Torah Teaser Question
Question: This ultimate verse of Parashat Bo seems to indicate that the act of wearing arm and head tefillin is a way to remember the exodus from Egypt. I’m curious, is that your understanding of the purpose of wearing arm and head tefillin? And if so, then why were women at first excluded from the mitzvah (until the Conservative Movement wrote a halakhic responsum in the 1980’s allowing women to wear tefillin) given that women were included in the miracle of the exodus from Egypt?
Response to Torah Teaser Question
Lesley Delia Stark
We aren't excluded from this mitzvah, just exempt from it I know we are exempt from mitzvot that must be performed at specific times of the day because of child care responsibilities and since putting on tefillin takes place when children are waking up and being fed in the morning it makes sense to exempt us but not exclude us.
Time Triggered Commandments as Conversation Pieces by Dr. Moshe Benovitz (Machon Schechter Institute)
Tefillin, tzitzit, Shema, shofar, sukkah and lulav (and perhaps the paschal offering) are thus uniquely triggered by time and time alone. It is this triggering by time alone, rather than by functional considerations, that allows these mitzvot to serve as opportunities for Torah study. One might very well say that Torah study in these cases is triggered by the fact that that the mitzvah has an "onset" that is independent of other mitzvot or considerations; it is this feature that makes the mitzvah into pure symbol, a conversation piece. This sudden onset is the true meaning of shehazman gerama (26).
וְאָמַר רַבִּי יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בֶּן לֵוִי: נָשִׁים חַיָּיבוֹת בְּמִקְרָא מְגִילָּה, שֶׁאַף הֵן הָיוּ בְּאוֹתוֹ הַנֵּס.
§ And Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi also said: Women are obligated in the reading of the Megilla, as they too were significant partners in that miracle.
שאף הן היו באותו הנס - שאף על הנשים גזר המן להשמיד להרוג ולאבד מנער ועד זקן טף ונשים וגו':
That even the women were [significant partners] in that miracle - that even the women were included in Haman's decree to kill [all the Jews], from the young to the old and the women, etc.