Berakhot 054

24:
The mitzvah of wearing Tefillin is also a positive, time-specific mitzvah, since Tefillin may only be worn during daylight hours. The reasoning for women being excused this mitzvah in the Gemara becomes rather circular: women are not required to be taught Torah because the Torah says "And you shall teach them [the mitzvot] to your children" [Deuteronomy 11:19] – the word I have translated "children" in the Hebrew original is beneykhem. The Hebrew word ben means 'son, male child' but it very often is a common noun including all the offspring. Thus the familiar phrase beney Yisra'el does not indicate "the sons of Israel" but "the children of Israel" – including the womenfolk. For social and possibly psychological reasons that by now should be obvious to us, it seems that it did not occur to the sages that the phrase ve-limadetem otam li-beneykhem [Deuteronomy 11:19] would be more obviously rendered "And you shall teach them [the mitzvot] to your children"; instead they rendered the phrase "And you shall teach them to your sons" – and then drew the obvious conclusion: "'your sons', and not 'your daughters'" [Kiddushin 29b]. The late Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz used to claim that excusing women from the duty of studying Torah was inexcusable and indefensible, and that it lay at the root of all their religious woes.

25:
The second paragraph of the Shema [Deuteronomy 11:13-21] reads [verses 18-20]:

The sages reasoned thus: we have established that women are excused Talmud Torah [see paragraph #24 above]; since the mitzvah of Tefillin is mention in conjunction with the mitzvah of Talmud Torah this must indicate that women are excused from the mitzvah of Tefillin as well [Kiddushin 34a]. (What is quite striking is the fact that the mitzvah of Mezuzzah is also to be found "in conjunction" – and the sages did not excuse women from that mitzvah!)

26:
Not all the sages were of the opinion that Tefillin are a time-specific mitzvah, but it is clear that our mishnah does consider this to be the case (Tefillin are only worn during daylight hours and not at all on Shabbat and Festivals). Even if we accept the reasoning of the sages for excusing women this mitzvah, according to what we have learned so far it should be a woman's prerogative to "unexcuse" herself. Indeed, there are several mentions in our sources of women who so chose. For instance, the Gemara [Eruvin 96a] records that "Michal bat Kushi [King Saul?] used to wear Tefillin and the sages did not protest". (The Talmud of Eretz-Israel [Berakhot 4c] says that they did so protest!) Why should the sages have protested at all at a woman exercising her right to voluntarily impose this mitzvah on herself? Next to a Sefer Torah Tefillin are the most holy objects we possess. They may be worn only by someone who is clean in mind and body. Thus a man who cannot rid his mind of lascivious thoughts may not wear Tefillin on that occasion; if he is suffering from diarrhea or some similar malady he may not wear Tefillin until the problem is cleared up; uncontrollable intestinal gas is another reason for refraining from observing this mitzvah. In his commentary on the Tur, Bet Yosef, Rabbi Yosef Karo writes [Tur Oraĥ Ĥayyim 38:3]:

27:
The ConservativeMasorti position should by now be abundantly obvious. Even if we accept that women are excused from the mitzvah of Tefillin (as our mishnah says) there is no justification in preventing a modern woman who wishes to unexcuse herself from doing so: she is just as capable as a man is of observing personal hygiene. There is nothing in the Talmud to preclude a woman wearing Tefillin if she so chooses nor is there any hint that if she does so choose that the regulations that apply to her are any different from those that apply to a man. The first crack in this edifice was made by Rabbi Me'ir of Rothenburg [Western Europe, 13th century CE]. Unfortunately, there is not unanimity as to the exact wording of what he said. Did he say that women should not be permitted to wear Tefillin because they do not maintain a clean body [guf naki] or because they do not maintain a pure body [guf tahor]? If one adopts the former reading (which is perfectly reasonable) it would follow that with today's concepts of hygiene not being differently observed between the sexes, and with modern means of control over the flow of menstrual blood being virtually absolutely effective, that this objection can be completely ignored.

28:
Tefillin are small black cubical leather boxes that contain hand-written copies, written on small pieces of parchment, of the four sections of the Torah that mention the requirement of this mitzvah. To the boxes are attached black leather straps which are used to bind the boxes to the arm and around the head, and to make a sign (God's title "Shaddai" [Almighty]) on the hand. The prime source for this mitzvah is, of course, the Shema itself [Deuteronomy 6:8].

To be continued (in Berakhot 058).