Posts Tagged ‘exclusiveness’
The Jewish All-Blacks – double-sided tefilin straps
- Before the new fashion for double-sided tefilin straps (black on both sides) takes hold, it is important to try to squash it, on a number of grounds.
- First, these will certainly be more expensive than the single-sided straps. So this is just one more attempt to raise the stakes in the observance game, making it an increasing burden on those of limited income to feel that they are doing justice to their religious obligations and providing unnecessary extra opportunities for those who wish to play holier-than-thou games of one upmanship.
- The Torah was given on the smallest mountain – Mount Sinai – to teach a lesson: if we all set out to climb Everst, most of us will fail, and only one or two of the fittest will be able to dance around on the top looking down on the rest. But if we all set out to climb a small hill, we can all get there: some of us will need to help others, and we will proceed at different paces – but soon we will all be able to stand there together and draw on each others’ strengths and weaknesses in worshipping God as a united whole community. So we should always be suspicious of anything that purports to set the standards of religious observance in a way designed to exclude – or likely to have the effect of excluding – being beyond the easy reach of everyone who wishes to be part of the Jewish community.
- Secondly, since we have a principle of yeridas hadoros – that the further we get from Sinai the less our religious instincts are to be trusted – we should be suspicious of anything that implies that the religious observance of former generations was lacking. If a new technological development enables us to achieve standards not available to our fathers or grandfathers, we should welcome it as they would have. But our grandfathers had black ink – if they had wanted to colour both sides of the straps they would have done.
- Thirdly, it is a halachic requirement that the straps be straight at all times when I am wearing my tefilin. At present I can quickly see when they are crooked, because the raw leather shows: with two black sides it will be more difficult to notice.
- Devotion to mitzvos is the essence of our religion. Endlessly seeking to make religious life more difficult for ourselves and others is not. (Personal chumros – stringencies – that do not impinge upon others, directly or indirectly by making them feel inadequate, are a wholly different matter.)
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