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They're called Totafot in the Torah, so why do we call them Tefilin?

msh210
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zaq
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3 Answers3

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Totafot is Hebrew Tefilin is Aramaic

Why there is no revival to call them Totafot, you'd have to be Gd to know why. Maybe because most of the people who like to bring back hebrew weren't themselves particularly religious. Or because Totafot only applies to the Tefilin shell Rosh... but still, nobody calls the tefilin shell rosh Totafot either.

avi
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    Isn't it unusual that even the brochos use the Aramaic? – yoel Aug 11 '11 at 14:59
  • It doesn't seem all that unusual to me. Kadish is in Aramaic, the passages we say before removing the Torah from the ark is in Aramaic. Parts of Tanach are written in Aramaic. – avi Aug 15 '11 at 10:30
  • @avi: was there ever a time when Tefillin were called Totafot? – Menachem Aug 15 '11 at 12:30
  • Menachem, sadly we will never know. Did B'nei Yisroel call them Tefilin or Totafot in the desert? We will never know. We only know that Onkelos translates Totafot as Tefilin, and its used that way in the Mishna as well. – avi Aug 15 '11 at 18:11
  • @avi, can you think of any other brocha that uses Aramaic? – yoel Aug 16 '11 at 06:38
  • berich shemey. is the only one I can think of. – avi Aug 16 '11 at 10:32
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    @yoel, how about the berachah on blossoming trees? It's got שלא חיסר בעולמו כלום (where in Biblical Hebrew the last word would be דבר - and indeed I think there are some versions that say that instead), and ואילנות טובות, which is definitely an Aramaism (the Biblical Hebrew equivalent would be ועצים טובים). – Alex Aug 16 '11 at 17:28
  • Nice! I guess it never occurred to me that those weren't just Mishnaic Hebrew. The only one I could think of was d'hai pita but that might not count. – yoel Aug 16 '11 at 17:43
  • If you downvote something, please give a reason... – avi Nov 03 '11 at 13:32
  • I downvoted because it didn't answer the question. The question is, to paraphrase, 'Why do we call them Tefillin instead of the word used in the Torah (Totafoth)?' Your answer is, again, in paraphrase, 'I don't know the answer to your question.' Sorry, I'm sure that's not how you meant it, but that's just how I see it. – Seth J Nov 21 '11 at 19:07
  • The blessing on Eruvin also is in Aramaic, right? – Adam Mosheh Jun 12 '12 at 16:48
  • @AdamMosheh No. על מצות עירוב is all Hebrew AFAIK. – Double AA Feb 03 '13 at 18:11
  • avi, isn't Totafot actually Afrikanas or whatever and not Hebrew? – Double AA Feb 03 '13 at 18:12
  • @yoel How about על פדיון נטע רבעי? I'm not so sure רבעי is Hebrew. Also על נטילת לולב, the Hebrew being כף תמר. – Double AA Feb 03 '13 at 18:13
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    @DoubleAA Afrikanas? Do you mean ancient Egyptian? Afrikanas is a dutch language that they speak in South Africa. – avi Jan 30 '14 at 07:03
  • @avi It's called "Afrikaans". :) – ezra Feb 28 '18 at 20:00
  • @avi do you happen to have a source for your answer? – alicht Feb 21 '19 at 05:49
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    @alicht Onkeles – avi Feb 21 '19 at 11:00
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In addition to Avi's answer, that "t'fillin" is the Aramaic targum of "totafot," in the Torah "totafot" is used to refer to the shel rosh, and "ot" refers to the shel yad.

In the Mishnah (and therefore in the Talmuds) "t'fillin" is used for both the shel yad and shel rosh; the singular is "t'fillah." My feeling is that the reason everyone calls them "t'fillin" nowadays is because everyone called them "tf'illin" back then, also.

Some sources for t'fillin in the Mishnah (not an exhaustive list!):

JXG
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I would venture to say that since Tefilin was originally meant to be worn all day, which we do not do as we can not keep our D'aas on them, now we only wear it by Tefila, that is why it is called Tefilin.

Gershon Gold
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  • Those who say we wear it all day, also called/call it Tefilin. – avi Aug 15 '11 at 10:31
  • Pardon me - however do you know of more than 3 people that wear it all day? – Gershon Gold Aug 15 '11 at 14:02
  • @Gershon, maybe not nowadays, but they did in the era of the Mishnah - and yet they're consistently called "tefillin" there. – Alex Aug 15 '11 at 14:27
  • However even then it was not the Hamon Am only Yechidei Segula – Gershon Gold Aug 15 '11 at 14:40
  • The ruling was made that we don't wear it all day anymore. So that means at some point in History, they wore it all day. When the ruling was passed down, they didn't call them Totafot. – avi Aug 15 '11 at 18:18
  • @Gershon, I don't know that it was necessarily only yechidei segulah. Consider that the Gemara (Bava Metzia 105b) has halachos for someone who is carrying a load on his head while wearing tefillin, one such case being "a load of manure." Granted that the chachamim worked at manual labor, this sort of scenario probably would have been more common with the general population. – Alex Aug 15 '11 at 21:44
  • @GershonGold The Zilberman yeshiva in the old city has all their students wear tefillin all day long. http://www.ou.org/jewish_action/03/2010/the_zilberman_method/ – avi Jan 30 '14 at 07:02