Tefillin – Page 4 – Ben's Tallit Shop

Tefillin – Know what’s inside

I just lost a sale, but I'm glad. A family in Washington D.C. wanted to buy a tallit, a set of bar mitzvah tefillin and a set of tallit and tefillin bags for their son, whose bar mitzvah is coming up soon. I referred them to my tefillin page, which explains at length why I...

Ramban on Tefillin

The Ramban (1194-1270) wrote a fabulous book on Jewish thought. I think it's relatively obscure, but it's one of my all-time favorites. Referred to as "Derashah" or "Drashas HaRamban," the book was originally just that: an extended sermon given before the King of Castile. This work is written in a style similar to Moreh Nevuchim...

Sun, Surf and…Tefillin

The beach may sound like an unexpected place to find Chabad activists wrapping tefillin on Jews who happen by, but that's exactly what took place at a recent surfing competition in Long Beach, California. As internationally acclaimed athletes rode the waves and fans crammed the beach, Rabbi Eli Goodman of the Bach Jewish Center...

Tefillin and 9/11

David Miller, an observant Jew, was at Logan Airport getting ready to board United Flight 175. He was going to LA on an important business trip and had to make this flight. A lot depended on it. He boarded the plane and sat down as the doors closed. Suddenly he remembered that he had left...

Eric Cantor Lays Tefillin at Kotel

by Dan Slobodkin During a recent visit to Jerusalem, Eric Cantor, a Republican congressman from Virginia who became Majority Leader in early January, laid tefillin before praying at the Western Wall. In November his office released a statement saying: “Eric stressed that the new Republican majority will serve as a check on...

Spanish Prison Allows Inmate to Lay Tefillin

By Dan Slobodkin After three weeks without tefillin or kosher food, arrangements have now been made to allow Eli H., who was charged with smuggling drugs into Spain, wear tefillin every day. According to a Chabad website, the fundraiser en route to Costa Rica was tricked into taking...

Types of Tefillin: The Parchments

There are three different types of writing customs for the parchments inside tefillin: Beit Yosef, Arizal, and Vellish. Beit Yosef is the same script that Torahs are written in. Arizal script is only slightly different from Beit Yosef (seven letters differ), and is the preferred script of the Hassidic community. Vellish script is bolder,...

On Tefillin Prices

The main factor in determining the price of a set of tefillin is the quality of the writing on the parchments. The writing on tefillin parchments is considerably smaller than the writing on a mezuzah (in most cases) or a Sefer Torah. Small writing is hard to do well, so a set of tefillin parchments...

Tefillin – What’s Inside?

The tefillin boxes (called battim) house strips of parchment with four passages from the Torah written by a specially trained scribe, known as a sofer. Tefillin contain the following biblical verses: God spoke to Moses, saying, "Sanctify to Me every firstborn that initiates the womb among the Israelites. Among both man and beast, it is...

Tefillin construction: The four types of tefillin

There are a number of ways to construct the two leather boxes - the shel yad and the shel rosh. The best and most difficult way is to mold a single piece of leather into a box shape. Another technique is to cut and glue leather into a box shape. Tefillin - Pricing and Details>>> Molded...