Holy One, blessed be He, wears out His handiwork, but the work of human hands wears him out” (I paraphrased; not exact). There is simply a view that doesn’t need a tannery or stinking hides that go through chemical processing and destroy our world, to put it mildly. “And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand” means a spiritual bond, so that you know that when you go out to war, it was not “my power and the might of my hand that got me this wealth,” but the bond to the Creator of the world who brought me out of Egypt to give me the land of the forefathers, the promised land, and that I should always remember this bond in war.
And regarding “frontlets between your eyes,” it’s like “I have set the Lord before me always.” And that is also the answer to Levinger — here, I brought you other proofs that can sound convincing to the other side just as you bring proof that sounds in favor of tefillin.
The argument is about interpretation — and this is such an important commandment!!! — and it wasn’t explained? It’s simply illogical.
And I also noted that the Israelites were never punished for not putting on tefillin, whereas they were punished for:
Idolatry, idol worship, promiscuity among the nations, strange fire, forbidden eating by the priests, complaints against God in the wilderness, baseless hatred, and more. I have never read a verse where God is furious at the Jewish people for not tying tefillin every morning.
Whereas there was anger when they attributed their success to their own strength.
And I’ll add concerning Levinger’s words that this only supports what I’m saying: the Israelites did not tie their faith in God in the wilderness, even though there was no black, rich, fertile soil there. And they wanted to return there because they were afraid to die. As though the soil led them in the wilderness and not God with miracles and wonders and the food of angels.
I hope I’m clearer now.
It can’t be that a commandment that is so important spiritually and in terms of the Talmud is not mentioned before that.

With God’s help, 4 Shevat 5777

In the days of the Second Temple, we find tefillin not only among the Pharisees, but also among their great rivals, the people of the Judean Desert sect. Clearly there was a much earlier tradition here that survived among everyone, and as I mentioned, the tradition is well anchored in the plain meaning of the verses, in which the Torah commands four times to place a sign and a memorial on the hand and on the head. Do you have any statement more explicit about the importance of remembering the faith than the Torah’s words, “so that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied upon the land…”?

The Karaites, who arose in the middle of the Geonic period, had no ancient tradition at all, and therefore split into countless sects. The Beta Israel in Ethiopia had great self-sacrifice for the faith, but many commandments explicitly stated in the Torah were forgotten by them because of the persecutions and decrees they went through — no fringes, no tefillin or mezuzah, no shofar, no sukkah or four species, no levirate marriage or halitzah, no prohibition of private altars, and no commandment of “and you shall teach them diligently to your children”; even the Hebrew language was forgotten by them. Shall we then say they had a tradition from the First Temple period that the Torah should be written in Ge’ez?

With blessings,
S. Z. Levinger

Possibly yes, because the Ge’ez language is separate from their everyday language. And it’s fairly similar to other Semitic languages, in my humble opinion. And the commandment of levirate marriage is written explicitly in the Torah, no? Why wouldn’t they observe it?
I know they have their own ancient tradition and they also have enough answers for everything.
We’re arguing while for them there is one leadership and one Jewish law without fragmentation…
It doesn’t say to put a memorial on the head. The head is never mentioned. It says “and it shall be as a sign upon your hand and as a memorial between your eyes” or “as frontlets between your eyes.” It makes more sense to say “and you shall place these words of Mine upon your heart and upon your soul.”
For the hand is opposite the heart, and the soul is the head. Although it is said that the blood is the soul.
As for the Karaites, honestly I have no idea when it began or into what sects it split, but they do have a tradition not to put them on, with their own ways of interpreting the verses.
Did the Sadducees put on tefillin? As for Christians, obviously there’s no need to elaborate; they’re irrelevant.
But we ourselves have no proof. And tradition is not enough. Because as I said, tradition can get distorted…
A fact is that you have tefillin of Rashi and of Rabbenu Tam. And true, there is a halakhic resolution to put on both.
But still you can see that tradition can change. And today you have many kinds of traditions.
And in fact there was always division, already from the days of Rehoboam and Jeroboam son of Nebat and the split of the kingdom.
We worshipped idols. And nowhere is it mentioned that we ever sinned by not putting on tefillin.

With God’s help, 4 Shevat 5777

The views of Rashi and Rabbenu Tam both come from a shared source. In the baraita in the Talmud it says: “Kadesh” and “Vehaya ki yeviakha” on the right; “Shema” and “Vehaya im shamoa” on the left. The discussion is about the internal order in the left section. The fact that the baraita does not explicitly clarify the internal order in the left section supports the explanation of the author of Arukh HaShulchan that fundamentally both possibilities are valid, and the discussion is which is preferable. (This explanation is also supported by the fact that among the tefillin remains found in the Judean Desert there are both “tefillin according to Rashi” and “according to Rabbenu Tam.”)

With blessings,
S. Z. Levinger

The right section, “Kadesh” and “Vehaya ki yeviakha,” expresses the role of tefillin in remembering the Exodus from Egypt; the left section, “Shema” and “Vehaya im shamoa,” expresses the role of tefillin in internalizing in a person’s heart love of God and fear of Him. (“Shema” emphasizes, in the words of Arukh HaShulchan, service out of love, and “Vehaya im shamoa” service out of fear.)..

