The complete guide to buying Tefillin

Many are who want to buy fancy tefillin

For the son or grandson or who decided to upgrade and buy themselves tefillin news Rashi or R.A.T. but they are embarrassed and cannot find their hands and feet in these matters do not always understand the tefillin types and the large price gaps in between and sometimes receive contradictory and contrary advice

Tefillin Houses – To understand how to choose houses we will describe the process of creating houses from the beginning, with questions and other emphasises raised at each stage

Sweet or salty skin – After slaughtering, skins are skinned (with a knife or by inflating with air pressure) The difference between the methods is more concerning for the part of the skin intended for peeling sheets of peeling them from the remains of the meat that have been infected with them, leading them to israel for further processing or alternatively leading them to another factory abroad for processing lime and initial attraction and then sending them to Israel.

Skin types – Most skins come from abroad from slaughterhouses owned by gentiles and today most slaughters are concentrated abroad from countries such as Brazil Argentina, France, holland, Poland, and from there bring most skins to cards and tefillin houses, there are of course also slaughters in the country from which skins are transported for processing, recently some bring skins from African countries, have better and better skins, the basic quality of the skin will be reflected in the length of life The quality is measured in strength and thickness is whether it is fibrous and soft or rigid, it is common to say that the red skins (even after the finish of making the house) are better and stronger, but nowadays some manufacturers are aware of it and smarter and take simpler skins and add food coloring to them in the production process so that at the end of the process red skin is obtained that is not quality, in fact the skins from South America are better, and skins made in the country are less quality But to determine which skin is better or less, only a professional specializing in manufacturing and making houses can determine.

Until processing time you need to keep the skins that will not break down and pout and we follow that have not started the processing process in order to preserve them there are two means to preserve the skins. By salting – Similar to the salinity of the meat intended for eating, when the salt skin is salted, the liquid is removed from the skin cells, the lack of fluid reduces the possibility of reproduction of the bacteria in the skin, spreading the salt from the meat side, and putting the skins in salt for about twenty days, then lowering the salt with a brush, but not all of it, thus packing the skins into the shipment. Or keep it by freezing. Each method has a virtue and a disadvantage, in salting earners that can be brought large quantities usually delivered on a regular ship and also do not need to be worked on immediately and can wait a week two weeks until processing but there is a disadvantage that salinity is done by gentiles and some say that already here begins the processing process and if so should salt the skins to its name. In freezing the quantities are smaller and the costs are greater that send them in an airborne transport or on a refrigerated ship but earn that the houses have been made to its name from the beginning by all accounts, which is what the manufacturers call sweet skin because it is not salty (the opposite of salty sweet) [even in skins originating in the country there are slaughterhouses that do salt so that this problem can not be solved if the Jew keeps torah and commandments that know what "for the sake of the sanctity of Tefillin" will do the salting.

On Saturday [3] it is annotated that the salinity of the skin is in general its processing, and so is Maimonides[4] that the salinity of sex processing is and should be done anyway as the rest of the skin processing done to its name and the VISION[5] wrote regarding the processing of the strips that if he salted the skins not for her name it is possible that it is irredeemable and indeed in the strips that needed processing for the gss regarding the skins of the houses.

Although Maimonides believes that the skin of the houses should not be processed at all, and therefore his method does not need processing for her name and ruled in the Shoah (Les) that if the processing can be done to her name, and wrote in the court that this processing does not go to Moses masini, the second hand he believes that the salinity does not count as part of the processing (SEC) and is proven from the illuminator that the salt role in the processing only excludes the moisture and is not a guard.

And that's why The Conclusion has extra compilation here, but there are things that are important and preceding it as we'll explain below.

Bechor – Recently developed in the country trading salted skins small and private interfaces that are also slaughtered pirated, these skins are very difficult to find out if there is no problem with the premiers [i.e.: an innocent behemoth reactor has the sanctity of a victim, so all that is not properly battled is forbidden is with pleasure and must not be used for the production of tefillin], A.S.A. in large slaughterhouses known to the mehadrin market or a slaughterhouse that is only bereft of gentiles there. Interestingly, we will add that even if the beast has been slaughtered or died, it is permitted to be used for the production of tefillin even though it is forbidden to eat because it is finally a species that is permitted in your mouth, although some have written to citrus to take skin from a behemoth that has been slaughtered.

Thickness of skins – There are some methods of production and each manufacturer prefers a different skin thickness, the thicker the process is slower and needs more drying and wetting and takes longer, and the harder work because the skin is less flexible, large factories prefer thinner skin that ranges from half mm to 10 mm so the work is easier and faster.

The difference for us is whether the houses will last twenty or thirty years, as well as a thick leather house is more stable and if it falls or gets hit the damage will be smaller and the possibility of repairing it will be better. Of course, for those who guard their homes well and do not suffer from excessive sweating, etc., the difference is more dwarfed.

Even after the production of houses you can feel the thickness of the skin according to the greater relative weight that houses have made of thick skin.

Lime skin processing – The processing of the skin is necessary to give the skin long-term protection against the activity of bacteria, etc. that can cause the skin to be matranched and deactivized.

A day or two before processing (depending on the weather) the caretaker arrives at the workshop to check the packaging of shipments coming from abroad, then unpacks the boxes and flattens the skins for thawing (of course it is sweet skins because the salty skins do not need freezing), when they deserve to start the processing comes again the caretaker and makes sure they are indeed the skins that have been thawed. and confirms the start of the processing operation.

