Parsha Topic: Tefillin: Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam
"It shall be a sign for you on your arm and a reminder between your eyes." (Shemos 13:9)
There are two main types of tefillin: those made according to the view of Rashi, and those made according to the view of Rabbeinu Tam. In tefillin of Rabbeinu Tam, the letter heh is before the letter vav. We are going to delve into what makes tefillin of Rabbeinu Tam special. First we will look at the Halachic aspect, and then go a little deeper.
Tefillin contain four Torah passages. There is a disagreement among the Rishonim how to interpret the Gemara’s statement about this. According to Rashi, the four passages are to be in the following order: שמע ישראל / והיה אם שמוע / קדש לי כל בכור / והיה כי יביאך. Whereas according to Rabbeinu Tam the order is like this: שמע ישראל / והיה אם שמוע / והיה כי יביאך / קדש לי כל בכור. According to Rabbeinu Tam, the two passages that begin with the word והיה are in the middle. This is what the Rishonim call הויות באמצע.
This alludes to a profound matter. Early Torah sources say that the four passages in tefillin correspond to the four letters of Hashem’s Name. Parshas Shema corresponds to the letter yud, Parshas V’hayah im shamoa corresponds to the letter heh, Parshas Kadeish corresponds to the letter vav, and Parshas V’hayah ki yevi’acha corresponds to the second letter heh.
And we know that the letters of Hashem’s Name divide into two groups. The first group is yud heh, and the second group is vav heh. The first group always stays the same. The difference between Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam is only in the second group, in the vav heh. According to Rashi, the order is vav heh, and according to Rabbeinu Tam, it is heh vav.
What does this signify?
When you set out to build something, there is a certain order that must be followed. First you make up the plan with the architect, and then you go and build it. You can’t do it the other way around. The process needs to follow a certain order, and only then will the building get built.
In Hashem’s Name, the order is always vav and then heh. This is because the letter vav represents the six midos of Hashem, which are Gedulah, Gevurah, Tiferes, Netzach, Hod and the last midah of כי כל בשמים ובארץ, which “unifies heaven and earth.” After you have the complete building plan, so to speak, then comes the final letter heh, which is the building itself.
But in tefillin of Rabbeinu Tam, it’s in reverse order. The final heh, which represents the actual building, comes before the building plan. How can that be?
All in One Moment
I will tell you two stories. One is from the Midrash, and the second is a story I heard from a reliable Jew who heard it from the person who saw it with his own eyes.
It is written about Yaakov Avinu: "He smelled the fragrance of his garments." (Bereishis 27:27, Zohar Chadash 3:257a) On a simple level, this pasuk speaks of how Yitzchak smelled the pleasant field-fragrance of Yaakov. This fragrance came from Eisav’s garments, which Yaakov was wearing at the time he came to be blessed. This is the simple meaning of the pasuk.
However, the Midrash interprets בגדיו, “garments,” as בוגדיו, “traitors”: Don’t read it “his garments,” rather read it: “his traitors.” The Midrash is saying that even the traitors among the Jewish people have an exquisite fragrance. The virtue of the Jewish people is found even in the “traitors” who seem to be far from Hashem. Even they have the fragrance of neshamah, they have something good in them.
The Midrash then brings a striking example to illustrate the point:
For instance, Yosef Meshisa. When the enemies wished to enter Har Habayis, they said, “Let one of them [the Jews] go in first.” [Yosef Meshisa volunteered.] They said to him, “Go in, and whatever you bring out [first] will be yours.” He went in and brought out the golden Menorah [whose value was immense]. They said to him, “This is not something for commoners. Go in again, and what you bring out will be yours.” He didn’t agree. They offered to release him from taxes for three years. He didn’t agree, and said, “Isn’t it enough that I angered my G-d once? Shall I anger Him another time?!” What did they do to him? They put him on a carpenters’ beam and sawed him, as he was screaming, “Woe to me, for I angered my Creator!” (Bereishis Rabbah 65:18)
Yosef Meshisa walked into Beis Hamikdash and grabbed for himself the Menorah. What a traitor. What a low life. Nobody would do something like that, not even an idol-worshipping Gentile. But in a single moment, he changed from one extreme to the other, and that’s the point. When he was put to the test, and he was promised great profit if he goes in another time to desecrate Beis Hamikdash – and he was obviously the kind of person who would do anything for money – he refused. He was not willing to anger Hakadosh Baruch Hu another time, even at the pain of death. As he died, he did not focus on the great physical pain he was undergoing, but rather on Hakadosh Baruch Hu. “He was screaming, ‘Woe to me, for I angered my Creator!’” He willingly gave up his life for the sake of Hashem, like R. Akiva and the Asarah Harugei Malchus did.
