Tefillin of Rabbeinu Tam - the background, the halachic side, the kabbalistic side, and up to the Chabad custom in our times.

00:02 Speaker 1 Today we’re going to talk about something called Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. What exactly does “Rabbeinu Tam tefillin” mean? What’s the difference between Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam? Why do some people not put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin? Why do we put them on? What’s their importance? When did this begin? How can there be such a thing as Rabbeinu Tam tefillin? What does that mean—didn’t people put on tefillin before Rabbeinu Tam? Rabbeinu Tam lived about nine hundred years ago. There were plenty of tefillin before then, too. Did he suddenly come along and introduce new tefillin? What do we mean by Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam? What did people do before them? And what’s the story with Rabbeinu Tam disagreeing with his grandfather? Rabbeinu Tam was Rashi’s grandson. How did it happen that Rashi says one thing, his grandson disagrees, and the Jewish people end up with two kinds of tefillin? And why is it Rashi’s tefillin that we wear during davening, while Rabbeinu Tam’s are worn only afterward? What connection does wearing Rabbeinu Tam tefillin have to Chabad custom? In Chabad, the boys also put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. We’ll go through a little history and learn to appreciate their importance and preciousness. Knowing a little about it will strengthen us, too. Unfortunately, we have to say that lately, some people have grown less committed to various Chabad practices. They say, “Well, this is only a stringency, only an enhancement of a Torah mitzvah. Other people don’t do it, so maybe it isn’t so important.” And if that leads, G-d forbid, to treating it lightly, it simply comes from not knowing enough. People just don’t know the real story. When we know a little of the real story, we’ll value the whole matter very differently. So, as much as we can cover, at least in one class—

02:14 Speaker 1 I want to give a little information about this subject. In the weekly parsha, Parshas Bo, we have passages where the mitzvah of tefillin is mentioned for the first time—twice. Parshas Bo says, “Consecrate to Me every firstborn,” the passage we say when putting on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin, and there it says, “It shall be for you a sign upon your hand and as frontlets between your eyes.” Then, in the next passage in Parshas Bo, “And it shall be when Hashem brings you,” it says, “It shall be for you a sign upon your hand and a remembrance between your eyes, so that the Torah of Hashem shall be in your mouth.” So the mitzvah of tefillin appears twice there, in the passages of Kadesh and Vehaya ki yevi’acha. That’s the first place tefillin are mentioned in the Torah. Later, in Parshas Va’eschanan in Devarim, toward the end of the Chumash, we have Shema Yisroel and Ve’ahavta, and it says again, “You shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.” Then, in Parshas Eikev, we have Vehaya im shamoa, where it says again, “You shall bind them as a sign upon your hands, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.” So the Chumash tells us four times to put on tefillin. Rashi, on this week’s parsha, explains that the word “totafos” alludes to the four passages. Rashi brings “tat in Katpi,” and so on. The Gemara in Menachos, page 34, discusses the arrangement of the tefillin. Tefillin contain four passages, which are placed inside the compartments, with two passages on the right and two on the left. That’s what the Gemara says. It’s a baraisa: the tefillin must have four passages, two on the right and two on the left—Kadesh and Vehaya ki yevi’acha on the right, Shema and Vehaya im shamoa on the left. That is stated in the Gemara. Then the Gemara goes on to ask how they are positioned, and says that they must be arranged so that “the reader reads them in order.” In other words, a person facing the one wearing the tefillin, reading the passages in the tefillin, should read them—

