Q&A: Do You Have Some Logical Explanation?
Do You Have Some Logical Explanation?
Question
The whole story of tefillin is very strange: basically no clear tradition regarding the order of the passages, the place where they are put on, the shape of the boxes,
and also the place of the parchment and the dukhsustus—where exactly does it go???
And what about the shapes of the letters, the het, the yod, etc.,
the mezuzah—does it lie horizontally or stand vertically?
Where is the place for putting on the hand tefillin?
The Ritva on Eruvin 95b: “Your hand—or kibboret. Explanation: the expression kinnbura de-ahinei, meaning the place where the flesh is buried. And there are some of the medieval authorities of blessed memory who thought that this place is the mass of flesh beneath the elbow, called kovero in the vernacular, and that is not correct, rather…”
And who are those medieval authorities?
It is brought in Sefer HaYashar:
“And this is the responsum that Rabbenu Tam sent to one who desired the uprightness of Jeshurun… As for what you asked about your rabbis who change what is known and the custom of the fathers—they are not masters in this matter, for the kibboret is the bone above…”
That is, the rabbis of Rabbi Eliezer (the author of Yere’im?)
Answer
What is the question?
Discussion on Answer
It isn’t necessarily a corruption in the tradition. It may be that there is simply a dispute here. The later authority did not accept the existing position, based on his own reasoning.
What does it mean that the later authority did not accept the existing position? He didn’t accept the tradition passed down from Moses our teacher? How could that be?
After all, we’re again talking here about everyday matters.
What did they put on in the time of Moses our teacher? What was the order of the passages then? Where were the parchment and the dukhsustus? Where was the place for putting on tefillin? How did they position the mezuzah?
He can claim that the tradition became corrupted. It could be that this did not come from Moses at all, but is an interpretation that developed later. Like the dispute between Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai over whether one increases progressively or decreases progressively.
What didn’t come from Moses—the order of the passages, the orientation of the mezuzah, and the place of the dukhsustus? So in any case, what was there in the time of Moses?
So what did come from Moses?
Come on, sketch me a reasonable, plausible picture of the starting point where the corruption in the tradition began.
When? And how?
In the time of Joshua? Eli the Priest? Jeroboam son of Nebat?
From the giving of the Torah until the dispute between Rashi and Rabbenu Tam regarding the order of the passages, everyone wrote the passages in whatever order seemed right to him and did not attach importance to it. Both Rashi and Rabbenu Tam held that it does matter, and each fixed the order according to his own approach.
That seems to me the most logical explanation.
For example. And that is under the optimistic assumption that everyone agreed about the passages and the form of the tefillin.
That isn’t correct, because from the Talmud in Menachot 34b it is clear that there was a definite order; only Rabbenu Tam and Rashi disagreed about how to understand the Talmud:
“Our Rabbis taught: How are they arranged? ‘Sanctify to Me’ and ‘And it shall be when the Lord brings you’ on the right; ‘Hear O Israel’ and ‘And it shall come to pass, if you surely listen’ on the left. But wasn’t it taught the opposite? Abaye said: This is not difficult. Here it means from the right of the reader, and there from the right of the one donning them; and the reader reads them in their order.”
In the Talmud it was clearly established. The question is what goes back to Sinai.
So in the Talmud it implies there was no dispute between Rabbenu Tam and Rashi. Now sketch me a reasonable picture of how suddenly there came to be a corruption or a break in something practiced day after day and handed down continuously—and likewise regarding the position of the mezuzah.
Not necessarily. The Talmud too presents an order that could describe both methods, and perhaps both already existed then. Alternatively, they practiced one order and Rabbenu Tam claimed they were mistaken.
A. If both existed then, it is unlikely we wouldn’t hear about it in the Talmud; that is, it really does not sound that way in the Talmud at all.
B. You wrote, “Rabbenu Tam claimed they were mistaken” — who? The Sages? Clearly Rabbenu Tam was never in that camp.
And if you mean that he held that the tradition after the Talmud was mistaken, that is exactly my previous question: sketch me a reasonable picture of how suddenly there came to be a corruption or a break in something practiced day after day and handed down continuously—and likewise regarding the position of the mezuzah.
How is it that on frequent, basic matters they disagreed? Didn’t each person see what his fathers practiced, and their fathers, and their fathers before them, etc.? For example, where does Rabbenu Tam think the mistake happened regarding the order of the passages, the orientation of the mezuzah, and the placement of the parchment and the dukhsustus? Give some logical explanation—how did this suddenly get garbled?
And below is the language of Havot Ya’ir 192:
“All this does not sit well with me. And regarding the holy community of the sons of Beteira and those princes as well, it requires investigation: how was something done publicly by six hundred thousand forgotten in such a short time? … And what happened with the disciples of Shammai and Hillel, that they disagreed in the places mentioned, though they were few in number, negligible compared to the multitude of other laws over which the Tannaim and Amoraim disagreed?
And how was it forgotten, so that they did not know matters practiced constantly every Sabbath—whether one mixes the cup and then washes the hands, or the reverse; and in something practiced daily, repeatedly, to the point that Beit Shammai said in the evening every person should recline and recite; and the order of havdalah on Saturday night.
And likewise, regarding what Rabbenu Tam and Rabbi Eliezer the Elder disagreed about—whether the commandment of tying the knot of tefillin applies literally every day—how could such a thing be, that minors did not see from adults, and students from their rabbis, how they practiced?”