Hello Daniel.
I did explain. Nothing was clear. Beyond that, I asked that we deal with this one question at a time, because you are mixing together several questions that have no connection to each other, and it’s hard for me to conduct several discussions in parallel (I’m already doing that here as it is).
So I’ll begin here with the question of tradition. I already explained here more than once that the validity of tradition does not rest on its being accurate or free of mistakes. Mistakes certainly did occur in it, and no doubt there are many more that we do not know are mistakes. The validity of tradition comes from the acceptance and agreement of the public and the sages, exactly like the public agreement about the giving of the Torah itself (I think I referred here to Beit Yishai, Derashot, no. 15, which elaborates on this, and as is known its source is Rabbi Kook).
If the Ethiopians or others have a different tradition, let them keep the tradition in their possession. I am convinced no one will hold it against any of them even if they are mistaken. But the same is true for us. We have no better way to know God’s intention, and apparently we are not required to try to reach it by other means than the way of halakhic and Talmudic analysis. And this is the meaning of the story of the Oven of Akhnai: “It is not in heaven.” If you study it, you will see that this is the essence of the dispute between Rabbi Eliezer and his colleagues — to what extent what determines the law is God’s intention or our own reasoning. God expects us to do what we understand, and not necessarily what He intended. The question of obligation does not depend on the question of authenticity (= whether this is God’s original intention).
I ask that if you have an argument or claim about this, continue only on this point. When we finish, we can move on to your other questions. All the best.

Thanks for sharing — that was new to me 🙂 There’s nothing like words of Torah 🙂
But unfortunately it doesn’t answer my question. Because I’ll say again that there is no source anywhere in the Hebrew Bible where the Israelites were punished for not putting on tefillin. And in addition, I read this morning that Rashbam’s opinion is indeed that one doesn’t need tefillin, but rather that it is really in the metaphorical sense of binding as a sign and frontlet, like an ornament one places on the head in a metaphorical sense. So now we have the view of Rashi, Rashbam, the Karaites, Rabbenu Tam.
I also discovered for myself that there were two Hebrew word-commentators, one named Menahem ben Saruq and the one who argued with him was Adonim HaLevi (Dunash ben Labrat), and in fact all the dispute that existed since then, and apparently since the days of the Sadducees, was not whether there is a Creator of the world, but in the interpretation of the commandments and accepting the words of the Sages as the only interpretation and unequivocal Jewish law. Menahem ben Saruq, according to his opponents, interpreted in a Karaite way.
By the way, if we go by the rules of halakhic ruling that say the earlier someone was born, the wiser he was —
“If the early ones were like angels, we are like human beings, and if they were like human beings, then we are like donkeys” (the language of Maran the Shulchan Arukh if I’m not mistaken). So here, Menahem ben Saruq (from the Geonic period) preceded Rashi (the first of the medieval authorities). And there were also disputes in the Geonic period. It turns out that there was never a Jewish law or tradition in a form decided for everyone; rather, a certain group began a tradition that it formulated according to the Sages, and even it underwent some distortions.
Therefore the matter of tradition is not acceptable to me. Even Jewish law is not determined by tradition but by what the great decisors of the generation rule, and so there is division among the people between Moroccans and the great Sephardic decisors and other communities on various issues. Muslims have a tradition to kill anyone who doesn’t want to remain Muslim, and they also pray to God and supposedly believe in Him, but that doesn’t mean their tradition is correct. There are many traditions and beliefs while there is only one thing that cannot change, and that is the Torah we received at Sinai. Although, in my humble opinion, one of the tractates says there were three Torah scrolls in the Temple that differed slightly from one another. And the cantillation marks and vowelization and even the shapes of the letters differ somewhat among the various communities. And there are those who would say their scrolls are invalid, but that is their tradition. Who determined that one tradition is better than another? Do you understand why I say that tradition is the thing that has brought the most disputes and the most problems? Therefore God said “keep My commandments,” not commandments others invented. I am obligated to keep God’s commandments, not traditions. And the problem is that returnees to religion have no tradition (like me), and get into a situation where there is no one to rely on except what is written in the Torah, and if even the sages of the Talmud have no interpretation and they say “tradition,” what am I supposed to do? “Go your way in the footsteps of the flock” — if the footprints are blurred, what do you do? Let it be said “a law to Moses from Sinai” without footprints. (Because the word tefillin is never stated in the holy tongue, and they were never punished for it. And you never heard that Elijah the prophet or Abraham or any other leader got up early and put on tefillin.)

Michi, forgive me for answering this way, but according to your words it sounds like a secular person is righteous. Because he does what seems right in his own eyes. And it cannot be that a small group of sages determines Jewish law for the whole nation. They are not prophets and they are not priests, and basically they are what they are called — sages (they learned wisdom). There are sages also among the nations of the world, and wisdom is not enough; you also need divine inspiration. And a connection to the Creator of the world. And in fact today we don’t have that, and they claim there was divine inspiration for Rashi and other sages, while prophecy ceased long ago.
So then… someone who doesn’t put on tefillin because that’s what seems right to him… or someone who offers sacrifices outside the Temple — is he called righteous? This is how they brought me back to religion: just as a car has a rulebook, so too our world, which is much more complex, has a rulebook. If you are mistaken in understanding the book, you are not acting correctly. And if you are not doing God’s will and His commandments as He wants, why in the first place are you doing any commandment? In addition, tractate Avot says: “Make His will your will, so that He may make your will His will.
Nullify your will before His will, so that He may nullify the will of others before your will.”
So what difference does your will or your intention make? We determine nothing. Only God and His Torah.
Adam was given the role of guarding the Garden of Eden and not doing different wills.

