Tfillin and Marriage Symbols

[debka_notion]

Just noticed this morning that not only do we recite psukim (verses) about being bethrothed to G-d while wrapping tfillin straps around our fingers, we then go on to wrap the strap around the ring where people contemporarily wear wedding rings. I wonder if there was some influence, although I very much doubt it. But it was a striking sort of coincidence.

I wonder if that affects how married Jews feel about their rings and/or about their tfillin. (Input, anyone?)

Comments

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

(I still remember noticing -- because I was layning it -- that the otherwise lovely congregational response before a Torah reading, "And all of you who have attached yourselves to the Lord your God are alive this day," actually follows from "the Lord your God annihilated every one of you who followed Baal Peor." Oh, dear.)

That may be the one that bothers me on the level that the tfillin pasukim bother you. I can just never think of anything else, and even if you remove the immediate context, it still seems to imply unavoidably to me that someone somewhere didn't sufficiently attach themselves to God and is as a result dead. And the fraction of people I care deeply about who don't spend most or any mornings in shul is pretty substantial.

[naomichana.livejournal.com]

I guess I figure "attachment to God" is a lot broader category than "people in shul today," much less "people in shul today who managed to spit out that line in the two seconds the baal koreh left for them to do so." But possibly we should have a contest for Most Annoying Pasuk In The Siddur or something. ;

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

Hmm, that's definitely a better way of looking at it. I think my level of discomfort arose in part because I achieved familarity with the verse while acting as gabbai, and felt like I was addressing the congregation!

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

Hmm- I think I'll put up that contest and see what people suggest...