R Ethan Tucker - Women Wearing Tefillin

«The Mekhilta makes a number of key points. First, it anchors the exemption from tefillin in an exemption from the obligation to study Torah. [This same linkage is affirmed on Talmud Bavli Kiddushin 34a.] This is the first thing we must understand: Tefillin is not a mitzvah anchored in prayer; it is a mitzvah anchored in the obligation to learn. Perhaps more powerfully: those who wear tefillin are entrusted with a microcosmic Torah that they place on their bodies. It doesn't make sense for someone who does not share equally in the burden of the intellectual and spiritual core of Torah study to be obligated in its physical corollary. If that wasn't clear enough, the final line of the Mekhilta passage above emphasizes that learning Torah and wearing tefillin are essentially the same thing; indeed, one who is truly learning is exempt from wearing tefillin while doing so!»

Gender and tefillin: Possibilities and consequences | Ethan Tucker | Ops & Blogs | The Times of Israel
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/gender-and-tefillin-possibilities-and-consequences/


Kol Tuv,
RRW