I have to say that your claims here seem very strange to me.
1. So what if there is no source that Israel was punished for not putting on tefillin? What about redeeming a firstborn donkey, or Grace after Meals? There is no such source for almost the entire corpus of Jewish law. What does that prove? Either they weren’t punished for it, or they did in fact put on tefillin and so there was nothing to punish them for, or even if they were punished, for some reason the Hebrew Bible did not see this as something that needed to be written for future generations.
2. What you brought from Rashbam’s commentary on the Torah is also very strange to me. His words there are not another tradition. He is giving explanations unrelated to Jewish law but to the reason of the verse. There is no doubt that he himself put on tefillin, and so did all his family members (Rashi, Rabbi Isaac, and Rabbenu Tam). This is like saying that “an eye for an eye” meaning monetary compensation is a different tradition from “an eye for an eye” literally. The literal meaning is the plain sense and the Jewish law is according to the interpretation, and the gates of interpretation have not been locked. But there is a halakhic tradition, and it is what determines the law.
3. But the strangest assumption in your words is the assumption that whoever came earlier was wiser. I have never heard such a rule. At most I’ve heard that in general there is a decline of the generations (and in my opinion even that does not concern decline in talent but authority and closeness to the source), but from where do you get that if someone was born earlier then he was wiser? And to raise objections on that basis? By that logic you could raise objections from Queen Vashti or from Vaizatha against Rabbi Akiva Eiger and the Hafetz Hayyim and spend your whole life in entertaining pilpul.
In one place I saw something odd like this, in the Raavad’s gloss on chapter 2 of the laws of Rebels in Maimonides. He asks against Maimonides that even if the reason has ceased, we still require a court greater in wisdom and number to overturn the words of an earlier court, from the court of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai regarding adorning the markets of Jerusalem with fruit. He takes it as self-evident that Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai was lesser than his predecessors, apparently just on the basis that he came after them. But that’s absurd, because if everyone later is necessarily lesser, then you have emptied of meaning the requirement that a court overturning its predecessor be greater in wisdom and number, since that would be impossible by definition (because the younger is always lesser). By the way, even the Raavad compared the great sages of the current generation with those of the previous one, but you go even further and claim that everyone born earlier is wiser. Especially when you compare language scholars to leading halakhic decisors. These are baseless hairsplittings.
4. As for the existence of different traditions, I already answered.

With God’s help, 4 Shevat 5777

To Daniel — hello,

Since your main problem with tefillin is the use of leather, which upsets the order of creation, and because of that you see disaster in the use of belts and shoes — who is greater for us than Adam, for whom the Creator of the world Himself prepared garments of skin to wear. Therefore, if you are doubting the accepted tradition of all Israel to wear wool and cotton clothes as well, you should be careful to wear only leather garments, like our forefathers Adam and Eve 🙂 and like our father Jacob, who put kids’ skins upon his hands and the smooth part of his neck.

***

As for concern about mistakes in tradition — the Torah has several strong protections.

The basic protection is as Akavya ben Mahalalel instructed his son to accept from “the many who received from the many.” For this reason the Torah directed, in a case of dispute, to the place the Lord chooses where all Israel gather three times a year, so that “the rulings of the priest or the judge” receive scrutiny and confirmation from the whole nation and its sages. Thus, when a Sadducee who had taken over the office of High Priest tried to deviate from the tradition, all the people pelted him with their etrogs. Even if an individual or a community errs or deviates from the tradition, he cannot pass on his error to the whole nation.

The second protection is the Oral Torah, in which the rules, reasons, and guiding principles are also transmitted, from which the details and sub-details are derived. This Torah is not esoteric and transmitted only to a handful of clergy, but rather, as the Men of the Great Assembly instructed, “raise many disciples.” Thus in the academies in the days of the tannaim and amoraim, thousands upon thousands of sages and students would gather, and their discussions were summarized in the literature of the Sages — in the Mishnah and baraitot, in the Talmuds and midrashim — from which one can learn what the shared foundation was, where disputes arose, and what the ruling of the majority of sages was.

Even when exile intensified and Israel was scattered to all corners of the world and there was no single Torah center, everyone already held the same common foundation of the Hebrew Bible, Mishnah, and Talmud that united Israel in all the exiles. A Jew from Ashkenaz who came to Persia or Morocco and vice versa could enter the synagogue, pray with them the same order of prayer beyond non-essential differences of rite, wear their prayer shawl and put on their tefillin, eat from their slaughter, marry their daughters, and study with them the same shared Torah.

Thus the Rosh, fleeing from Ashkenaz, was accepted as the rabbi of the community of Toledo in Spain, and his descendants (the Ben HaRosh family) established the yoke of Torah in Morocco; descendants of Rabbi Zerahiah HaLevi of Gerona arrived from Spain and Provence to Ashkenaz and Poland and established the Horowitz family whose descendants shone there; and members of the Benveniste family came from Spain to the city of Epstein in Germany, and from there spread throughout Ashkenaz, Russia, and Poland, as Rabbi Baruch HaLevi Epstein, author of Torah Temimah, testifies.

When there is a shared foundation, shades and nuances can develop, such that despite all the difference in details and emphases, it is clear they all “were given by one shepherd.” But when, God forbid, the shared foundation collapses, one cuts off here and another cuts off there — in the end nothing remains of Judaism. At first they are absorbed into the culture of the gentiles, and in the end physically assimilated through intermarriage.

With blessings,
S. Z. Levinger.

After they had reached the gravest sins — idolatry, sexual immorality, bloodshed, and baseless hatred — it no longer matters much whether they put on tefillin or not.

Putting on tefillin, and through it strengthening faith in God, love of Him and fear of Him, and Torah study and observance of His commandments, could have been — had they been careful to do it joyfully — preventive treatment against the moral deterioration that comes from loss of faith.

With blessings,
S. Z. Levinger

Daniel, regarding your second message (which I hadn’t seen earlier): again, I’m not really following the course of your discussion. It is very mixed up, and it is hard to understand the point. So I’ll address each aspect you raised separately.

Indeed, anyone who does what seems right in his eyes is righteous — as long as he checked as much as he could and reached his conclusions honestly. At most, he is mistaken under compulsion, and a judge has only what his eyes can see.

