I was learning Daf lamed daled amud beis I believe and i came across the discussion of the order of the parshios of teffilin. I was aware of the famous machloces of rashi and rebbeinu tam regarding the order in which they are to be position in the ba'atim of the shel rosh but i wanted to see for myself where there was room for arguement. I went through the gemara and rashi and i understood rashi's pshat quite well. I had one question on rashi's pshat and i noticed i was mechaven to tosafos's question that if the parshios are positioned as rashi says it (kadesh, vehaya ki, shema, and vehaya) then why did the gemara have to say "to the right..and to the left" it should have just said "from the right side put the parshios as follows" and it doesn;t have to say anything about the left. Then i saw tosafos' pshat. I wanted to know why no one learns that the teffilins parshios are not positioned as follows: (say kadesh=1, vehaya ki=2, shema=3, vehaya=4 for clarity sake) To understand the gemaras words of "on the right..and on the left" i think it makes sense that one must look at it from the middle. If you start from the middle then it makes alot of sense to say right and left. For example, the parshios are four.
The parshios should be position as follows on the right put 1 then 2, and on the left, put 3 and 4 and i think the teffilin should look like this:
4 3 1 2 (on the right of center, 1 and 2...and on the left of center 3 and 4) Why is it that no one says this pshat which to me makes alot of sense to fit the gemaras lashon??? (note: many are not gores "vekoreh koreh kesidron)
Also, do the teffilin have to be WRITTEN in order (shel rosh) according to any shitos?
Thanks!!!
Levi Pine, brooklyn, USA
To quote one of my former Rosh Kollel's: "I would agree with you, if what you are saying was true." Let me explain. As you yourself noted, the text of "k'Sidran" doesn't lend itself to your explanation. Combine this with the fact that any Rishon who said an explanation in our Gemara was wearing Tefilin with the Parshiyos in the appropriate order. It is clear that Rabeinu Tam had many proofs, and brought support from Ge'onim, in order to explain his opinion. The Gemara's text of "right and left" is not even that difficult to answer for Rashi (see the Yavetz who says the Gemara was merely dividing the Parshiyos from Shemos from the Parshiyos in Devarim). Accordingly, it does not seem plausible that to possibly better suit the Gemara's terminology one would say a Peshat, even though it fits, that is simply not true and has no Mesorah. [If the Gemara's discussion was about something less practical, I would tend to think someone would say your explanation.]
The Tefilin (both Shel Yad and Shel Rosh) have to be written in order as well (see Remah 32:1 and Mishnah Berurah 32:2, see 34:1 regarding order of writing according to Rabeinu Tam).
All the best,
Yaakov Montrose