God’s tefillin – Ask the Rabbi
Q. Can you explain the rabbinic idea that God has tallit and t’fillin and acts as a chazzan?
A. They are beautiful metaphors but not to be taken literally. After all, since God has no physical form, how can He put on tallit and t’fillin?
The reference to God’s tallit comes from a Talmudic passage attributed to Rabbi Yochanan where he depicts God wearing a tallit like a chazzan and showing Moses the order of the prayers (Rosh HaShanah 17b). He says that whenever Israel sin, they should pray with similar fervour, reciting the 13 Divine Attributes (Ex. 34:6-7).
The notion of God wearing t’fillin (Ber. 6a) is probably intended as an implied rebuke to people in the time of the Talmud who were lax about the mitzvah of t’fillin. The argument was, if God Himself wears t’fillin, surely you can too! Just as human t’fillin contain the Sh’ma, which affirms the uniqueness of the Almighty, so His t’fillin acclaim the uniqueness of Israel by means of the verse, “Who is like Your people Israel, a unique nation on the earth?” (I Chron. 17:21).
