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orion Chanukah and Tefillin



The decree of Chanukah was promulgated by the rabbinic leaders of the time.
You may call them rabbis in a generic sense, sages, pharisees, but the
point remains the same, that the "literalists" never accepted ordinances
for practices that could not be traced directly to the Torah. This was the
point of contention making them *minim* - sectarians. As far as tefillin
are concerned, there were always different variations to the arrangement of
the parchments, and as to the size of the boxes. As I remember, the Qumran
boxes were very small. The Yemenite Jews had a tradition of very small
tefillin to be able to wear both "rabbenu Tam" and "Rashi" tefillin
simultaneously. In any case, the appearance of tefillin in Qumran still
raises the question as to what sectarians would be doing with objects
identified as those little boxes by the rabbinic/pharisaic "rabbis."

David Goldman
Free-Lance Translator
davic@erols.com
For private reply, e-mail to David Goldman <davic@pop.erols.com>
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