Following the publication of remarks in a letter by Maran HaRav Eliashiv shlita, reading, “All yirei Shomayim who are uncertain whether their tefillin [are constructed] in accordance with halacha, should have them checked to ensure [the four head compartments] are separate and distinct,” thousands have had their tefillin checked, including talmidei chachomim who lay high- quality tefillin crafted by top tefillin makers.
According to figures obtained by Yated Ne’eman in Israel, a substantial portion were found to be posul, causing shock and consternation among yirei’im. The issue came to the fore following the publication of an investigative report by Binyamin Rabinovitz in Yated Ne’eman’s Hebrew magazine section, stating thousands of Jews every day fail to lay kosher tefillin.
HaRav Dovid Morgenstern wrote a detailed response on the matter, and HaRav Eliashiv appended to the letter: “Since according to the above a minority of tefillin housings are not properly separated in an externally visible manner, any yirei Shomayim who is uncertain should have his tefillin checked to ensure they are distinct and separate.”
(By Yechiel Sever for Dei’ah veDibur)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
4 Responses
Alternative title:
Let’s Drum Up Business for Soferim.
Last month it was the turn of the shatnez checkers with the Turkish talleisim scare.
does anyone know what this means? i never saw tefilin that where separate they have lines indicating the separate compartments, does he mean you actually have to have a visual space between each compartment?
I am a Sofer and I have been checking and fixing this for over 30 years.
I usually find something wrong. Occasionally I find something which is posul, and about 1 out of every 3 or 4 batim are probably bideeved.
Even batim made by the so-called “muhuder batim makers” can have this problem. The reason mainly is because most of them do not paint the batim themselves because they specialize with heavy duty work. So they give them to painters who do a very “nice job”. All the costumer sees is the paint job, and it has to be impressive.
Almost all the time they can be fixed. If one knows exactly what he is doing, he shouldn’t take much money to check and fix them. One must be very careful who he gives them to check. If a sofer doesn’t have very much experience checking this thing even if he has done other things with tfillin for a long time, he can make them worse or ruin them. Others are afraid that they will ruin the batim, so they don’t make a thorough check. They sometime need special equipment to do it, some of which has to be handmade by a blacksmith.
If someone doesn’t have a way to check them at the moment, if they know who made the tfillin, sometimes we can found out what the status is.
Shraga Feivel Kaufman
Sofer Stam
“A substantial portion?” “thousands”
Can someone provide context for this: how many are posul vs how many checked vs the total number of tefillin? Is it only some tefillin makers? If so, then the ones who purchased tefillin from those makers certainly need to have an inspection. Are all tefillin suspect?
This is a very important issue and deserves more precise reporting.