PRAYER · SHEMA · 5 OF 6
Signs and doorposts
The paragraph’s words are taught and spoken, bound and written. Read the final two verses alongside our tradition’s concrete account of tefillin and mezuzah.
In this lesson
Recognize the mitzvot behind the words
A mitzvah is a commandment; mitzvot is the plural. Tefillin are the leather housings containing written Torah passages that we place on the head and arm. A mezuzah is a parchment scroll containing Torah passages, fixed at a doorway, usually within a protective case.
These objects belong to Jewish life as acts of service to Hashem, God. We will learn to connect them with the Torah’s wording and explain what they contain. For the hands-on practice of obtaining, checking, placing and using them, learn with a knowledgeable rabbi or teacher and a qualified sofer, a scribe trained in writing sacred texts.
This lesson continues Teach and speak the words. Keep its question in view: what happens to “these words” as the paragraph unfolds?
Notice actions, objects and locations
Deuteronomy, also called Devarim, is the fifth book of the Torah, the five books of Moshe. In chapter 6, “these words” are placed upon the heart, taught and spoken. The next verses continue:
וקשרתם לאות על ידך
והיו לטטפת בין עיניך.Bind them as a sign upon your hand,
and let them be frontlets between your eyes.וכתבתם על מזזות ביתך ובשעריך.
Write them upon the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
אות, ot, means a sign. “Frontlets” renders טטפת, totafot, the Torah’s term associated in our tradition with the head tefillin. מזזות, mezuzot, means doorposts in this verse. The name mezuzah also identifies the sacred scroll fixed there.
On a page, put “bind,” “be” and “write” on separate lines. Beside each, record what is involved and where the verse places it. Leave a question mark beside any detail the two verses do not themselves specify.
1. Why does “them” matter in both “bind them” and “write them”?
It connects these commands to the “words” introduced in verse 6 and taught and spoken in verse 7. The paragraph does not leave those words behind when it reaches the body and the house.
That connection is visible in the paragraph. To learn the complete contents and form of tefillin and mezuzah, we also turn to the received teaching preserved by our sages.
2. Which details can you point to in these verses, and which require another source?
The verses give binding, a sign, hand, frontlets between the eyes, writing, doorposts and gates. They do not enumerate all the Torah passages written inside the objects or describe their manufacture.
Keep the Torah’s “upon your hand” and “between your eyes” distinct from a practical placement lesson. Rambam’s code below describes the received practice in terms of head and arm; reading the two together teaches us more than treating the English wording as a diagram.
Read a code’s account of tefillin
Rambam, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, organized Jewish law in the Mishneh Torah. A code arranges teachings by subject so their requirements can be studied together. His Laws of Tefillin, Mezuzah and Torah Scroll begins by identifying the texts used in tefillin.
He names four passages by their opening words: Kadesh li, “Set apart for me”; Vehayah ki yevi’akha, “When he brings you”; Shema, “Hear”; and Vehayah im shamoa, “If you listen.” They are found in Exodus 13 and Deuteronomy 6 and 11. He then says:
הן שנכתבות בפני עצמן, ומחפין אותן בעור, ונקראין תפילין; ומניחין אותן על הראש, וקושרין אותן על היד.
These are written separately, covered with leather and called tefillin; they are placed on the head and bound on the arm.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
Here “separately” concerns the designated passages written for tefillin, apart from a complete Torah scroll. This excerpt does not explain the different internal arrangements of the head and arm tefillin. Its contribution to our reading is already substantial: actual written Torah passages, leather coverings, and placement on the head and arm.
3. Someone has learned Deuteronomy 6:4–9 and says, “Now I know every passage written in tefillin.” What needs changing?
The first Shema paragraph is one of four passages named by Rambam, not their complete contents. His opening list also includes two passages from Exodus 13 and the passage beginning “If you listen” in Deuteronomy 11.
