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I just met a young man who is a new ba’al teshuvah. He had a horrible upbringing and spent time in prison. He turned his life around 180 degrees and is now Shomer Shabbos, etc. he puts on tefillin that were given to him by a non religious relative. They are the pshutos type that non-religious Judaisc stores used to sell. I doubt they were ever kosher.
1. Can he assume kashrus and continue using them with a bracha or
2. Is there a tefillin gemach that could lend him a pair. He has little money and is saving to go study in Yeshivah in Israel.
Any thoughts?
Does he know they’re Passul?
There is nothing wrong with wearing dakos peshutos. They are just less durable than gasos. I recently checked a pair of peshutos made in Europe before WWII which were in beautiful condition, both batim and parshiyos. If you get my email address from the mods I will be happy to check this man’s tefillin at a discount and make any repairs needed. If parshiyos need to be replaced we can talk.
Regarding the bracha, unless you see something obviously wrong on the outside, you can continue making the bracha on chazaka.
Hard to tell from a written description, but that sounds legal if it was the shel yad. “Peshutos” means plain i.e. without added hidurim like “or echad.” In my limited experience (I’ve been studying safrus approximately 6 months) a shel yad peshuta (singular of peshutos) is made of three or four pieces of leather.
B’H I possess 2 pairs of Tefillin:- I keep 1 pair at my Synagogue, and the other pair at home. This way I don’t have to carry them every day, nor all day if I go from Shul to work or elsewhere, and yet know if I oversleep the next morning, I have a pair at home.
It also takes off all pressures, when having a pair of Tefillin checked. No rush for crack of dawn the next morning.
If it originated from a non-religious relative it has NO Chezkas Kashrus. It should not be worn and no Beracha may be said. There are no lack of Passul Tefillin on the market and no Rov Kesheiros
1. Can he assume kashrus and continue using them with a bracha or
Go with hello99’s answer.
2. Is there a tefillin gemach that could lend him a pair. He has little money and is saving to go study in Yeshivah in Israel.
There are. Post where you live and maybe some helpful cr readers can help make a connection.
If it originated from a non-religious relative it has NO Chezkas Kashrus. It should not be worn and no Beracha may be said. There are no lack of Passul Tefillin on the market and no Rov Kesheiros
There’s also no lack of anonymous posters offering opinions that may or may not be correct.
YehudaTzvi – find a Rav and ask!
1- A non-religious relative gave it to him. That does not mean it was written by a non-religious (or non-Jewish, that happens too) sofer.
2- The chazaka I was using was not based on rov kesheiros. It was based on chazaka d’me’ikara since it was checked once. @YehudaTzvi, if that was not the case, please let me know.
Many of the kiruv organizations have people who donate either money or teffilin specifically for baalei tshuva, have him contact one of these groups and I’m sure someone will be able to help him out, he just needs to be proactive.
A few people have mentioned it already that one cannot assume they are kosher, and I am betting that probably they are not.
I know Lubavitch go out to have people put on tefillin. They approached me last Sunday, with baseball cap, at Six Flags. They may even give a pair away, although I am not promising.
And to avoid controversy about Lubavitch, to me they are wonderfully Jewish and do wonderful kiruv to those severely unaffiliated in the most remote of places.
It is commendable how quick everyone is to spend communal tzeddaka dollars before finding out whether or not they are kosher.
ItcheSrulik: 1) Agreed it doesn’t necessarily mean the Sofer wasn’t acceptable, but it also means we have no presumption that he was either. Consequently, no Chezkas Kashrus.
2) Is pure speculation. Furthermore, even if it was checked, I am not aware of any inspection that can determine if the scribe was Jewish, Shomer Shabbos and Lishma.
hello99: When I started learning these halachos I was told ein machzikinan b’isura. The sefarim do not bring any such chazaka even though such tefillin were very common for a very long time. It is lishma unless proven otherwise even if they were — my teacher had this shaila, though they were pasul for other reasons — bought at a flea market from someone (idk whether Jewish or not) who found them in his basement. If we needed proof positive that the sofer was writing lishma at that moment, no one’s tefillin would be kosher.
ItcheSrulik: As mentioned above, there isn’t any reliable way of determining their Kashrus.
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