What is needed in order to determine is authority, not wisdom and not connection to the Creator. Wisdom and connection to the Creator are at most a reason for why we give someone authority. As far as I understand, Rashi did not have divine inspiration in any supernatural sense.

The way they brought you back to religion is not necessarily the correct way of thinking. So those are not arguments. To establish something, one must bring arguments on the merits.

Forgive me, Michi — that’s how I understood it, that there is a tradition, and just as an amora does not argue with a tanna (although I understood there are cases where they did argue), so too later authorities do not argue with medieval authorities and their predecessors. And when I asked my rabbi why we study specifically Rashi’s commentary and not Maimonides or Or HaHayyim, he answered me like this: first of all, they are based on Rashi, and Rashi also preceded them. And the same question was asked in first-year yeshiva, and that was the answer we got — that Rashi preceded Maimonides, and therefore we study Rashi in order.
I apologize in advance for the jumble; I have my own language of communication and the topics are connected to each other.
Regarding (1), firstborn donkey is a pretty rare commandment as far as I know… just as a solar eclipse is a rare commandment to recite a blessing on. By contrast, tefillin is a daily commandment, and so much is said about it in the Talmud: that one who doesn’t put them on is called an ignoramus, and one who does put them on has all his sins atoned for, etc. There is no comparison. As for Grace after Meals, there’s no proof of it, but there is at least an indication: “Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart when you had abundance of everything — therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger and thirst and nakedness and lacking everything, and He will put an iron yoke upon your neck until He destroys you.”
Who am I to demand, but this is how it appears: we did not serve Him with joy. But one can also interpret it that when we were joyful and had food and all good things, we did not serve God — and what is service? Service of the heart! We did not bless Him for all the good we received. In any case, the commandment of tefillin is very, very important, no less than idolatry, since everyone who puts on tefillin testifies that there was an Exodus from Egypt and more… so if they sinned in this, God would certainly have noted it… and if the Jewish people went astray after idols and Asherahs and the Baal and vanities, who says they put on tefillin?
2) Why does Jewish law determine, and not the plain meaning of the text? Was the Torah written for nothing? Preserved all these years for nothing? I didn’t study Rashbam; I only heard the reason from another forum. For the plain meaning of the text is also law. “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk” is Torah law — and Jewish law. In addition there is a rabbinic enactment for meat and milk.
3) I already answered you and didn’t understand what you brought from the Raavad.
Regarding the way they brought me back to religion from a logical point of view: that too is from Genesis. First they told the story of creation of the world, and only afterward detailed the commandments. If the Torah is an instruction manual, why did it begin with the story of creation? Rashbam says about this, in my humble opinion, that in order to observe the Sabbath commandment it was necessary to detail creation, because without that how would a person understand that the Creator made heaven and earth in six days and on the seventh day rested and was refreshed. Whereas Rashi says it was so that the nations would not complain about the Land of Israel. And Nachmanides, if I’m not mistaken, said that it was so that a person would understand that there is a Creator of the world so that he will accept the commandments. And therefore, if a person does not understand that the Torah is a practical lawbook for life on planet earth, how will he accept what is written there? It’s not a fantasy book. And therefore, as Mesillat Yesharim also says, when a person does commandments he elevates himself and the whole world with him, and when he violates a prohibition he destroys himself and the whole world with him. And so too with a car that is maintained well according to the maker, or a car not maintained according to the rules. It turns out that it is in man’s hands to repair and elevate the world, or to destroy it.
And everything depends on our actions… either we act according to the book or we don’t.

Levinger, I’ll answer you separately 🙂 again thanks that you’re helping me… I love tefillin and don’t want to come to heresy..

All right, I think this discussion has run its course. There are quite a few mistakes in what you say here, but as far as I understand I already answered everything and we’re scattering again.

In my humble opinion, Adam and Eve lost garments of light because of the sin, and God in His great kindness granted them garments of skin.
So that they would not be ashamed before one another, because now they “know.” They had a spiritual exterior, and because of their betrayal of God they received garments — begadim, from the same root as betrayal. It is never said that God slaughtered an animal or took an animal that died and made them garments of skin. In my humble opinion, this is the skin we have… do you have animal skin? It’s more a punishment than a kindness, because they received physicality instead of spirituality.
And our father Jacob did this in order to resemble Esau when his father Isaac touched him… “the voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau…” We are, in my humble opinion, from the seed of Jacob and aspire to conduct ourselves like him in the attribute of beauty. And not to resemble Esau in any way.
Regarding “it is not in heaven…” I have nothing to say; it all depends on faith in the sages, and “raise many disciples” is in order to spread the new “Torah of the sages” that is called Jewish law to the masses. And not everyone was in the study hall, so not everyone merited determining the law, only a few. I see it as political steps, as in Megillat Ta’anit where it is told that the House of Shammai were the majority in the study hall and did not allow the students of the House of Hillel to enter so that the law would be established like them, and therefore that day was set as a fast day. (I read that in Yalkut Yosef.)
You bring me proof from Akavya ben Mahalalel about the validity of his words… the law follows the majority… so if everyone drives like maniacs on the roads, does that justify it? And if tomorrow a law passes that drugs are legal, will Jewish law also permit me to smoke cannabis just for “pleasure”? If the whole world rebels against God and only I remain to believe in Him, is the law like them? Abraham is the proof! According to tradition he studied in the academy of Methuselah or Shem, I don’t remember exactly. And afterward he listened to the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, and not to the law he received from the study hall (it may be there was no contradiction). Is there a law to slaughter your son as a test? No! Abraham didn’t hesitate; he did what God asked. And after he had preached publicly not to do such a thing! He went against the law! For whom?
He trembled only at the word of God. And therefore he merited all the blessings, and therefore we merited to be redeemed, and he atoned for our sins only by his merit 🙂
And that is the reason the Temple was destroyed: we did not listen to God when He rebuked us through the prophets.
At the Tower of Babel all of humanity united to rebel against God… and God confused their language.
If we stop and reflect for a moment… the Talmud is in a language I don’t know… it was written in Babylon. In exile.
There are disputes (confusion), and there are thousands of opinions and streams. Why? Because we preferred to listen to sages and not to the word of God. We preferred to give a crown to the great men of the generation instead of to God. The crown of priesthood. The crown of kingship. The crown of Torah.
And Samuel was angry at the Jewish people… because they asked to crown a flesh-and-blood king and not God… They wanted to be like all the nations. How are we different from all the nations if we enthrone flesh and blood over us (sages)? I’m not talking about leadership in which the leader passes on God’s word, but leadership in which the leader decides on his own to perform actions. And we learn this from Moses our teacher, who struck the rock instead of speaking to it.
We live in a democratic state whose laws are determined by the majority, in a Greek-style system of government. And in Jewish law it is determined by the majority. I see a lot of similarity between Greece and Judaism right now. Where is the difference??
A wise man should not rely on his wisdom… according to what is Jewish law determined today? Not according to the wisdom of the sages and judges?
If we all observed the plain meaning, in my humble opinion the world would be more repaired. And there would not be disputes. But there are those who observe secrets and pietistic customs and stringencies and fences and enactments, while the plain meaning they do not observe….
And that is why it seems to me that tefillin too is a good and successful invention of the sages, and not a real reception from Sinai.
I know this sounds a bit heretical, but that’s the skeptic inside me. And it’s important that I know what to answer him.
Thank you very much for helping me 🙂

