Beautiful down to the foot

Mid- to Late 11th Century

About This Entry

This Hebrew poem has survived in scattered fragments from the Cairo Geniza and summarizes the laws of tefillin (phylacteries), using material drawn mainly from the talmudic tractate Menaḥot. Isaac’s name appears in the acrostic, and the poem adheres to the Arabic-style quantitative metrics popularized by the Hebrew poets of al-Andalus. The reference to “splendor” in the opening line draws on the rabbinic understanding of this word, when it occurs in Ezekiel 24:17, as referring to tefillin. The name of God, Shaddai, is mentioned twice in the excerpt here; its letters are spelled out on the boxes and in the knots of tefillin.

Beautiful down to the foot, you wear the “splendor” of every nation;

may the sight of the name Shaddai be your strength.

Lend your heart and ear

to His commandments and statutes:

And it shall be for a sign upon your hand,

and for frontlets between your eyes (Exodus 13:16).

The Rock commanded. He wanted for the nation

the statute of tefillin and their laws,

And the command of how they must be made is:

“from that which is permitted to their mouths.”¹

They should not be reduced to less than one

for the hand and four for the head;²

Square, with black straps,

their decorative side on the outside.

The skins must be prepared for the sake of the commandment,

and their straps must be as wide as a grain of barley.

There is a fixed measure for their length:

to the index finger;

They must have a proper ma’abarta³ and a titura,⁴

both in accordance with their laws,

The name of Shaddai your Master

you shall place on their flat surface and tie into their knots:

And it shall be for a sign upon your hand,

and for frontlets between your eyes.

Etch their chapters, without distortion,

on parchment.

In their order of their appearance in the Book:

the four chapters of the tefillin of the hand.

If one changes the order, he has perverted

their requirements and laws.

The law is that their writing does not require

lines;⁵

But one must write and tie in the manner of the Upright One,

with tags placed on their letters;

And both of them are invalidated

if they are prepared in any of nine ways.

And you shall write them [u-ketavtam] (Deuteronomy 6:9): a complete writing [ketav tam],

but they do not have to be from a valid writing.⁶

They must be sewn with sinews

and tied with hair [see b. Shabbat 28b].

Translated by Avi Steinhart.

Notes

[It is derived from the verse: “And it shall be for a sign to you upon your hand, and for a memorial between your eyes, that the law of the Lord may be in your mouth” (Exodus 13:9) that tefillin must be prepared “from that which is permitted to your mouth,” i.e., from the hide of a kosher animal (see b. Shabbat 28b)—Trans.]

[The four chapters of the tefillin are placed in one box for the tefillin of the hand, but are divided into four compartments in the tefillin of the head.—Trans.]

[The opening on the base of the tefillin through which the straps are inserted.—Trans.]

[The base of the tefillin.—Trans.]

[Unlike mezuzot, which must be written on lines that have been pre-etched onto the parchment.—Trans.]

[Whereas a Torah scroll must be copied from a kosher text (see b. Megillah 18b.)—Trans.]

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 3: Encountering Christianity and Islam.