04:42 Speaker 1 in order. And here we have the disagreement between Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam. “The reader reads them in order”—what does that mean? Rashi, there on page 34, explains that “in order” means in the sequence in which they appear in the Torah. What does that mean? Let’s take the head tefillin and talk about them in the most straightforward way. I put them on like this, and there are four passages here. A person standing opposite me reads them in order, as they appear in the Torah. What did we say? Kadesh appears first, in Parshas Bo, right? Then Vehaya ki yevi’acha appears second. Shema is the third passage in the Torah, in Va’eschanan, and Vehaya im shamoa is the fourth. So “in order,” Rashi says, is simply the order in the Torah: Kadesh, Vehaya ki yevi’acha, Shema, Vehaya im shamoa. That’s Rashi’s explanation. Then Rabbeinu Tam comes along and asks Rashi: Why does the baraisa say “two on the right and two on the left”? It begins by saying that there must be four passages, two on the right and two on the left. What does that mean? There are four passages, so why does the baraisa begin with “two on the right and two on the left”? Rabbeinu Tam therefore says that we should look at the tefillin as though they are divided into two halves. Kadesh and Vehaya ki yevi’acha begin on the right: first Kadesh, then Vehaya ki yevi’acha, as they appear in the Torah. But on the left we go in the opposite direction. Shema is first, in the compartment at the outer edge, and Vehaya im shamoa is toward the middle. In other words, according to Rabbeinu Tam, the order of the tefillin is Kadesh, Vehaya ki yevi’acha, Vehaya im shamoa, Shema. He reverses the positions of Vehaya im shamoa and Shema, right? It’s as though—

07:16 Speaker 1 we’re looking at the tefillin from two sides. From this side: Kadesh and Vehaya ki yevi’acha. From that side: Shema and Vehaya im shamoa. So according to Rabbeinu Tam, the two passages beginning with “Vehaya”—Vehaya ki yevi’acha and Vehaya im shamoa—are in the middle of the tefillin. That’s called “the Vehayas in the middle.” So that is essentially the disagreement between Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam. Rashi follows the sequence of the passages in the Torah, while Rabbeinu Tam divides them into two halves, reading one from the right and the other from the left. As a result, the passages are not in the same order according to Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam. The only difference is between those two passages: whether Shema comes before Vehaya im shamoa or after it. How is the order arranged within the compartment itself? That brings us to the arm tefillin, where everything is written on one piece of parchment; there aren’t separate compartments there. So the disagreement applies there, too, to how it is written: whether it is written in the order in which the passages appear, or whether one skips Shema, writes Vehaya im shamoa first, and then goes back to Shema. The writing, too, follows the respective orders of Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam. So those are Rashi tefillin and Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. It’s important simply to know what their disagreement is about. There’s another difference between Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam. I imagine the boys know this: it’s where the hairs are placed. There are hairs sticking out here. You’ve noticed the hairs on tefillin, right? It’s a halachah given to Moshe at Sinai that tefillin must have hairs of a—calf’s hairs, right? So where are the hairs on the tefillin? Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam disagree about that, too: where to put the hairs. If you look—

09:41 Speaker 1 you can see for yourselves that the hairs extend outside. There’s a little bit of hair sticking out here. With Rashi tefillin, the hairs are closer to the last compartment. With Rabbeinu Tam tefillin, the hairs are toward the middle, closer to the third compartment. In other words, which passage is last according to Rashi? Which passage is it? What’s the last passage according to Rashi?

10:14 Speaker 2 Vehaya im shamoa.

10:15 Speaker 1 Vehayah Im Shamoa. Which passage is in the third compartment according to Rabbeinu Tam? Vehayah Im Shamoa. In other words, according to both opinions, the hairs need to be where the passage of Vehayah Im Shamoa is. Why? What does Vehayah Im Shamoa say? It says, “And you will turn away and serve other gods.” It is speaking about idol worship. The hairs are calf hairs, connected with the sin of the Golden Calf, which is connected with idol worship. So according to Rashi, the hairs connected with the calf are by the passage of Vehayah Im Shamoa, which is why they are close to the last compartment. According to Rabbeinu Tam, where Vehayah Im Shamoa is in the third compartment, that is where the hairs are. So this is something to pay attention to. Sometimes a person’s tefillin get mixed up, and it is important to know: from the hairs, you can tell which tefillin are Rashi’s and which are Rabbeinu Tam’s, and, Heaven forbid, the tefillin of [unclear]. It is a simple way to know what you are dealing with. Now, what is the story here? The real story is that, as is written in many sefarim, this disagreement did not begin with Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam. The Rambam, for example, gives the order of the passages as Rashi does. Now, the Rambam did not exactly know Rashi. He lived a little after Rashi, but he did not study under him. Perhaps he had heard of him, but that does not necessarily mean he knew Rashi’s view. He lived in other lands. And the order of the tefillin as written by the Rambam is the same as Rashi’s. Now, there is a letter that leading sages wrote to the Rambam, asking him, “Why do you use this order, when we received from our teachers that the order should be different”—the order of Rabbeinu Tam? In other words, this question had already been put to the Rambam, who lived close to Rashi’s time, but his tefillin were not—