That was one story. The second story is one that happened in the Holocaust. In a certain concentration camp, treif meat was distributed, and there was a Jew there who refused to eat. The Nazi called out to him and said, “Eat or I will kill you!” He unknowingly came upon a secular Jew who had been eating treif his whole life. But now, surprisingly enough, this Jew absolutely refused, and responded, “No, I won’t eat!” The Nazi beat him almost to death, but the Jew remained resolute, heroically refusing to eat treif no matter what. Later, his friends asked him, “What was that all about? You ate treif your whole life!” He answered that at that moment, he realized how terrible it is to eat treif.
It All Suddenly Comes Out
Many people, when they are reciting Shema, and they come to the words בכל לבבך, they are willing to give up their lives for the sake of Hashem. If an idol-worshipping Gentile would come up to them and try to force them to bow down to a false god, they would gladly die al kiddush Hashem. This is actually the happiest moment that a person can attain.
But they got to this lofty place by following a certain order. When they were children, they went to cheder, learned Chumash, grew up in an authentic Jewish environment, understood what mesirus nefesh is, and then reached this madreigah. First they went through the stages of Gedulah and Gevurah and Tiferes, etc, and then the final building was built.
But in the two stories I just told, the order was reversed. Yosef Meshisa lived an anti-Torah life all along, and even now, he dared to enter Beis Hamikdash and grab the Menorah for himself. Even the idol-worshipping Romans were afraid to do so. That’s why they sent him in first. And then, in one moment, he went through a radical transformation and was ready to suffer and die for the sanctification of Hashem’s Name.
It’s the same in the second story. A Jew who couldn’t care less about Torah, who ate treif his whole life, who did not build any spiritual base for himself – and suddenly, in one moment, something exploded inside him, and he was willing to take a severe beating at the hands of a heartless Nazi, just in order not to put treif food in his mouth.
For the rest of us, things develop little by little. Another pasuk of Chumash, another daf of Gemara, another Rosh Hashanah and another Yom Kippur. The cumulate result is that if we would be put to the test, we would surely give up our lives for the sake of Hashem, because our Jewish neshamah is out in the open, it is revealed. But the two stories I told are about people whose neshamos were quite hidden, and revealed themselves suddenly. Early Torah sources call this the “Tefillin of Olam Haba.” It’s a different order of things.
Our world is built like a chain. One link connects to the next link and enters its space. So in the period of Ikvesa d’Meshicha, there is a level that is similar to Yemos Hamashiach. This is because the next link in the chain of time, Yemos Hamashiach, enters the space of the present link, that of Ikvesa d’Meshicha. Thus we see baalei teshuvah sprouting up. We see people who suddenly, as if out of nowhere, return to authentic Torah Judaism. This has the aspect of tefillin of Rabbeinu Tam. The heh is before the vav. These are people who never learned Torah in their lives. They never worked on themselves to develop their Yiddishkeit at all. Yet, spiritual greatness revealed itself suddenly.
Tefillin of Rashi go according to proper order. To learn, to delve into the depths, and then to arrive at the goal. We say in Tefilah Zakah (recited right before Kol Nidrei): כי גם אני מבני אברהם יצחק ויעקב – “Because I, too, am among the descendants of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov.” We all know this, but for it to express itself in daily life, that the beauty and greatness of the Jewish soul should shine in its full glory, and there will not be partitions separating heaven from earth, it will take a long time until we reach this greatness.
Tefillin of Rabbeinu Tam are just the opposite. A person hears an inspiring vort, and gets excited, and then makes a sudden and unexpected decision to learn Torah and achieve understanding of it.
Tefillin of Rabbeinu Tam teach us that the order can be changed. This is a wonderful idea about how to achieve things, especially in our times, the generation of Ikvesa d’Meshicha, which is the lowliest time that ever was, and it is hard to do things in such a time. If we go step by step, we will never get to the goal. We need to cause an inner explosion, to make bold and far-reaching decisions, to put things into practice, and afterward we will see how beautiful our decisions were.
“If you awaken and if you arouse the love until it so desires.” (Shir Hashirim 2:7) The Ramban explains this verse as follows. אם תעירו – If there is an awakening, עד שתחפץ – Make an “object” (חפץ) out of it. If you are grabbed by that sudden inspiration, do something tangible, something that you can get a hold on. Don’t leave your inspiration as a philosophical idea. A person needs to place an obligation on himself, to go and build an edifice of Torah and yiras Shamayim.
