[Avodah] Wearing Tefillin All Day

Joshua Meisner jmeisner at mail.gmail.com
Sat Oct 13 20:23:41 PDT 2018


[Moving this aspect of the discussion over from Areivim. Subject line
is mine. -micha]

On Fri, Oct 12, 2018 at 4:35 PM Micha Berger via Areivim wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 12, 2018 at 01:26:50PM -0400, Prof. Levine via Areivim wrote:
>: I am surp[rised that you did not suggest that men begin wearing
>: tephillen the entire day as was apparently the custom in ancient
>: times...

> For people who had desk jobs.

> Laborers didn't, for pragmatic reasons. And in an agrarian society, that
> was most men most of the day, except in the winter.

My impression was that the heter to not wear tefillin (issur to wear
tefillin) only applied to particular cases, such as one who was carrying a
burden (of a particular size or content, i.e., excrement) on their head,
but that a normal farmer/craftsman/laborer would generally wear tefillin
the entire day.  A braissa on Shabbos 130a indicates that many people did
not wear tefillin, but it is critical of this practice, and although the
gemara appears to give a justification of such (while still maintaining its
objection to the reality), it is not along the white collar/blue collar
axis.

Josh


More information about the Avodah mailing list