What should a person person look for when purchasing tefillin (batim, retzuos, parshios, etc..)? Thnx!
Tefillin Advice
Started by
achasshoalti
, Mar 13 2012 04:23 PM
2 replies to this topic
#2
Rabbi Shapiro
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Posted 15 March 2012 - 07:12 PM
What should a person person look for when purchasing tefillin (batim, retzuos, parshios, etc..)? Thnx!
Well first you need to know what your Minhagim are (Sefard / Ashkenaz? Ari / Bais Yosef?). Beyond that, the most important things to look for are a salesman who is honest and a Sofer who is a Yirei Shamayim. If you have those, most of your issues are solved. Without that, you're cooked no matter how knowledgeable you are in Safrus.
Once you have that, I am assuming it takes care of the Kashrus and the real important issues. Now you want Parshios that are nice, besides Kosher. Each letter has its own Hidurim, but look for letters and words that are evenly spaced and sized. Letters that are consistent in their look, that is, all the same letters look identical to each other. And look for letters that look like they are supposed to look (get a good Safrus Sefer or even a Tikun can help). In short, the more it looks like it came out of a printing press, the nicer it probably is (unless it really did come out of a printing press). If you want a shortcut, here it is: The hardest word to write nicely in Tefillin is דגנך, because those particular letters are hard to space properly with each other. Look at that word. If its four letters are Mehudar, and the word is neat, and evenly sized and spaced, the rest of the Parsha probably is nice as well (see if the chuf looks too far from the nun or the nun looks too cose to the gimel etc. - and check to see that the sofer didn't sacrifice the tzuras ha'os to space the letters nicely).
But as I said, the two main things to look for, the things that can give you the most comfort that you are buying good Tefillin, is an honest salesman and a Sofer who is a Yorei Shamayim.
#3
shaya
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Posted 16 March 2012 - 11:24 AM
The hardest word to write nicely in Tefillin is דגנך, because those particular letters are hard to space properly with each other
thats an interesting idea... thanks.
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