Q&A: Tefillin, an Irrelevant Symbol?
Tefillin, an Irrelevant Symbol?
Question
Hello Rabbi,
Regarding tefillin as a counter-symbol to the Egyptian symbol—are you familiar with that?
And if tefillin came as a symbol ("a sign") and "totafot" is an Egyptian word (an ornament), as opposite symbols in their time, and that symbolic opposition was necessary—like matzah, which was in contrast to Egypt, which was a bread superpower—
if those symbols are no longer relevant, like the last three blessings in the morning blessings, which came as a response to blessings of the Greeks,
then if the thing is no longer relevant, what reason is there still to put them on?
There is the fact that the Sages said so, but if the response is no longer relevant, maybe the response should be changed, while keeping the same principle, into a response that is relevant.
(My assumption is that whatever came as a response to a certain time and to a war of values expressed through rituals and symbols, once its time has passed there is no longer any reason to keep holding onto those same symbols and customs.) And instead of religion being alive and vibrant, we just keep loading onto ourselves, for every battle that is no longer relevant, many rituals and symbols, and slowly killing our religion with the suffocation of hundreds of thousands of binding Jewish laws and customs.
If possible, I’d like two kinds of answers please:
one, the specific answer to this question;
and if possible, please direct me to more articles you wrote on the subject, and maybe courses you gave that I could buy and understand better how to approach points like these.
Thank you very much!
Answer
I’m not familiar with that theory, but there are a hundred like it for a penny. In any case, it wasn’t the Sages who said this, but the Torah. Jewish law sees the Torah’s commandments as binding principles regardless of their reasons (in practical halakhah, we do not derive rulings from the reason for the verse), and therefore even if this were true, it still would not necessarily negate the validity of the commandment.
It’s hard for me to refer you to articles on the subject, because these are foundations of Jewish law. You simply need to study Talmud and Jewish law, and then you’ll be able to formulate a position.