And there were also many leaders and kings who caused the whole people to sin… in idolatry.
So why didn’t the people throw etrogs then? Whereas they belittled the rebukes of the prophets until a mother ate her own children and all the bad prophecies came true… and today rabbis use their knowledge for power!

The sages of the Talmud also scattered in order to clarify Talmudic topics… and we didn’t exhaust the discussion, because tradition is not sufficient proof. And blind faith is the only thing holding me in observance of the commandments. Hopefully it really is God’s will.

With God’s help, 5 Shevat 5777

To Daniel — hello,

If you believe in the Written Torah, then it is clear that there is no problem in using leather. God made garments of skin for Adam and Eve to wear. Elijah the prophet too was identified by the fact that “a leather belt was girded about his loins” (II Kings chapter 1). The Torah explains four times that there is a commandment to bind the words of Torah as a sign on the hand and as a memorial between the eyes (which is the top of the head, as in “you shall not make a bald spot between your eyes…,” which certainly means in the place of the hair).

The Sages had a received tradition, person from person, regarding the foundations of Torah interpretation and the methods by which the Torah is expounded, as stated at the beginning of tractate Avot: “Moses received the Torah from Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, and the elders transmitted it to the Men of the Great Assembly,” and from them the Oral Torah developed to the tannaim and amoraim. In matters not received by tradition, they had to deliberate using reasoning and by analogy, and in such matters dispute could arise, and there the decision followed the majority as the Torah instructs: “incline after the majority.”

A detailed description of the chain of transmission from Sinai to the Sages you will find in Maimonides’ introduction to his commentary on the Mishnah and in his introduction to Mishneh Torah.

A detailed explanation of the way the Sages learned and derived their laws from the verses you will find in the book Torah Temimah on the Torah, by Rabbi Baruch HaLevi Epstein of blessed memory, which contains the essence of the Sages’ interpretations in the Talmud with explanation in clear language.

Comprehensive knowledge of the words of the Sages, their reasons and arguments and foundations, will be given to you by studying the Mishnah with the clear and concise commentary of Rabbi Pinhas Kehati of blessed memory. A short summary of the foundations of the commandments, their laws and reasons, will be given to you by Sefer HaHinukh, by a student of Rashba, which explains the 613 commandments of the Torah. These foundational books will open for you a path to understanding the words of the Sages.

After that, it is worthwhile to study the Talmud in order, with Rashi and the rulings of the Rosh, who summarizes the approaches of the medieval authorities, who often disagree with Rashi, the Tosafists, Rif, and Maimonides. Here it would be worthwhile to join an organized class from a lecturer who knows how to explain well even to someone who did not merit to study in yeshivot from his youth. If you live in Jerusalem, Rabbi Yosef Eliyahu, head of the “Darkhei Hora’ah” study hall, could help you with his daily Talmud class. But there are many such frameworks all over the country.

There is no substitute for orderly study, chapter after chapter, page after page. Random rummaging through scraps of information, from what you happened to find in this book or what you happened to come across in this forum, will only increase the confusion and bewilderment in which you find yourself. By contrast, orderly study will organize and arrange your Torah knowledge and give you a clear understanding from the foundations and rules down to the fine details.

With blessings,
S. Z. Levinger

Right, He clothed them in physical skin instead of spiritual skin, which is basically our skin… (labash = shame)
As for Elijah, I don’t know and I’ll learn about it…
As for the binding, I already said there are views that say the binding is metaphorical.
So the number of times it says to bind doesn’t really matter. (Regarding our topic.)
Between the eyes there is hair… and eye level is not where tefillin are put.
Thanks for the advice about the way of learning… I’m trying to formulate an outlook while rejecting outlooks based on their results… (disputes, baseless hatred, poverty, etc.).
I try to study book by book, each commentator’s opinion separately. I don’t like the method where one partly agrees with one commentator and rejects his other opinions. And so they take a little from each commentator and build Jewish law for the masses according to their wisdom. Only God sees all of us from above… and Moses too appointed officers because one cannot manage a whole nation alone. We are so far from nature that we don’t even observe the words of the Sages about environmental quality. And most yeshivot I was in were very far from nature and nature education. So we don’t keep many commandments dependent on the Land, such as mixed species; almost nobody today understands trees and plants enough to teach the people. The Haredim are stuck in Bnei Brak instead of settling a bit in the desert. And in general our type of agriculture has ruined nature (monoculture), whereas our natural system is polyculture, aiming to restore itself, but man and Jewish law destroy everything. We are raised to aspire to study like the great men of the generation who only study and never leave the house… instead of restoring, building, settling, making the wilderness bloom. Half the country is hungry, and the Haredim talk about chicken for Sabbath instead of vegetables and fruits. I see a strange leadership overall… and all this in the name of Jewish law.

