Should your tefillin be refurbished or replaced?

Good tefillin gassot can last a lifetime, but typically they could use some refurbishing every 10 years or so. A customer who came to me for a tallis and tallis bag later told me he was considering the possibility of replacing his tefillin.

What would it cost for a new set of tefillin? I will send you picture of my current set.

I asked him to send a few pictures, including the top corners, the underside and the most worn part of the straps (typically the ends and near the knots). He did. They did look worn, but not abysmally worn.

Old tefillin that could benefit from refurbishing — Should these battim be refurbished? Tough call.

Tefillin is not my area of expertise, but I put in my two cents anyway. “When the tefillin I bought before I got married were about 13 or 14 years old I had them refurbished,” I wrote to him. “That entailed opening them up, checking the parchments (which is typically done not by the tefillin maker but by a magihah), sewing them up again and replacing the straps. My tefillin were in better shape than yours are, from what I’m seeing. In my case it was definitely worthwhile; in your case, it’s a tough call to say whether they should be refurbished or replaced. Obviously it depends on the quality of the parchments and battim you have. So ideally you would take them to a tefillin macher for an expert opinion up close, which may even require opening them up just to decide. Where I live, there are probably two or three people within walking distance who provide this type of service. Where you live, I’m guessing that’s not the case. I don’t know how practical it would be for you to do that.

“A lot of what I’m seeing could be easily patched up with tefillin dye, which you should really have around anyway. You dab a bit of tefillin paint on the fissure cracks on the straps where you see a bit of brown instead of black (it’s not so important, from a halachic standpoint, toward the end, but it is important on the first, say, two-thirds, and in practice you’ll probably only see a need along the first tenth). And then you dab some on the corners and anywhere else you see nicks. Tefillin paint should cost $8-$12 for enough to last a few years. For immediate use, you could probably ask a friend or rabbi for a few dabs. It takes about five minutes, but then you have to leave it out to dry for about half an hour instead of putting them away.”

In some cases, the corners are not sharp enough, which means they need to be fixed by a professional; that’s something you can’t usually see from a picture and it requires a lot of expertise and knowledge of the halacha. If the back edge of the Shel Rosh is rounded, that’s not such an issue, according to my understanding. I see that your gid (sinew) is a bit worn in one spot, but I don’t think that’s critical.

Should your tefillin be refurbished or replaced?

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