Some people expressed an interest in reading this paper. Here it is:

The Variegated Career of Exodus 13:16, being a summary of the antics real and perceived of a biblical verse from antiquity until the rabbinic period

Bear in mind that it’s a term paper, not a polished publication or anything, ok? But some of the content is pretty interesting, ( Read more... )

Been taking some photos of tefillin for a piece about how tefillin are made, creatively entitled How Tefillin Are Made. Can’t figure out how to get this image into the text, but I like it, so I’m sharing it here.
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Anyone want to tell me about their experiences with kids and tefillin? In particular:

If they lay tefillin, why you got them started doing it and when you started them
What you told them about why we do it.

If you lay tefillin and they don’t, how/why that works.

Whether they play tefillin.

Who in the family wears them.

If they’re still babies, what ( Read more... )

Something you do not need to see when you open tefillin: BUGS.


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In short - the amount of time it takes to produce them. Every bit of a pair of tefillin is made by hand, and the longer it takes to do, the more it costs.


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I get emails like this on average twice a month:

If you have advice about what I should do with my ancient tefillin, that would be great. They were my great-grandfather’s and I would love to use them, but they are tiny, and the man I talked to at [Big Judaica Store] told me that it was likely the parchment would no longer be kosher and that there ( Read more... )

So - recently, someone sent me these tefillin, and as you can see, they have these little tags wired onto them. Funny, eh?


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I keep sets of tefillin for loaning to women. Women, because men have an easy time of it if they want to borrow tefillin. A woman who wants to borrow tefillin - because she wants to try the practice before committing a few hundred dollars to tefillin, or because she hasn’t got that sort of cash - she has a hard time. It is for these women that I ( Read more... )