With God’s help, 5 Shevat 5777

To Daniel — hello,

The Sages and the medieval authorities, despite their greatness in Torah, were engaged in building the world. Hillel was a woodchopper; Shammai, a builder; Rabbi Yehoshua and Rabbi Yohanan, blacksmiths; Rashi and Rabbenu Tam, wine merchants; Maimonides and Nachmanides, physicians; many of the sages of Yemen were silversmiths.

Only in the last centuries, as questions have multiplied — both as a result of the development of life and as a result of increased education, since everyone today is wise and understanding and asks “what” and “why” — there is a need for Torah scholars who devote most of their time to deep study of Torah so they can give a fitting answer to the many questioners.

The phenomenon of specialization exists in our time in all fields of human knowledge. If in the days of Maimonides you could be both great in Torah, Jewish law, and thought, and also a philosopher, a physician, a natural scientist, a jurist, and a social-political leader, today every field and subfield requires a full-time expert.

Today there is a broad stratum of Torah-observant Jews, careful with every commandment great and small, involved in all areas of life — army and security, science, technology, and medicine, commerce and banking, industry and agriculture, education and culture — who set fixed times for Torah and receive halakhic guidance from leading Torah authorities in every step of their lives.

My son Avihai studies in a hesder yeshiva in the moshav of Sdei-Mahola, full of farmers and professionals, all of them Torah people. My in-law lives in Moshav Keshet, a moshav of Torah-observant farmers. His son, my son-in-law, is a company commander in the standing army, and so too his other brothers and sisters — after receiving a solid Torah foundation in yeshivot and ulpanot, they are engaged in building the world, each in his own profession.

My Haredi driver, Mr. Rahamim (Rami) Shauli, a student of Rabbi Mordechai Neugroschel, gives a Daf Yomi class in the shtiblakh of Zikhron Moshe at four in the morning for people like him who recharge their batteries with Torah study and prayer before going out to their day’s labor.

Someone who fills his head with words of Torah and ethics, and lives within the clear boundaries the Torah set for him, has no time to deal with the nonsense of jealousy and baseless hatred that endlessly occupy the world of politics, the press, and the internet, sunk in the corrupt sides of “ambush culture.” The more one engages and deepens in matters of Torah and wisdom and aspiration to do what is good and right, the more one is freed from the constant chase after jealousy, lust, and honor, and merits “happy are you in this world, and it will be good for you in the World to Come.”

With blessings,
S. Z. Levinger

And regarding “garments of skin” — if you really think clothing is shame and leads a person to materiality — go ahead 🙂 I think “garments of skin” are “garments of skin,” and binding is binding, and I do not understand the need to twist the plain meaning and distort the verses.

It made me happy to hear there are pure Jews who give of themselves 🙂 it’s just different in the city…
In cities, yeshivot have no nature-oriented alternatives… and in general they don’t recycle and aren’t very ecological when they make commandment meals and use tons of disposable dishes a year, without even a small thought about where all that waste goes. Of course not everyone, but most Haredim behave this way, and secular people too, but I simply expect Haredim and every true God-fearing person, and especially Torah scholars, to be more elevated and to behave like the sages of the Talmud who weighed every act they did in the world and knew whether it was beneficial or not. And therefore the distancing from nature is not good and not fitting for great sages. Especially since there is a tractate that says a sage should live only in a city that has “greenery,” and not in large cities because life in big cities is difficult. And if we look at Chinese sages you’ll see where they live — in isolated mountains full of green nature — and they study and live modestly and teach. And us? Are we less than them? Why should I be more foolish than some Chinese person? I’m a Jew! I should be a thousand times better than him.
You can study in nature too… you don’t have to be shut in a suffocating concrete structure with lecterns and terrible crowding in order to study Torah and wisdom and call that self-sacrifice… the Creator never asked for that. There has to be a new movement where yeshivot are taken out into nature and topics are studied practically. “And I will give grass in your field for your cattle…” — how many people today have a field and cattle? How will God give us abundance if we do not receive abundance in the form in which He gives it… to shut children up in crowded conditions and disconnected from nature in a yeshiva or cheder — is that a good way to teach? Maybe in exile, but not in our Land of Israel, which we are obligated to settle and make bloom. And indeed the great rabbi of blessed memory, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, said that rabbis today are like doctors. Once you would go to one doctor (the same person) for every physical problem, and today you have everything separately: a doctor who understands only the hand, only the head, only the back (as if our body were detached into parts and not one whole system). And so too rabbis today who understand only monetary law, or only relationships, or only Jewish law, and so on and so forth. How can one receive leadership for the world from them at all? A person has to be whole, to know a bit of everything, because everything is connected to everything! For example, the Hazon Ish had medical knowledge and advised doctors on surgeries. Did he study medicine? He studied Torah and connected it to life, because it is not in heaven and he was not looking for dry laws. If you don’t know where your food comes from, how will you sanctify yourself? If you don’t work the land, how will you bring food out of it? Wisdom is important in every field in order to draw close to the blessed Creator.
You can’t eat money… if we destroy nature and don’t preserve it, who will repair the damage?
A person is not exempt from being connected to everything! Especially a Torah scholar! And every child, as long as he is young, should absorb knowledge about everything!! Why? Because only that way will he be truly wise! To think outside the box… God wants to give us abundance; if we haven’t received it, then we are doing something wrong… and tying leather tefillin straps does not help make the land bloom and provide abundance directly, to the best of my knowledge… whereas commandments dependent on the Land do!
And tying a spiritual bond is more important than tying a leather strap. If I know that everything is from the Creator of the world and remember every day that I was a slave in Egypt and see God in everything in the world (again, the thought that one has to know everything, not just one thing), and do this like an ornament between the eyes that shines in my eye and I see it no matter what I look at — that’s how in life one should see God in everything. In my opinion that is more important than tying straps. (Who am I to determine anything, but that’s my opinion.)
I see everything as fairly simple, while Jewish law goes into endless details and forgets the basis for proper life.
Until then, apparently you’ll shop at the supermarket for marketed and processed food far from nature that has gone through a million processes before you put it in your mouth, and that’s what you’ll feed your children and expect them to study Talmud like our sages of blessed memory while putting into their bodies something harmful… “And sanctify yourselves and be holy to your God” — that’s not me speaking, that’s the One who created the world saying it… and eat pesticides because you think it prevents insects, when it only worsens the situation, while soils that were not sprayed and grow in wise and properly planned crops without spraying have no insects, maybe snails…
Regarding the verse “garments of skin,” the point is that I’m not distorting, just interpreting differently from a different point of view, which by the way is not far from the opinion of sages who also say that at first man had garments of light, spiritual, and then received garments of skin. It’s not my personal opinion.

