[Avodah] Totafos vs. tefillin

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

On Sun, Feb 19, 2017 at 10:45:27PM -0500, Ben Rothke via Avodah wrote:
: In the parasha 2 weeks ago, Shmos 13:16 uses the word [totafos].
: Onkelos translates it as [tefillin].
: Any idea why we use the term [tefillin] as opposed to [totafos]?

Tefillin refers to the set, thus the lashon rabim. The Torah only
uses totafos to refer to the shel rosh (le'os al yadekha ultotafos
bein einekha).

As to why... I don't know why. But I noticed the switch was early enough
that by Rabbi Aqiva's day (Sanhedrin 4b) the etymolology was forgotten.

I took R Aqiva as referring to two other semitic languages. (Afriqi
might be the language of Carthage = Carta Chadsha, which would be in
the right family.) And it's a common linguistic trick to try to guess
the meaning of a word from cognates in related language.

R' Dovid Cohen (of Flatbush) suggested that maybe totafos is called
2+2 rather than 4 particularly because the Dor haMidbar. Since
2 of the parshios are in Devarim, for nearly 40 years tefillin only
had the two parshios from Shemos. Then they got another two.

(Of course, this assumes R' Yochanan's position, that the Torah was
given piecewise.)

Maybe this would imply that the term "totafos" phased out not long
after?

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

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