12:23 Speaker 1 —a matter of Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam for him. The Rambam had tefillin of the kind he describes in his book when he writes how tefillin should be worn, which accords with Rashi’s view. And the sages of that period asked the Rambam why he said that, because they knew of tefillin being worn in a different way. The Rambam wrote back that when he was young, he too had tefillin of the kind we call Rabbeinu Tam’s. Those were the tefillin he had, because that was what he had received from his teacher where he lived, in Spain. But afterward he learned that this had been a mistake, and that the tefillin should actually be as he writes in his book—which are Rashi’s tefillin. This means that the disagreement about the order of the passages in tefillin existed among various great Torah sages, not only Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam. For some reason, Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam merited to have the two views called by their names. But the disagreement is much older. The halachic authorities who discuss it even cite evidence of this disagreement from the time of the Geonim: Rav Hai Gaon and various other Geonim. The Geonim lived before Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam; they were the Geonim of Babylonia. And the sefarim even say that tefillin were found at the tomb of the prophet Yechezkel. There is a tomb of the prophet Yechezkel in Babylonia, and there was a genizah there at the tomb. That genizah existed for thousands of years, and tefillin were found there that corresponded to Rashi’s tefillin. On the other hand, at other sites excavated in Eretz Yisroel, tefillin were found that corresponded to Rabbeinu Tam’s tefillin. This means that from the time the Jewish people were in Eretz Yisroel, in the era of the Tannaim and Amoraim, there were always two views. When the Zohar was revealed, it became clear that the Zohar already speaks about this. In one place, the Zohar gives the order of the passages in—

14:33 Speaker 1 —tefillin, and gives it as Rashi does. But elsewhere, the Zohar says that the order of the tefillin should actually be different, as Rabbeinu Tam says, except that the world is not ready for it. So from the Zohar we begin to understand. The Zohar hints that there is something more spiritual here: that, from the outset, there are two ways the tefillin should be arranged. One is a simpler way, and one is a more spiritual way. Because the world was not worthy of the higher way, the simpler way was revealed. What does that mean? This is where Kabbalah comes in, as revealed by the Arizal. Here we see one of the remarkable things Kabbalah revealed about what we knew before. In halachah, for Rashi, Rabbeinu Tam, and the halachic authorities, it was simply a matter of uncertainty: they did not know how to interpret the Gemara; it was not clear. So it became a halachic doubt. Rashi ruled one way, Rabbeinu Tam ruled another, and then a ruling was established in the Shulchan Aruch. The Beis Yosef wrote the rulings that were accepted by all Jewish communities: the primary tefillin we use follow Rashi’s view. Since most halachic authorities adopted that view, those remained the primary tefillin. And someone who wants to remove any doubt, who is concerned that perhaps he has not put on tefillin according to Rabbeinu Tam’s view, can put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin after davening to remove that doubt. That was how things stood until the Arizal came and revealed the Kabbalistic perspective. When did the Arizal live? Rabbi Yosef Karo and the Arizal lived at the same time, and in the same place. Rabbi Yosef Karo and the Arizal lived in Tzfas. But Rabbi Yosef Karo was a master of the revealed dimension of Torah, while the Arizal was a master of Kabbalah,