Levinger, thank you very much for sharing with me — you’re really making me smile 🙂

But most residents of this small country don’t have the financial means or the ability to buy a detached house, with a farm, chicken coop and cowshed, and expanses of organic fields and orchards attached. The Holy One, blessed be He, did not plant us at present in the reality of the Garden of Eden, but in “this world.”

When one understands that the Holy One, blessed be He, wants from us to live and do good with what exists and not with what does not exist, one lives happily with one’s lot and not in endless complaints about “everyone and his wife.”

With blessings,
S. Z. Levinger

Disposable plates are a regrettable necessity. Not everyone has a dishwasher, and not everyone has the strength to wash mountains of dishes after a large meal with many participants. It’s worth sometimes having pity on family members or on the synagogue caretaker, and not making them a sacrifice on the altar of sustainability and recycling: “Let people live” 🙂

When the Haredim want something, they fight very well for it. Over a rabbi’s ruling and the like.
So why don’t they fight to get a detached house instead of a concrete cage that depresses many couples, especially with the difficulty of finding apartments and paying rent? Instead, all that’s needed is to settle the rest of the Land of Israel, like one Haredi family does in the moshav of Ezuz on the Egyptian border. And I believe there are more families around the הארץ. So instead of closing up in the center in cages and living foolishly, one can live as God asks. If a Jew wants to be above inanimate, plant, animal, and speaking, then he has to be better, and today there are even monkeys better than some Jews, sadly… from him the Holy One demands more.
And “you shall sanctify yourselves” — we are a people whom He sanctified from the other nations, and therefore we must be like a faithful beloved who does everything her husband wants and behave according to her husband’s traits to find favor in his eyes. We need to resemble God. And therefore there are complaints. When people expect more from a successful child, does that mean he is a bad child? He simply needs to improve because he can.
As for washing dishes… our mother Sarah did not have a dishwasher. And the caretaker should not have to wash the dishes alone. People need to help him. The strength of the Jewish people is when they are united — even in washing dishes. Just as sometimes a husband has to roll up his sleeves and do the dishes to make his wife happy, even if he is the Chief Rabbi of Israel. If you had the strength to host and gobble food, then have the strength to tidy up and clean. There is gratitude even to the dishes that served you and to the table. Samuel the prophet used to carry his own utensils everywhere he went to strengthen the Jewish people.
You never heard that he threw out or belittled the utensils that served him.
And it says about Jacob, when the prince of Esau came to kill him and struggled with him (a battle of minds): Jacob outwitted him and said that a poor man is considered as dead, and Esau’s prince took his belongings instead of killing him. From here we learn how important it is to value possessions, even the small ones. And especially to recycle and stop with the “use and throw away” approach, as if all the mess man creates can be hidden. “Your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground.”
And we do all the commandments only in order to repair the sin of the first man and return to the Garden of Eden.
If we are committing the same sins as Adam: when God asked him “Where are you?” — did God not know where he was? Rather, He wanted to awaken him that one cannot flee from God and from the mess sins create. Do we pay attention to repairing ourselves and the world? There are important things! Especially since all this plastic kills animals and we have a prohibition of causing suffering to animals. Why did you come into the world — to destroy it with your actions, or to repair it?
“A commandment that comes through a transgression is not a commandment”… if they serve pork at a commandment meal, will that bring satisfaction to God?
How angry God was at the Jewish people who ate at the feast of Ahasuerus. We are Jews and things are demanded of us, and we need to change totally beastly customs. That is the difference between a commandment meal for the sake of Heaven and a commandment meal for the sake of lust. Once it was hard to make feasts, so they really made them only in order truly to rejoice over commandments. Today it has become a lustful custom and easy to hold a meal. They go and buy everything ready-made: burekas, cakes, pastries, olives, dates, etc. Who puts in any effort? And then all the leftovers and trash go in the bin, and a truck comes and hides the mess in the name of the commandment.
Call it complaints. I call it God’s will. Today Jews were evacuated. In Joshua’s days too, gentiles remained here in some cities. Why? Because the Israelites did not hurry to settle. Judges chapter 18 tells that the tribe of Dan still had not received an inheritance. A whole tribe did not settle in the land. Two and a half tribes settled outside the land. And the Levites do not receive an inheritance because the Lord is their inheritance. If in Joshua’s days they were obligated to settle, then today all the more so! And if there were good leadership they would be settling. But tying leather straps? That’s the most important thing. Especially since the Israelites never received complaints for not putting on tefillin. But for not settling the Land of Israel they did. They were told to hurry!!! And not hesitate, because God is with us. If you had truly tied it on your hand, you would not tell me that people have no ability to finance a house with a garden. Whereas Chabad, thank God, doesn’t lack money, and many other Hasidic groups too. Believe that whoever does God’s will will be helped from heaven. That is the difference between one who truly binds and one who binds physically. Until then, keep raising a generation of people who know theoretical Jewish law but cannot fulfill it in practice… may God protect Israel and may we intend to do only His will and no one else’s. It is forbidden to flatter anyone except what Jewish law permits. Interesting why it permits that.
First and foremost I fear God. Fear of sages is an addition. If one does not fulfill God’s will, what is the point of fulfilling the will of flesh and blood? One who rebels against the king — will he go and listen to the king’s servant? I hope I made the point clear.

