Menachos 44a: Rav Sheishes said: Anyone who does not put on tefillin transgresses eight positive commandments (the Smag seems to have had in his text the words “every day”).
מנחות מד ע”א: אמר רב ששת: כל שאינו מניח תפילין ־ עובר בשמונה עשה (הסמ”ג במצות עשה ג’ גורס: בכל יום)
ברכות יד ע”א: אמר עולא: כל הקורא קריאת שמע בלא תפילין ־ כאילו מעיד עדות שקר בעצמו.
ר”ה יז ע”א: פושעי ישראל בגופן [שנדונים בגינהם י”ב חודש] מאי ניהו? אמר רב: קרקפתא דלא מנח תפילין.
Rabbi Dovid Tevel, author of Nachalas Dovid (1794-1861), told the following story. A wealthy man passed away, leaving a large estate. Among the possessions he left behind was a priceless pair of tefillin, written by an exceptionally pious sofer, who wrote them in a state of kedusha and purity, with painstaking concern for every detail of the relevant halachos. These tefillin were worth a fortune by themselves.
When the children came to divide up the estate, an argument arose over the tefillin. Each son wanted them and was willing to give up a part of his inheritance in order to receive them. But they could not reach an agreement on how much they were worth. Finally, they decided that rather than fight over the tefillin, they would sell them and divide the proceeds among themselves.
As long as the tefillin were in their possession, however, the brothers agreed to allow a younger brother, who was near bar mitzvah age, to use them. So the boy began putting on the tefillin, and somehow they remained with him.
He was always careful to use only these tefillin. He took them with him wherever he went and guarded them with great care. One winter, he had some business in a number of small villages, so he stayed at an inn on the road and used that as a base for trips to several nearby towns. He intended to return to the inn every night, but one day a sudden snowstorm forced him to spend the night in the home of a gentile with whom he was doing business. When he awakened in the morning, he found out that there was only one Jew in the town. He went straight to this Jew’s home to borrow tefillin and was given a very old and worn pair.
Although he was very apprehensive about putting them on – who could know who had written them – he had no alternative. At the same time, he resolved to return to the inn as soon as he could and put on his own as well. But his business kept them away all that day, and he arrived back at the inn late at night. That was the only time in his whole life that he did not put on his own precious tefillin, and he felt a sense of guilt and remorse about this lapse for the rest of his life.
The years passed and eventually, he went the way of all flesh and was called to the heavenly court to give an accounting of his life. The ledgers were opened, his deeds were examined, and an announcement was made in heaven: “This is a head that did not put on tefillin!” It turned out that the tefillin that everyone had thought to be so exceptionally holy and pure were not even kosher. And this was not a light matter: The Gemara (Rosh Hashanah 17a) says that all those who descend to Gehinom eventually rise again, except for those who sin with their bodies, i.e., those who never put on tefillin.
The Jew was terrified. Fearsome destructive angels grabbed him and were about to cast him into the depths when suddenly an angel appeared and cried out, “Leave him alone! One time he spent the night in a small village and while there, he put on kosher tefillin. He’s not someone who never put on tefillin.” It emerged that the old and worn pair he had put on that day, of which he had been so suspicious at the time, was the only thing standing between him and that terrifying judgment.
Source: The Rosh Yeshiva Remembers, p. 76
[The Smag in Mitzvas Aseh 3 relates that he traveled to Spain in the year 1136 and spoke in front of crowds of Jews to encourage them to adopt the mitzvos of tefillin, mezuzah and tzitzis. Tens of thousands accepted his rebuke and resolved to keep these mitzvos. Among his points were that:
- When Chazal say (Shabbos 49a) that tefillin require a clean body like Elisha Baal Kenafayim, that is only to wear them all the time, but to wear them during tefillah is something anyone can and should do.
- The Gemara says (Menachos 44a) that anyone who does not put on tefillin transgresses eight positive commandments every day, since there are four places in the Torah where tefillin are commanded, and in each one there is a separate commandment for the Shel Rosh and Shel Yad.
- Anyone who recites Shema without tefillin is as if he testified falsely on himself. (Berachos 14a)
- A Jew who did not wear tefillin is called a sinner with his body, and he goes to Gehinom for 12 months and then becomes ashes under the feet of the tzaddikim (Rosh Hashanah 17a). Rabbeinu Tam explains that this means only when he deliberately and rebelliously ignored the mitzvah. The Rif explains that it means only if he never put on tefillin in his life. But, says the Smag, neither Rabbeinu Tam nor the Rif can prove that his explanation is correct. Therefore, one should be stringent.
Based on the above, it seems that the Jews in the Smag’s time had been relying on the Rif and putting on tefilliin only once in a lifetime. The Smag came and convinced them that they should put them on every day.
The Smag is the reason why the protagonist of our story was so upset that he had missed a day of wearing his father’s special tefillin. In the end, the heavenly court ruled like the Rif that once in a lifetime was enough to spare him from Gehinom. But the Smag may still have been correct that the mitzvas aseh is to put them on at least once a day. Reb Dovid Tevil may not have known what happened in the heavenly court, but perhaps he just meant to say that after the man died, they checked the precious tefillin and found them posul. He added the part about the heavenly court because he, Reb Dovid, paskened like the Rif.]
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