16:51 Speaker 1 —and Rabbi Yosef Karo was older than the Arizal. Even so, it is known that Rabbi Yosef Karo had great humility before the Arizal. There are many stories about the connection between Rabbi Yosef Karo and the Arizal. In practice, the Shulchan Aruch was written according to the revealed dimension of Torah. Although Rabbi Yosef Karo himself also studied Kabbalah—there is a well-known book by him called Maggid Meisharim, dealing with Kabbalistic matters that he learned and received from an angel; he had an angel who taught him the secrets of the Torah—his book is, in practice, a book of halachah. So in halachah, Rabbi Yosef Karo rules, and all the halachic authorities after him rule likewise, that the primary tefillin follow Rashi’s view. That is why one davens while wearing Rashi’s tefillin. There are also those who mention that people would make small tefillin so they could wear both pairs, Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam, at once; that too was a custom. Or, if someone could not do that, he would put on the other pair afterward. But all of this was only an added degree of meticulous observance. The Arizal introduced a new insight. He said, based on Kabbalah and grounded in the Zohar, that it is not actually a matter of doubt; rather, “Both these and those are the words of the living G-d.” There are, in fact, two kinds of tefillin, and both have their source in Kabbalah, in the ten sefiros. The four passages correspond to the four letters of Hashem’s Name, according to Kabbalah and the Zohar. The Arizal explains this in detail: the passage of Kadesh is connected with the sefirah of Chochmah. Kadesh—holiness—is Chochmah; Chochmah is called holiness. It corresponds to the letter yud of Hashem’s Name. Then Vehayah Ki Yeviacha El Haaretz relates to the sefirah of Binah. Binah is called “a good and spacious land,” so that is the sefirah of Binah. Then

18:55 Speaker 1 So, Shema and “And it shall be, if you listen”—that is the six middos, that is Ze’eir Anpin, chesed and gevurah. The four passages are connected to the sefiros in precisely that order. Rabbeinu Tam has a different arrangement: the four passages have to be in a different order, with the two “Vehaya” passages—“And it shall be, when He brings you” and “And it shall be, if you listen”—corresponding to the letters hei in the middle. So from this come two ways of arranging the tefillin. In other words, Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam, the Arizal says, are two arrangements of the sefiros, two ways, according to Kabbalah, that the tefillin should be arranged from the outset. Both are the words of the living G-d, and therefore the Arizal says that both pairs of tefillin should be worn. According to the Arizal, one should actually wear both pairs throughout the entire davening. That is why, to this day, some people who follow Kabbalah—have you ever seen people wearing Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam together, with small tefillin? It says that the Arizal himself had very small tefillin made, so that both pairs fit in the same place. Because they have to fit—you can’t just put them anywhere. The tefillin shel rosh have to sit in the place designated for them, which is a small area. So he had very, very small tefillin, and both Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam fit there together. He davened wearing both pairs throughout the entire davening. As for the halachah in Shulchan Aruch, what does the Alter Rebbe write? The Alter Rebbe writes, as it says in his Shulchan Aruch, that the main davening is with Rashi tefillin. But if a person wants to conduct himself with an extra measure of piety and so on, he should also put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. In his Shulchan Aruch, the Alter Rebbe also writes that not everyone is suited to do this. It should only be someone exceptional, because there is also a concern that it looks like arrogance. If a person considers himself more pious

20:59 Speaker 1 than others, and others do not do it while he alone puts on those tefillin, then it appears presumptuous. So the Alter Rebbe says that perhaps he should put them on at home, where people will not see. That was how things were in the Ashkenazic lands in the Alter Rebbe’s time and before: the great majority of people did not put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. It was something private, and anyone who did it had to do it discreetly, because putting on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin was not the established custom in the Ashkenazic lands. But then the Baal Shem Tov came and brought Kabbalah into those lands. Consequently, the Baal Shem Tov’s students began establishing the practice of putting on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. One of the complaints the misnagdim had against the chassidim was that the Baal Shem Tov had said everyone should put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. And the Alter Rebbe, as one of his practices for Chabad chassidim, instituted putting on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin for all chassidim. Yes, it became a chassidic custom for everyone. That was one of the misnagdim’s complaints: Rabbeinu Tam tefillin were only for holy people, and otherwise it appeared presumptuous. That is one reason they called us chassidim. Today people no longer know this. But as is well known, the name “chassidim” came from the misnagdim. Why did the misnagdim call us chassidim? Because the chassidim put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin, and it says that only someone renowned for his piety may put them on. That is the wording in Shulchan Aruch. So suddenly everyone was putting them on. That was one of the complaints. But what was the real reason? Because Chassidus began following the customs of the Arizal. They took the Kabbalah of the Arizal and made it a practice

