Mishegas, Religion

Phylacteries?

It always frustrated me that tfillin is translated as “phylacteries” because it doesn’t help in the slightest to explain what they are or their function. What the hell is a phylactery? So while joking over this phenomenon in the office this morning, of course someone said look it up — and the wikipedia result floored me:

Phylactery, an amulet to protect the wearer from harm, enclosing magical text, herbs, or relics.

Wtf? That’s even less helpful in describing what they are! The other two definitions on wikipedia are sci-fi fantasy fiction and videogame references. I can blame the Greeks only for the first one.

13 thoughts on “Phylacteries?

  1. I think there was a vague physical resemblance between a common kind of phylactery worn at the time and our tefilin. I agree that it is silly to use the term nowadays. By the way, the Gemara in Maasechet Shabat discusses other kinds of amulets for healing, specifically whether wearing one while passing from the public to private domain is permissible during the sabbath. There is a distinction between amulets made by someone who has been shown to create effective amulets and others.

  2. I actually think that “amulet” is a pretty good description of tfillin. In stories with bad stuff happening to Jews, it seems people blame smudges in the printing of their tfillin only slightly less frequently than mezzuzah smudges. And I think there are modern ways to construe the reason I wear tfilin as protection. They are pretty strange unintuitive objects. So, if they remind me that I do things I don’t understand because I’m in a community that has said that doing so is important, then they put me in my place and protect me from my yetzer hara of arrogance. A few years back I heard Rabbi Ira Stone call them “prayer amulets”, and I’ve been using that term to explain what they are ever since.

  3. I think there was a vague physical resemblance between a common kind of phylactery worn at the time and our tefilin.
    You would be wrong. The tefillin Yadin found at Qumran are essentially identical to ours.

  4. from my understanding, “phylacteries” as a reference to tefillin developed from Hellenistic mocking of the Pharasaic pratice of wearing tefillin. just what i was told.
    i dont really think anyone ive met considers tefillin any more a protection from harm than any other mitzvah. I’ve never heard anyone actually call them phylacteries, either. I only run across that word in textbooks.

  5. Not to spark a theological argument, but cf. Bavli Menahot 35b and Berkahot 6a:
    “åøàå ëì òîé äàøõ ëé ùí é’é ð÷øà òìéê åéøàå îîê”. #úðéà. ø’ àìéòæ’# äâãåì #àåî’#. àéìå úôéìéï ùáøàù.
    “And all the people of the land will see that the name of Yahweh is invoked upon you and they shall fear you” – R. Eliezer the great says: that is the tefillin on the head.

  6. it seems people blame smudges in the printing of their tfillin only slightly less frequently than mezzuzah smudges
    Of course, tefillin are not printed – they are written by hand.

  7. The printed text (yes, printed by hand) can indeed smudge. I have also heard this given as a reason for bad fortune.

  8. I think there was a vague physical resemblance between a common kind of phylactery worn at the time and our tefilin.
    You would be wrong. The tefillin Yadin found at Qumran are essentially identical to ours.

    I think what Simon meant was: There were other people who were using a phylactery that looks vaguely like our tefillin around the time that the word “phylactery” was first used as a translation for tefillin (Septuagint I guess?)

  9. The translation is unhelpful in describing to a contemporary audience, but back in the day it must have been a little closer to the truth. It never ceases to amaze me the disparity between “high” religion as articulated by the rabbis, ministers, the Vatican, etc. and “folk” religion as practiced by the people. Judaism has some very funny twists and turns that the rabbis, priesthood, etc. did their best to stamp out (not speaking just idolatry either).
    It just makes me think — a hundred years from now, will people call what I practice now “folk” religion?

  10. As uncomfortable as it might be to admit this, phylacteries – in their meaning as “an amulet to protect the wearer from harm, enclosing magical text, herbs, or relics” – comes pretty close to the mark. The practice of wearing tefillin is attested relatively late (late second temple period, primarily at Qumran), and they were most likely understood as amulets. Rabbis, of course, would later reinterpret the significance of this practice. Yehudah Cohn wrote his Oxford dissertation on this topic, soon to be published by Brown Judaic Studies.

  11. “Prayer amulets” captures the tefillah root of tefillin — and it works as spoken English, which “phylactery” does not. This is a case where a picture really is worth a thousand words.

  12. That’s some awesome language you have going on there, KungFuJew. You don’t have to curse in order to get your frustrations across. When I looked up Phylacteries at Wikipedia (that’s the US site, not the Euro site) it gave the correct description. Try again.

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