[Avodah] tefillin in the right place

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Mar 05, 2010 at 01:18:24PM +0200, Eli Turkel wrote:
: from Rav Aviner
: It is related ... that Ha-Griz ... visited a city and used a mirror
: to make sure his Tefillin was in the correct place, as was his
: custom. At his seat, someone placed a copy of Shut Divrei Chaim opened
: to the Teshuvah which refers to looking in a mirror to adjust one's
: Tefillin as a "custom of ignoramuses."
:                                "... I say the same thing: 'It is
: worthwhile for me to be called an ignoramus as long as the Tefillin
: sit in the precise spot on my head."

>From Aspaqlaria
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2005/02/tefillin-mirrors.shtml>:
    When I started wearing tefillin, few people used small hand mirrors
    to see whether or not it was properly centered. I recall men using
    the shiny metal area indicating where to push on a door, the window
    in a door to a darkened stairwell, and other awkward solutions.
    Compared to that, the current ubiquity of mirrors, whether in the
    tefillin bag or even glued to the bottom of the tefillin box is a
    G-d-send. But for most of Jewish history, mirrors were not cheap to
    come by. So what did the Ribbono shel olam expect us to do?

    We lived for millenia before the heter iska allowed someone to give
    someone else money in a mechanism that allowed him to make money on
    the deal. The current interest free gema"ch is laudable, but we no
    longer feel the sense of brotherhood of "achikha ha'evyon" (your
    impoverished brother) that the Torah speaks of receiving your loan.
    Not to the extent that someone could buy a home off gema"ch money.
    Jewish society decayed, and workarounds had to be provided to
    minimize the impact of that decay.

    Without the mirror, the only way to fulfill the mitzvah of tefillin
    correctly is through areivus, each person in the minyan taking
    responsibility for each other's tefillin. Tefillin actually
    underscored the unity of the minyan, and the brotherhood of all
    Jews. But Jewish society decayed, and workarounds had to be provided
    to minimize the impact of that decay. The mirror is a better
    solution than trying to catch your reflection in a doorknob.

    But now that we have mirrors, all we can see is ourselves.

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
micha at aishdas.org         'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
http://www.aishdas.org    'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
Fax: (270) 514-1507                     - Rav Dovid Lifshitz zt"l