22:46 Speaker 1 for all of the Jewish people. So that was the history in the Alter Rebbe’s time. Among the other chassidim, the students of the Baal Shem Tov, putting on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin also became customary. There was one of the Baal Shem Tov’s chassidim—or from the later generations of his students. He was called the Komarner, Reb Yitzchak Isaac of Komarna. The Komarner was a great Rebbe and also a great Kabbalist. He wrote many books on Kabbalah and Chassidus, as well as responsa. Look, he has a book called Atzei Eden, and in it he writes a lengthy responsum saying that according to the Kabbalah of the Arizal, Rabbeinu Tam tefillin are now a Torah obligation. Yes, putting on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin today is no longer just a matter of custom or an added stringency; it is a Torah obligation. And he writes very sharply about the Alter Rebbe. How could the Alter Rebbe write in his siddur—he says it is inconceivable. If you look in the Alter Rebbe’s siddur, the wording is… Where was the siddur? Sorry. In the Alter Rebbe’s siddur, after Aleinu, it says, “The custom is to put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin.” So he protests: “What do you mean, ‘the custom’? Why does the Alter Rebbe write ‘the custom’? It is not a custom; it is a matter of Torah law. According to the Arizal, both pairs of tefillin carry the same obligation.” He argues that Rabbeinu Tam tefillin should even be put on with a brachah. Well, that was the Komarner. The Rebbe’s ancestor was a learned Jew, an important rabbi named Rabbi Avraham David Lavut. He was the rabbi of Nikolayev. He was the Rebbe’s great-grandfather. That is, the Rebbe’s mother, Rebbetzin Chana, was the daughter of Rabbi Meir Shlomo. Reb Meir Shlomo’s wife was named Rachel, the Rebbe’s grandmother, and her father was Rabbi Avraham David Lavut. He was a chossid of

24:59 Speaker 1 the Tzemach Tzedek, an important rabbi, and he wrote several books. One of them is called Shaar Hakollel. It appears in Siddur Torah Or, one of the familiar older Chabad siddurim. Siddur Torah Or has Shaar Hakollel at the back. Today it has also been published as a separate book. Shaar Hakollel is a book by the Rebbe’s great-grandfather, explaining the Alter Rebbe’s siddur. It is a very special book: he goes through the entire Alter Rebbe’s siddur and explains all the versions of the prayers, all the customs, and all the details the Alter Rebbe included in the siddur, and where they come from. Very, very beautiful. So in his book he cites the Komarner and, of course, writes: who is he to write so sharply about the Alter Rebbe? That is not… In short, he does bring the Komarner’s point: that today, putting on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin is not merely a chassidic custom but a matter of halachah, an obligation. He agrees with him on that as well. The Rebbe cited him fifty years ago, when the Rebbe launched the Rabbeinu Tam tefillin campaign, and that is what I want to tell you about now. Chassidim used to put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin after marriage. That was the custom. You see, before marriage, young men would put on only Rashi tefillin. To this day, that is how it is throughout the chassidic world—or most of it; I haven’t checked. There may be other chassidic groups. I think Breslov young men also put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. I’m not sure which communities do, but in most non-Chabad chassidic communities, they begin putting on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin only after marriage. Young men do not.

26:52 Speaker 1 He was a very important Rebbe, whom the Rebbe held in very high regard. The Rebbe mentioned him often. He was known as the Munkatcher Rebbe. The Rebbe knew him—Rabbi Chaim Elazar of Munkatch, who lived in the time of the Rebbe Rashab and the Frierdiker Rebbe. He was a great Jew, a holy Jew, a very great Torah scholar, and was also connected to that family, the Komarner, the Dzikover, and so on. He wrote—he has a sefer called Os Chaim VeShalom. He writes there, too, that he doesn’t understand why unmarried young men don’t put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. People think it takes a special level of holiness to put them on. But, he asks, what happens after a person gets married? Did he suddenly acquire a special level of holiness? Didn’t he have it when he was unmarried? He says quite strongly that he doesn’t understand it, but that’s the prevailing custom. He writes that in his family, a rabbinic family—the Munkatcher and Dzikover families and so on—their grandfather or great-grandfather instituted the practice of putting on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin from bar mitzvah. But he doesn’t want to change the customs. So the custom would remain that unmarried young men don’t put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin, only after marriage. In practice, until the Rebbe’s time, unmarried young men generally did not put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. In Lubavitch, they didn’t. If anyone thinks that in Lubavitch the Temimim did—they didn’t. They put on only Rashi tefillin; putting on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin was not the custom. In 5710, when the Rebbe became—actually, in 5710, immediately after the Frierdiker Rebbe’s passing, during the shivah, the Rebbe began telling stories. Those stories are recorded. If you look in Toras Menachem for 5710, the first sicha consists of stories. The Rebbe begins with many