A better statement is: “I know one of the Torah passages written in tefillin, and I can identify it in Rambam’s account.” That is a real learning gain without confusing one part with the whole.
Distinguish scroll, case and doorpost
In 1:2, Rambam identifies the mezuzah’s two passages as Shema and Vehayah im shamoa, from Deuteronomy 6 and 11. In 5:1, he describes writing them on one sheet. Later he distinguishes the written scroll from its container:
ואחר שגוללה, מכניסה בשפופרת של קנה או של עץ או של כל דבר
After rolling it, one puts it into a tube of reed, wood or another material.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
The section continues by describing its attachment at the doorpost. What is rolled is the written scroll. What receives it is a container. What the whole arrangement is fixed to is the doorpost. Those are three related things, not three names for the same object.
4. A friend points to an empty decorative case and asks, “Is this the text of the Shema?” How would you explain what is missing?
The case can house the mezuzah scroll, but it is not the written passages. Rambam identifies two passages and then describes rolling the written scroll and placing it in a container. An empty case does not become those passages by carrying a Hebrew letter or an attractive design.
We can appreciate the case’s beauty while learning to recognize the sacred writing it is meant to hold.
5. Compare tefillin and mezuzah with one shared feature and two differences, naming your source.
Shared feature: both contain written Torah passages, including the first Shema paragraph. Contents: Rambam 1:1 names four for tefillin; 1:2 names two for mezuzah. Setting: 1:1 places tefillin on head and arm; 5:6 describes the mezuzah at the doorpost.
These observations come from Rambam’s code. Deuteronomy 6:8–9 supplies the commands’ biblical wording, but it does not itself list the four-versus-two distinction.
Let the doorway call you back
Rambam closes his discussion of mezuzah by explaining the encounter it makes possible each time we enter or leave:
וכל עת שייכנס וייצא, יפגע בייחוד שמו של הקדוש ברוך הוא
ויזכור אהבתוWhenever one enters or leaves, one encounters the oneness of the name of the Holy One, blessed be he
and remembers love for him.
English rendering by Messianic Yeshiva
The rest of his explanation describes awakening from distraction and returning to an upright path. The mitzvah calls for a person’s response: encounter, remember, return. We hear again the first paragraph’s oneness and love, now at the threshold of the home.
Here is a worked reading. “A mezuzah can remind us of Hashem” is supported by Rambam’s “remembers love for him.” “Therefore remembering replaces the written scroll” does not follow. The same code has already described the writing and fixing of the mezuzah. Meaning deepens the act rather than erasing it.
6. Try the opposite claim: “Once a mezuzah is present, attention and conduct no longer matter.” Which part of Rambam’s explanation challenges it?
Rambam describes a person remembering, awakening from distraction and returning to an upright path. The mitzvah brings those responsibilities into view. His explanation is not permission to stop paying attention or a promise that the object acts in place of the person.
The written scroll and the responsive life belong together. Avoid reducing the mitzvah either to an object with no claim on us or to a feeling with no commanded act.
Recall the words beneath the objects
With the source cards covered, say what “them” refers to, how tefillin and mezuzah differ, and why a case is not the scroll. Then recall the two words from the paragraph that Rambam brings into his account of the doorway.
8. Check your recall.
“Them” carries forward the commanded words. Tefillin contain four passages and are placed on head and arm; mezuzah contains two passages and is fixed at a doorway. A case contains the written scroll; it is not the writing itself.
Rambam’s doorway explanation returns to oneness and love. Those themes connect the physical mitzvah with the opening of the paragraph. Reopen one source for any part you could not explain confidently.
Return to the sources
- Deuteronomy 6:4–9: the words and the commands to bind and write.
- Rambam, Laws of Tefillin, Mezuzah and Torah Scroll 1:1–2: tefillin’s four passages and mezuzah’s two.
- Chapter 5:1, 6: the written mezuzah and its container at the doorway.
- Chapter 6:13: remembrance when entering and leaving.