Hashem's Tefillin

An old post worth repeating...

The gemara [ברכות ז] teaches that Hashem showed Moshe the knot of His tefillin shel rosh. This is a DEEP gemara, pregnant [bishaa tova!!] with mystical significance.

But I will leave that for the mystics....

More simply [but mamesh pilei plaos]: The Rambam in hilchos tefillin [3/13] states that it is not possible to explain how the knot of the tefillin looks unless one actually sees it [here, a picture says even more than a thousand words]. Maran HaRav Hutner [Maamarei Pachad Yitzchak 88]  explains that the source for the Rambam is our gemara where Hashem SHOWED Moshe the knot of His tefillin.

Gevaldik.

But there is more.

The Brisker Rov [known affectionately as the "Griz"] asked why the Rif quotes this gemara when all the Rif tries to do is teach practical halacha. This gemara is agadic and has no practical import so the Rif should not have mentioned it? Based on what we just learned we understand perfectly well what the Rif was trying to teach us. Namely, exactly what the Rambam taught, that one must SEE the knot in order to understand what it looks like.

More gevaldik.

But there is yet more:-).

The gemara [6a] says that when the goyim see the tefillin shel rosh of the Jewish people they will be instilled with fear of them ויראו כל עמי הארץ כי שם השם נקרא עליך ויראו ממך- אלו תפילין של ראש We see from this that tefillin shel rosh gives people greater insight into the essence of the person wearing them.

The [6a] asks what is written in the tefillin that Hashem wears. Apparently this is a difficult question. Wht can't we just assume that whatever is written in our tefillin is written in Hashem's tefillin? The gemara understands that it is axiomatic that Hashem's tefillin will have different parshiyos than ours do. The answer is that as we said, the tefillin give greater insight into the essence of the one wearing them. Thus, Hashem's tefillin are going to say something about Hashem while our tefillin will say something about us. We understand now that it is self evident that Hashem's tefillin will have a different message than ours.

The message of our tefillin is that שם השם נקרא עליך - We are a G-dly people. What is the message of Hashem's tefillin? מי כעמך ישראל. Who is like my Jewish people! That's what it's all about. Hashem loves us and [as the tefillin themselves] he is bound to us, just as we love him and are bound to him [as expressed by the parshiyos of shema in our tefillin].

Rashi in our sugya [7b] explains that when Moshe saw the tefillin of Hashem he was zoche to ותמונת השם יביט - Seeing the face of Hashem, kiviyachol. In that same section in the Torah [parshas ki tisa] he was given the 13 middos harachamim which also give us greater insight into Hashem.

We should be zoche to connect to the message of our tefillin  - and of Hashem's.

SWEEEETTTTT!!!

[Based on the sefer Marbeh Bracha simman chof from my teacher Rav Yaakov Dovid Homnick Shlita]