Drash Cards for Bo (5770)

• The Torah is for every Jew at any time — that means today’s lines about tefillin are for all of us.

• Tefillin are mentioned twice  — Ch 13:9, 13:16   — what are the words surrounding them? Shmot 13:1-10, 11-16 and then

in the 40th year  after the Exodus Dvarim 6:4-9, 11:13-21 added

• The verses focus on the eternity and uniqueness of God and the miracle of the Exodus

• In the Tefillin, the arm gets one parchment, but the head — understood to have 4 chambers — 4 parchments.  Why?

• The Chazal refer to Psalm 119:10 “With all my heart I have sought you” to mean with all my 5 senses. The head has sight, hearing, taste, and smell.  The arm has touch.

• A Chassidic interpretation: Understanding the Exodus (or anything) is hard at first so we seek a general understanding; that’s the arm.  The detailed understanding comes second, in which each aspect is focussed on separately.

•  The order in which we put on the tefillin:  arm, head, hand/fingers teaches us that the way to understand anything is by first getting the big picture, the getting details, and then coming back to the big picture.

• That’s what the Tefillin teach every one of us.