Tefillin Cases

Silver
Lemberg, Austria, ca. 1854
Hebrew inscription: For head; for hand; Isaac Meyer Segal
Gift of Jewish Cultural Reconstruction Organization
Skirball Museum

Tefillin, also called phylacteries, meaning “to guard, protect,” are a set of small black leather boxes containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah. They are worn by male observant Jews during weekday morning prayers: one on the upper arm with the strap wrapped around the arm/hand, hand and fingers; the other placed above the forehead. The obligation of tefillin is mentioned four times in the Torah, twice in the book of Exodus and twice in Deuteronomy in the Shema Yisrael prayer, the centerpiece of the morning and evening Jewish prayer services. It is in the verses of the Shema referred to as the V’ahavta that the community is reminded to remember all of the commandments and to “teach them diligently to your children and speak of them when you sit down and when you walk, when you lie down and when you rise, to recite the words of God when retiring or rising; to bind those words on thy arm and thy head, and to inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (referring to the mezuzah).