When the skin reaches the factory, it is washed well from the salt, because the salt interferes with the production of the houses, since it causes moisture storage, which weakens the house the most (which is further proof that the salt is not used as an active part of the processing process).

Then they put it in pools of water for initial softening in this process, and the arbiters discussed whether the skins should be given to the water "for the sanctity of tefillin."

Then you put the skin in the lime for two or three weeks, the lime breaks down all the fats, destroys the cells inside it, the skin punctures open up, and he's ready to get the following processing materials, Nowadays, more spicy material is inserted to lower the hairs (Churchill) and there are three ways to process the first option is to process the skins in a large drum containing about 1000/1500 skins that fill it with water and then lime powder and involve them and then put them in the hand The skins into the prepared lime and say for the sanctity of tefillin, after a while the lime sinks and needs to be mixed, and if they do not continue to mix it the skins will rot and since the drum is large and heavy involve it with an electric motor, inside the drum there are bumps and zests that lift the skin and toss the skin The same back into the lime has spacing because the skin processes better because that's how the fats on the skin break down better and some have provoked that there's a disadvantage to processing its name since some of the processing is done by the power of electricity ,

The second option is that some use the same method but a smaller drum containing about 100/150 skins and mix it manually by Manuela.

 The third option to process in a small pool of lime containing 30 – 40 skins and this is the more elegant processing that all processing is done by hand without machinery.

On the other hand, we have already mentioned Maimonides' opinion that the house rate does not need processing at all, but many of the arbiters disagree with it. And yet also to know that it is edicted because the processing was started by Israel what continued the processing by a machine no worse than a gentile who continued the action in which it is presented in the arbiters that it is possible to do so whether it is said that the mixing by electricity is degrading or not

The conclusion of the things that such processing dates back to the hand and the continuation by kosher electricity to begin with and there is a bit of extra compilation in the processing that is all manual and although the main part of this is discussed is more concerning about the processing of the card and therefore these things are also supposed to be in relation to the parchment of the affairs that we will talk about later there is greater importance to the handmade card.

From the beginning of the processing phase to the completion of the house, the skins and the doors are marked with special markings, to make sure that they have not been replaced by others, and to follow each house by itself

 Cleansing and preparation – After processing the lime remove the skins and transfer them in a special machine to remove the leftover meat and hairs, then iron the skin with an electric machine. These actions can be done even by a gentile because it is not part of the processing but rather cleansing the dirt and preparing technical preparation of the skin.

Returning the skin to the water containing acid, For two purposes, one is to abolish the retention power of the lime and the other in preparation for receiving the chromium: this is because some of the production processes use heat that reaches 100 degrees Celsius along with its press in the 'reward' the use of lime under these conditions is not appropriate, because the lime does not restore status in such a high heat on the other hand you need a material that will be used as a skin processor and therefore use lime then neutralize it and then add 'chromium' through which the main processing is done. In order for the chromum to enter all the thickness of the skin, rotate the barrel for a while, then add a substance that eliminates the strength of the acid. Some add even astles. The aches give the skin a brown look but if we cut the skin it appears that in the middle of its thickness there is a blue green color, this color is created by the action of the chrome

Cutting the skin – Cut the skin in the shape of a tee for the tefillin of the head and square sex for the tefillin of a hand, in this situation we reached the soft skin like plasticine with the texture of hard rubber and cut and easily shaped.

Summary of compilations from the slaughter stage until the processing is complete

Turning the skins into houses – "making the bolex" takes the skin and transfers it to a prize that strains the skin and gives it a form of four bumps as a kind of cup and it is called first attraction. Leave the skin to dry out and then wet the skin and make a second tug again drying and wetting and making a third pull between the strokes begin to reduce the spacing between the bumps that will approach and so slowly the shape of the house = meatballs

Holes – During stretching of the skin there may be a possibility that a hole will be created in one of the houses and for this reason an expert examination is required if during the withdrawals a hole is created to lower the house and rule it out even though most of the law if there is one hole between the houses the house is kosher like But nowadays even one guy is aggravated, fearing that in the process later on there will be an unwitting hole that is unseen and therefore there are two holes in the house and in certain situations the house will be disqualified without our knowledge that the house is incompetent which is not so if we have disqualified the house All that is said is that one black person does not rule out the house, which means only the hole made between the houses, but a hole that looks pressed rules out even one hole.

Even later in the production at various stages we test the houses for certain that no hole was created in them by examining an expert against the light and other methods.

One skin – three types of houses made from one skin are usually made of ordinary fortification the house does not come out of one piece but a normal house and some call it "make it B." In a normal house, you add a piece of skin between the lower theorization and the upper theorization known as "Peter, the Peter is designed to create space inside the aisle to move the strip easily, and also to stabilize the four houses in the tefillin of the head which is the basis on which all the houses stand, and also to beautify the house by comparing the highs.

There is another type called "Peter" or just makes it difficult to make the difference between Key A and Key B, which in Key A does not add skin known as "Peter" between the stench, in order to produce a house that is all one piece needs special effort to produce it requires thicker skin than the standard and therefore it is very difficult to shape it into four houses without additions and without holes and hence the more expensive cost derivative.

 What compilation is there in the keyswriter? When you put the affairs in the houses, there is no fear if the affairs go out to the supreme alert because the therapies are also part of the houses, and because technically the affairs are all inside the house space, there is actually no acceptable virtue in it in the name of Rabbi Eliashiv, who presses