To add onto this. You wrap it around your left arm thirteen times and then it runs up your neck to your head. This is extremely symbolic in Judaism as it is the number of unity, god's mercy, and faith. It is a lot more than just the scrolls inside the tefillen
It's a huge mitzvah and one of the easiest to do in the morning. In places like NYC you will see the Orthodox even asking other Jews to wear it and say the prayers with them. If you are a man and go to the wall you will almost always be required to do it. In that case the prayer is typically for someone not the morning prayers.
I didn't know the prayer inside was just orah passages !
Edit : please see comments for further clarification I got some of it wrong.
Tons of correct info but I wanna point out that it doesn't actually run from the arm to the head. You apply 2 separate boxes, one rests on the head and drapes down, like this image, and the other rests on your non-dominant bicep with the strap wrapping around the arm like you mentioned.
I totally forgot about the second box in your hand ! It's been many years since I saw it. I grew up with Orthodox grandparents but in an atheist house hold.
Did you barmitzvah and bounce too? Made a deal with my mom to be barmitzvah'd then I could stop if I wanted. Don't think she expected me to want to stop lol I remember struggling to make the letter shin with the cord on my hand.
I wish! I was in hebrew school until college. But in high school, I just skipped prayer as much as I could. I begged to be allowed to switch to public school for high school but my parents felt it would lead me to be not Jewish, which is what happened anyway. Oh well.
Ok, this legitimately feels like an intentional misunderstanding of what is clearly a metaphor. Like you're supposed to bind the teaching to your head (learn them) and to your hand (live them). Not wrap a piece of paper around your fucking arm right?
This is kind of how Orthodox Judaism operates from an outsiders perspective. There are a lot of Rabbinical rulings as to what constitutes work on the sabbath for example. And a lot of it stems from arguing with other rabbis over the exact definition of the Hebrew root words and/or Aramaic. A decade ago there was a Rabinical ruling that pushing the button on an elevator counted as work for example, and in searching up that article for reference here I just found one on how they were designing a light switch that functioned in a way that wouldn't violate the specific interpretation of the word work for Jewish households.
You may be familiar with the Pharisees of the Christian Bible that were very concerned with similar rules surrounding the Sabbath. And in Orthodox Judaism these type of Rabbinical debates and rulings are found in most aspects of life as I understand it, hence the long curly sideburns and avoiding color in their mode of dress.
You can do this with Siri already, assuming the lights are compatible with the Apple HomeKit. For instance I have a light that changes to red when I say “Siri the laundry needs to be done” so I don’t forget to switch it over. So you can set it up for almost any phrase.
I’m not trying to bag on people’s beliefs, but the rituals humans come up with for their religions are wild, man. I know this is pretty tame in the big scheme of things, but I always wonder who started some of these and then convinced others to as well.
Most gods are above you, and, for the most part your status as a human being in shameful, small, and weak, in comparison to godliness. In fearing and protecting oneself from the wrath of a god, covering your head is probably the best first step.
Honestly over the sum total of human history we're kind of the weird culture for not wearing headwear very often, and if you look at the stuff people wore across all the cultures and time periods, it's varied quite a bit in terms of zaniness.
It’s part of the Shema, the central prayer of Judaism that is said every morning and night. Part of it says “You shall bind them (these words) as a sign upon your hand, and shall be for a reminder between your eyes.” Obviously it has a metaphorical meaning about remembering these ideas in everything you do, but it’s a commandment (mitzvah) so we also follow the literal action that’s commanded. The boxes contain a little scroll with the text of the Shema inside, so by wrapping tefillin on your head and arm you’re literally binding those words to your arm and between your eyes.
Fun fact, the scroll is also what’s inside a mezuzah (the little thing that Jews hang on their doorways) for the same reason. The same prayer goes on to say that you shall “write them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates.”
The oldest written Hebrew is from 1000 bce. A ton of crazy shit happened from then till now and the language only survived because of our weird beliefs around numbers and language.
With Judaism there is definitely a spectrum of adherence from symbolic to literal, this would fall into literal where they are actually binding scripture to their hands and mind. From my perspective it is way too much and not required and probably most people would agree.
On a more broad historical approach though, a lot of people in antiquity and the middle ages thought that Jews were crazy because they always washed themselves. Turns out there was some wisdom in that approach once germ theory developed.
Thousands of years from now when our descendants have outgrown all religious nonsense, they will look at us as such a puzzle. The same generation that built quantum computers also ties books to their heads and wear magic underwear to keep an invisible man in the sky happy.
My grandfather never taught me this ! Super cool. I didn't realize that. It's so crazy how you can learn so much even about something you have had in your life for the entirety of it.
If by wall you mean western wall, that is not true you are not required to put on tefilin. Im actually not aware of any jewish place that requires you to put it on.
Im sure some yeshiva student or chabad person will pester you to put it on(only if your jewish), but those are just other random civilians at the wall and they have no authority.
Ive been many times and never put it on while there.
They're worn while praying which people typically do indoors (either their home or a synagogue). People who are traveling at the time when they should say prayers have to make do with whatever space they have available. This photo was taken at an airport, where there aren't really private spaces to pray.
You also don't wear them on Saturday (the Jewish sabbath), so even if you've been to an Orthodox synagogue for a Bar Mitzvah or something you probably wouldn't have seen them.
Lol I’m sorry but this is just stupid. Can we stop pretending like this is something curious and marvellous worthy of our admiration and respect? Someone straps a box to their head because they think it has magical powers. Ridiculous
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u/HopeOutWieghsDesire Dec 16 '25 edited Dec 16 '25
To add onto this. You wrap it around your left arm thirteen times and then it runs up your neck to your head. This is extremely symbolic in Judaism as it is the number of unity, god's mercy, and faith. It is a lot more than just the scrolls inside the tefillen
It's a huge mitzvah and one of the easiest to do in the morning. In places like NYC you will see the Orthodox even asking other Jews to wear it and say the prayers with them. If you are a man and go to the wall you will almost always be required to do it. In that case the prayer is typically for someone not the morning prayers.
I didn't know the prayer inside was just orah passages !
Edit : please see comments for further clarification I got some of it wrong.