Q&A: Practical Implementation of Commandments
Practical Implementation of Commandments
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I’m interested in how we know how to carry out commandments when the books of the halakhic decisors, as far as I know, don’t contain precise illustrations. For example, there are instructions in the Shulchan Arukh about the location of circumcision, but in practical terms how does one know how to do it (that is, how to translate the text into the three-dimensional reality of the object—in this case, the baby)? I assume there are dedicated training courses, but who says their content is correct, and who is even authorized to certify them? Are we relying here too on a tradition passed down through the generations?
Likewise regarding other commandments such as putting on tefillin, especially on the head (the exact placement, different skull shapes, different hairlines, etc.).
Answer
Obviously, this is a tradition. Just like the use of words in a language.
For the whole set of words in a language you need a tradition, because without an anchor you can’t decode everything from within itself. Just think how people around the world rejoiced when the Rosetta Stone was discovered. But tefillin and circumcision—I don’t see any problem explaining them in writing. Just like rare, one-off words in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), which commentators usually explain based on parallels or context—for example, how we understand terms like drops of dew, drizzle, “it shall drip like rain,” autumn, a barber’s razor, vines in blossom, and countless others—just from the context and from parallels.