With God’s help, Saturday night, “and it shall be for you as a sign,” 5777

To Daniel — hello,

According to your idea that tefillin express human action, it is understandable why one does not put on tefillin on the Sabbath. During the six weekdays a person is commanded to do work, to develop and improve the world — and therefore tefillin come as a sign to a person, that he should not forget God who gives him strength to succeed, and that he should use his power of action also to add holiness, to develop not only the material world but also the seeds of holiness in the heart and give them practical expression, for “hearts are drawn after actions.”

But on the Sabbath a person signifies God’s kingship by ceasing from work and turning his time to thanking God and listening to His Torah — and therefore “Sabbath is not the time for tefillin,” since they were designated as a sign for the weekdays.

With blessings for a good week,
S. Z. Levinger

I skimmed the discussion — I enjoyed Daniel’s words very, very much.

For now I’ll comment only on S. Z.’s last words.

First of all, let us begin by saying that tefillin connect us to our Creator according to Jewish law (a bond — in both senses). Is there any day more fitting than the holy Sabbath for connection to the Holy One, blessed be He? Since on that day, by ceasing from labor, we cleave more to God, there is no logic in preventing this commandment on Sabbath, Heaven forbid!
B. It is said that one who puts on tefillin is filled with radiance and above his head there is a halo symbolizing added holiness, just as Sabbath adds holiness — so what’s wrong with putting them on on Sabbath and gaining this “halo”?
C. In your opinion, when Moses went up to Sinai, did he remove his tefillin on Friday at twilight because they are muktzeh?
D. “Upon your heart… and you shall speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road….” In every place one must be connected to the Holy One, blessed be He, even in sleep — for when one wakes up, what does one say? “that You returned my soul within me,” so my body is preserved because of the tefillin.
E. I don’t know how S. Z. dares forget the reason “so that the Torah of the Lord may be in your mouth” — is there any day holier for Torah study than the Sabbath day, that we should refrain from putting them on?

F. You answered above regarding tefillin of Rashi and Rabbenu Tam found in the Judean Desert, of both orders of the tefillin passages according to Rashi and Rabbenu Tam, and that is not accurate, because look what Wikipedia says about it:
An exception is the tefillin from Cave 8 at Qumran (8Q 3), which contain only the four passages, and the order of the first two passages (“Kadesh,” “Vehaya ki yeviakha”) is similar to the method of Rashi and that of Rabbenu Tam, but the last two passages (“Vehaya im shamoa,” “Shema”) are written in parallel, column opposite column.
Also the spelling of the passages differs from the Masoretic text. In fact, only a minority of the tefillin from Qumran are written according to the spelling system of the Masoretic text.[23]

So I do not accept your argument at all! In fact, if we were examining things, we would conclude not to put on both tefillin but only one of them! And it’s embarrassing that Rabbenu Tam, who was Rashi’s grandson, “disagreed” with his teacher (his grandfather) even though this is what he memorized and received from him as tradition!
G. And if we were relating to the plain meaning of the text and God’s actual will, we would understand that “And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart. And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road and when you lie down and when you rise up. And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates” is not speaking about tefillin as an accessory, but about the Ten Statements, and you are invited to check in the Torah that I am not taking things out of context or meaning. Deuteronomy chapter 5 through chapter 6.

I’ll also claim and answer S. Z. above:

Regarding the strong protection of the Oral Torah — you ignore the fact that in the end the Talmud testifies, “These and these are the words of the living God,” so that until they decided, these practiced one way and those practiced another way. On the one hand you speak of strong protection, while in practice you see how many inaccuracies there were in performance in the meantime, and then brazenly open your mouth and say the law spread quickly everywhere in the world and there were no strange customs. Nonsense. Also see the story of Rabbi Eliezer and the sages in the time of the Second Temple about the Oven of Akhnai: this one declares it impure and those declare it pure; a divine voice came forth, and you invalidated its words because “it is not in heaven,” but you kept on saying and shouting here that Jewish law does not change and spread uniformly across all the dispersions of the globe — very precise indeed; you took authority for yourselves to do whatever came into your heads.
The Talmud says about the tanna Levi bar Sisi, who was close to Rabbi Judah the Prince, that he happened to come to the house of Joseph the hunter, and they brought before him the head of a peacock in milk, and he did not eat it because he did not hold like Rabbi Yosei HaGelili, who permits eating poultry with milk. —–> Go and learn how right and precise you were when you said the law spread very quickly….. (said sarcastically).
And therefore the prophet said: “What is arising in your spirit shall never come to be, as I live, says the Lord.”