[Avodah] Chasam Sofer: Why Don't Women Wear Tefilin?

[Prof. Levine]

>From  http://revach.net/article.php?id=36

Chasam Sofer: Why Don't Women Wear Tefilin?

The Torah says that Tefilin remind us that Hashem took us out of 
Mitzrayim.  If so women should also wear Tefilin even if the mitzva 
is time dependant because "Af hem hayu b'oso hanes", they were also 
part of Yetzias Mitzrayim.  This same principal is used to obligate 
women in other mitzvos that they would otherwise be exempt from.

The Chasam Sofer answers that we must distinguish between Matza for 
example, where the underlying reason for the mitzva is to remember 
Yetzias Mitzrayim, and Tefilin where the underlying reason is to show 
our love for Hashem by wearing His signature on us.  As a natural 
consequence of our thinking about our love for Hashem we remember how 
he took us out of Mitzrayim in grand fashion.  However this is only 
an outgrowth of the main reason.  Since the main reason is not 
Yetzias Mitzrayim, this secondary reason does not obligate a women in 
the mitzva of Tefilin.

----------
I must say that I do not understand the reasoning in the above.  If 
"the underlying reason is to show our love for Hashem by wearing His 
signature on us." then, given that men already have Ha Shem's 
"signature" on them through their bris milah, it would seem to me 
that this is a reason for women to wear tefilin to show their love 
for Hashem and not men.

YL

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20110923/d2d67e8a/attachment.htm>