Crowning the Head

Good morning everyone. Welcome back to Learn to Daven - Day 28.

Yesterday we put on the tefillin shel yad - the one on the arm, opposite the heart. Today we go up. We place the tefillin shel rosh - the one on the head - and we say a second bracha: "...who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us al mitzvas tefillin." Concerning the mitzvah of tefillin.

Now here's the question I want to start with. Why two boxes? The Torah says "u'keshartam l'os al yadecha" - bind them as a sign on your hand - "v'hayu l'totafos bein einecha" - and they shall be for a reminder between your eyes. That's Devarim, chapter 6, verse 8. One on the hand. One on the head. And the Sages teach that these two are not the same mitzvah doing the same job twice. The arm sits over the heart - the seat of feeling, of desire, of what you want. The head sits over the mind - the seat of thought, of intellect, of what you understand.

So look at what we're actually doing. We bind God to our emotions first. And then we crown our mind with Him. We're saying: my feelings serve You, and my thinking serves You. The whole person - heart and head - pointed in one direction.

But here's the part I want you to sit with. The Gemara in Berachos, on daf 6a, says something stunning about the shel rosh specifically. It quotes the pasuk "v'ra'u kol amei ha'aretz ki shem Hashem nikra alecha v'yar'u mimeka" - "all the nations of the earth will see that the name of Hashem is called upon you, and they will be in awe of you." And the Gemara asks: what is this "name of Hashem" that is called upon us? Rabbi Eliezer HaGadol answers: eilu tefillin shebarosh - these are the tefillin on the head.

Sit with that. The tefillin on your head are God's name upon you. When you crown your head with the shel rosh, you are literally wearing the Name. You become a person with God's signature on your forehead.

And that's why it goes on the head, over the mind. Because in Judaism, the mind is supposed to rule. There's a phrase the Alter Rebbe builds on in Tanya - moach shalit al halev - the brain rules the heart. The heart wants all kinds of things. The heart is loud. But a person is not meant to be dragged around by every feeling. The mind, when it's aligned with God, holds the reins. So we put the shel yad on the heart - and then we put the shel rosh, the crown, on the head above it, as if to say: the mind governs the heart, and God governs the mind.

Now one practical thing, and it's beautiful. After you tighten the shel rosh and the knot is at the back of your head, you say a line that seems out of place: "Baruch shem kevod malchuso l'olam va'ed" - Blessed is the name of His glorious kingdom forever and ever. Why there? Because halachically there's a worry - a safek, a doubt - that the act of moving from the arm to the head, or any interruption between the two brachos, might require us to "cover" the blessing, to make sure we haven't said a bracha in vain. So we add "Baruch shem" - the same words we whisper after Shema - to seal it, to remove the doubt. The Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim, in the laws of tefillin around simanim 25 through 27, lays out exactly how careful we are not to interrupt between the two.

Here's what gets me. We are so careful, so precise, about not letting a single careless word slip between binding our heart and crowning our mind. Because for those few minutes, you are assembling something whole - the full Name, the full self, heart and head - and you don't want a crack in it.

Tomorrow: we move into a brand new section - the Korbanos, the sacrifices. We'll ask the big question: the Temple is gone, so why on earth do we still say the laws of the offerings every single morning?