28:57 Speaker 1 stories he told about the Frierdiker Rebbe. Among them, the Rebbe relates that the Frierdiker Rebbe instructed him to put on four types of tefillin. Yes, not only Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam, but also Shimusha Rabba and Raavad. That’s another subject. You can look into what the four types are; there are other practices and other differences involved in Shimusha Rabba and Raavad. In any case, the Frierdiker Rebbe instructed the Rebbe to put on four types of tefillin, and the Rebbe relates the details. There are also notes in the Rebbe’s own handwriting on that account. When the stories were submitted to the Rebbe, he edited them and added many notes. There are truly remarkable notes there. This is the first sicha after the Frierdiker Rebbe’s passing. The Rebbe writes an entire note there about tefillin, saying that he doesn’t understand why unmarried young men don’t put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. The Rebbe cites the Komarner, cites the Munkatcher, and gives all those references, and asks the question: Why, in fact, don’t unmarried young men put them on? He leaves the question open. Gradually, people understood that the Rebbe wanted them to put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. What became the practice in Lubavitch? The practice was to go in to the Rebbe for yechidus. The young men would go in for yechidus on their birthdays. As everyone knows, in the early years, until 5741, people would go in to the Rebbe for yechidus. So the young men would go in, and the practice was that at eighteen—usually at eighteen—they would ask the Rebbe whether they should start putting on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. Usually, the Rebbe would tell them to start. Sometimes the Rebbe would tell them to wait a little. It was a very individual, spiritual matter: there were some whom the Rebbe told to start even before eighteen, and others whom he told

30:57 Speaker 1 to wait. But generally, at around eighteen, the Rebbe would tell them to put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. The Rebbe also told a select few to do so earlier, but there was no general practice of putting them on from bar mitzvah. By the way, I heard a story from the person it happened to; he’s told it recently. One of the prominent rabbis in England, Raskin—I think his name is Levi Yitzchak Raskin—wrote a work on the siddur. He told his story: he was around bar mitzvah age, shortly after his bar mitzvah. He came to the Rebbe, in 5724 if I’m not mistaken, and went in for yechidus with his father. His father asked the Rebbe when one should begin putting on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin, or something along those lines. The Rebbe turned to the son, the bar mitzvah boy, and asked whether he was prepared to concentrate on the meaning of the words when reciting the passages, the Shema, while wearing Rabbeinu Tam tefillin—whether he was ready to take on that commitment. Well, the Rebbe said yes, he should start putting on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin right then. It was shortly after his bar mitzvah. He related that some time later, the Rebbe made this a practice for everyone. We’ll get to that in a moment. But in practice, he felt very bad. Why? Because he felt he wasn’t concentrating. At first you concentrate, but after a while you put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin and start rushing. Thinking about the meaning of the words every day as you say them was difficult for him. So the next time he was in yechidus—or perhaps he wrote

32:59 Speaker 1 a letter; I don’t know exactly how it happened—he told the Rebbe that perhaps he should stop putting on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin, because he couldn’t concentrate on the meaning of the words as the Rebbe had told him to. The Rebbe told him, “I’ll give you a suggestion, a simple suggestion: Say the passages of Shema and Kadesh while wearing Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. Say them a little louder, and when you feel your mind wandering to other things, raise your voice. That helps bring your concentration back.” The Rebbe didn’t let him off. He related that the Rebbe didn’t let him off. The Rebbe didn’t tell him, “All right, the main thing is to put on tefillin.” The Rebbe insisted that he find ways to concentrate while reciting the passages. But that was an individual case. The broader development came on Purim 5736—exactly fifty years ago now, a jubilee. At the Purim 5736 farbrengen, the Rebbe spoke about it. That was a period when the Rebbe was speaking about all the problems in Eretz Yisroel, the problems concerning the territories and so on, and the Rebbe brought about a major change. At that same Purim 5736 farbrengen, the Rebbe spoke about “light and joy and gladness and honor for the Jews and for Israel.” The Gemara says, “‘Honor’ refers to tefillin.” Tefillin have the power to help bring victory in all wars, and so on. So the Rebbe said that the time had now come for everyone to start putting on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin from bar mitzvah. And the Rebbe said that there was no longer any need to ask him. It was no longer an individual matter; it was becoming a general ruling. The Rebbe also mentioned the Komarner at that Purim 5736 farbrengen. The Rebbe said, “It is my wish”—that’s how the Rebbe put it—“It is my wish; the time has come for everyone to start putting on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin.” And the Rebbe then mentioned the

