Phylacteries and Totaphot
Hand-written, not made in a factory,
one’s placed upon the forehead where,
anterior, the fontanelle lies bare
for the most capital phylactery.
The other on the weaker arm is placed,
the left for most, and covered, hidden.
The words which in a box are written
are Bible texts, thus by the arm embraced.
The order of the texts is subject to
dispute between grandfather and
grandson. Some pious Jews demand
two pairs of boxes, and thus do
both as the grandfather decided,
and as the grandson whose dispute
was recognized as valid, his repute
so great that many by him are still guided.
The argument is hard to understand.
Rashbam, another grandson, read the rule
as metaphor, but surely used to spool
the bible’s words on head and hand,
implying that he kept within his mind
its words while wanting us to wear
phylacteries, a single pair
we on our bodies literally bind.
The origin of totaphot, Rashi supposes,
may be Egyptian, which he labels “Coptic,”
with a suggestion that’s synoptic:
he to “Coptic” “Afriki” apposes,
“Afriki” denoting “Phrygian,”
two-headed view just like the pair
of rosh tephillin some Jews wear,
their heads protected by this pair-shaped pinion.
Inspired by a passage in Haim Sabato’s The Dawning of the Day (New Milford, CT.: Toby Press, 2004), translated by Yaacob Dweck, describing how the hero Ezra buys an extra pair of tefillin when he learns about the dispute between Rashi and Rabbenu Tam of Jacob ben Meir Tam of Champagne , 1100–1171) regarding the correct order of the texts in them, and is chided for doing so because in the opinion of some people only the most pious people should wear two pairs.
“According to the law, a simple man is not worthy to put on Rabbenu Tam tefillin, only a man who has repaired the sins of his youth and is celebrated for his piety can wear them” (pp. 49–57) (cf. Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim 34:3).
Rashi’s grandson Rashbam explains the commandment to observe the Passover “as a sign on your hand” in Exod. 13:9 as follows:
According to the profound plain meaning of Scripture: an exhortation that this memory should be with you permanently, as if the subject matter had literally been inscribed on your hand. We find similar language in Song of Songs 8,6: “Let it be a seal on your heart.”
In “A Tale of Two Totafot: On the mysterious and much debated origins of a seminal biblical term,” Tablet, 1/6/22, Stanley Dubinsky and Hesh Epstein discuss the origin of the word טֹטָפוֹת totaphot in Deut. 6:8:
We are thus left with a way of understanding totafot as an ordinary word, as the Ramban would have it, neither borrowed from Egyptian, Coptic, or Phrygian, nor connected to other cultures’ magic rituals for dispelling evil. And rather than involving some mysterious allusion to the construction of the head tefillin, its meaning is a straightforward metaphor reminding us how important it is to keep the teachings close to us and foremost in our minds.
