Pigskin for tefillin shel yad (Shabbos 28b)
The gemara says that we know you can't use non-kosher animal skin for tefillin because the shin of the tefillin is a halacha l'Moshe m'Sinai so we learn from mutar b'phicha. R' Akiva Eiger asks that this only proves tefilin shel rosh but how do you know about tefilin shel yad. The Rashash answers that there is a hekesh between tefilin shel yad and shel rosh so if the halacha is true by one then it must be true by the other. The Rashash says that this is actually a machlokes tanaim between R' Meir and R' Yehuda in Makos daf 11 if you can learn a hekesh to apply dinim that are halacha l'Moshe M'Sinai.
That seems like a good answer so why didn't R' Akiva Eiger like it? It could be that he questions the entire hekesh from tefilin shel yad to tefilin shel rosh. I don't think the gemara uses this to learn halachos one from the other. It could be that the only time R' Meir and R' Yehuda have their machlokes is if the hekesh applies in dinim d'oraysa so the question is will it also apply to halachos l'Moshe m'sinai or not. However, here the hekesh is not teaching us to learn halachos out one from the other just that as long as you're wearing tefilin shel rosh then you must be wearing tefilin shel yad also. If so then that would have no ramifications on the halacha l'Moshe m'Sinai so R' Akiva Eiger's question remains.
posted by David @ 8:01 AM
2 Comments:
Perhaps R. Akiva Eiger was objecting to Rashi's attempt to nip that objection in the bud. It seems to me that Rashi anticipates R. Akiva Eiger's question. In the Rashi D"H Shin shel t'fillin, Rashi comments that the or on the shel rosh is creased to form a shin. He then explains that to the shin is added a daled and yud through the knots of the retzuot and thus, because the shin is part of the shem hashem, it must be mutar b'phicha. Rashi's reference to the daled and yud of the knots suggests, it seems to me, that he anticipated the objection that the shin of t'fillin proves only that the shel rosh must be from a tahor animal and he believed that the knots on the t'fillin, particularly the yud on the shel yad, also required a tahor animal on the mutar b'phicha theory. It would then follow that the shel yad had to be from a tahor animal.
This, however, is an unsatisfactory answer to R. Akiva Eiger's question. First, if the knots on the t'fillin establish the requirement of mutar b'pticha, Abaye should have said so, and not merely relied upon the shin on the t'fillin for his objection. Second, if Rashi is correct that that knots are subject to the rule of mutar b'phicha, the gemara could not have concluded that R. Yosef's statement was needed to establish that the retzuot must be from a tahor animal; if the retzuot are knotted as letters of a word, they would be subject to mutar biphicha.
The obvious question is that if the knots are writing and subject to mutar biphicha, there is no need for the R. Yosef's statement to prove that the retzuot must be from a tahor animal. According to the Rashba, however, the knots are not considered writing. Rashi, it seems, would disagree with that notion.
I can't believe that is what Rashi meant. The gemara couldn't have been talking about the dalet and yud because we're not talking about the retzuos here. Rashi is only mentioning those to show that the shin on the bayis of the shel rosh is not just stam a shin but is a letter that is part of the shem Hashem.
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