Monday, September 4, 2017

history - When did people stop wearing Tefilin all day?



At what point in history did most religous people stop wearing Tefilin all day?



Answer



It's not clear. Of course even today there are a few rare people who do so.


The Shulchan Aruch Orech Chaim 37:2 brings that it no longer the custom because of the difficulties of maintaining the proper focus and self-control all day, so by then (mid 1550's) it was clearly not the typical practice.


In Halacha 25 of the Rambam's Mishneh Torah Tefillin, Mezuzah, v'Sefer Torah Chapter 4 ..."a person should try to wear [tefillin] throughout the entire day, for this is the mitzvah associated with them."


The implication of "a person should try" is that this was no longer a universal custom but still something one should do if possible. He also brings down that Rav was praised for always wearing Tefillin. We don't tend to praise people for doing something that everybody does.


The notes on the page I linked to mention the following:


"the Hagahot Maimoniot relates in the name of Rav Amram Gaon:


We saw the Geonim, the heads of the court, and the giants of the previous generations... who would not remove their tefillin until after... the Shema of the evening service." Which implies that during the time of the Gaonim only the leading Torah scholars followed this practice.


I would suppose that the practice of wearing Tefillin all day slowly died out over time until sometime during the era of the Rishonim when even Gedolim no longer followed it.



No comments:

Post a Comment

periodic trends - Comparing radii in lithium, beryllium, magnesium, aluminium and sodium ions

Apparently the of last four, $\ce{Mg^2+}$ is closest in radius to $\ce{Li+}$. Is this true, and if so, why would a whole larger shell ($\ce{...