35:09 Speaker 1 The Komarno held that putting on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin is a Torah obligation, not merely a rabbinic one. But didn’t the Alter Rebbe write in the siddur that it is a custom? The Alter Rebbe does not call putting on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin a custom. He calls the practice of putting them on after davening a custom, because some people put them on during davening. There are different ways of doing it, different times and places to put them on. So the Alter Rebbe says that our custom is to put them on after davening. But as for putting on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin, the Alter Rebbe did not mean to say that it is merely a custom. It is halachah, and “both these and those are the words of the living G-d.” So when you put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin, you fulfill the Torah mitzvah of tefillin. It is not merely a rabbinic matter; it has the status of Torah law. That is what the Rebbe said then, and from that point the Rebbe went even further: it became the Chabad custom that everyone, from their bar mitzvah onward, should put on not only Rashi tefillin but Rabbeinu Tam tefillin as well. The Rebbe did say that before taking this on, a person should have his own Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. He should not take on putting them on when he does not own a pair and has to look for one, because one day he might not find one. So first buy the tefillin, and then it becomes something you do every day. One last point: this began at bar mitzvah. During the two months before bar mitzvah, boys still put on only Rashi tefillin. My bar mitzvah was in 5744, so I began putting on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin after my bar mitzvah, because the Rebbe said to start after bar mitzvah. For the two months before it, we put on only Rashi tefillin, not Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. We began Rabbeinu Tam only after the bar mitzvah, as the Rebbe had said. That

37:00 Speaker 1 was how it remained until 5749. In the summer of 5749—I remember the sicha; it was on the 13th [unclear], in Menachem Av 5749—the Rebbe spoke about this. I don’t remember in what context. Perhaps it had to do with Parshas Va’eschanan; I don’t remember. But the Rebbe mentioned in the sicha that now, in our times, since we are approaching the coming of Moshiach, we add even more light to the world: we put on not only Rashi tefillin but Rabbeinu Tam tefillin as well, beginning two months before bar mitzvah rather than only at bar mitzvah. So since 5749, the Chabad custom has been that as soon as a boy begins putting on tefillin, he begins with both Rashi and Rabbeinu Tam. Let’s end with one thought the Rebbe writes in a letter. According to Kabbalah, according to the Arizal, the difference between Rashi tefillin and Rabbeinu Tam tefillin is that Rashi tefillin are connected with the sefirah of Binah, while Rabbeinu Tam tefillin are connected with the sefirah of Chochmah. That is why Rabbeinu Tam is on a higher level than Rashi. These are called mochin d’Imma and mochin d’Abba—Binah and Chochmah. This is one reason some people place the Rabbeinu Tam tefillin on the right and the Rashi tefillin on the left, because the right is Chochmah and the left is Binah. Rabbeinu Tam belongs on the right, since Chochmah is connected with the right side, while Rashi belongs on the left, since Binah is connected with the left side. The Rebbe writes in the letter that Binah, [unclear], is more connected with the revealed dimension of Torah. Chochmah, the idea of koach mah, is more connected with the inner dimension of Torah. And since we are now at a time when we need to increase the spreading of “your wellsprings outward,” and the days of Moshiach are connected with the inner dimension of Torah, today we need to draw on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin, with the higher level of Chochmah over Binah, so that we may already merit to see the

38:54 Speaker 1 [unclear].

38:58 Speaker 3 Yes, go ahead.

38:59 Speaker 1 Yes, go ahead?

39:02 Speaker 3 What a beautiful subject—no, no.