How Judaism's Most Sacred Prayer Object Is Made With 3000-Year-Old Techniques | Still Standing

one of the most sacred objects in Judaism is made of skin from a bull's neck it's called tiine and it's an ancient custom to connect Hands Hearts and Minds with God each black box contains Scrolls that must be written by hand it's done the same way it was done 3,300 years ago throughout history Jews have been persecuted forcing them to sometimes wear toine in secret but demand has soared since the latest war in Israel and Gaza that erupted on October 7th mostly from less religious Jews I think it's important for me to be here including Israeli soldiers headed into battle now traditional workshops can't make t fast enough so what does it say inside these little boxes and why are so many people trying to get their hands on them we went to Israeli workshops to find out how this ritual is still standing the Scrolls inside tan are made from parchment just as they were thousands of years ago the fur is scraped off an animal hide and then stretched out to dry for a Jewish ritual object the hide must come from a cow sheep or other animal considered kosher to eat every piece of parchment comes out different some are thicker some is thinner some is more hay some is more shiny Rabbi hyim Kaplan runs otar hastam a workshop in safed in Northern Israel that writes to fine and Torah Scrolls scribes like Assaf Lei start by sanding the parchment and then sprinkling it with chalk Assaf adds a layer of this special adhesive liquid called May H [Music] clo these parchments have been pre-etched with straight horizontal lines Torah Scrolls which contain the entire Hebrew Bible have 42 lines of text on each page the smaller Scrolls inside tfin have just four or seven lines a humidifier runs all day to help the ink set on the parchment it's always quiet here scribes or Sim in Hebrew must maintain a state of intense Focus most of them use a feather Quil sometimes with a tip made from steel or gold in the past they used read pens other scribes prefer a newer ceramic pen that never needs Sharp in the main ingredient in the ink is soot traditional recipes also include Gum arabic the juice of a gallnut and a single drop of honey working at a steady Pace it takes Ezra AB body a day or two to finish all the Scrolls that go into a pair ofine and over a year to write an entire Torah if a scribe adds an extra letter or misses one or even writes one incorrectly then the deilan is invalid and a simple mistake can cost him days of lost labor some mistakes under some circumstances can be fixed can be erased some can not it's Abraham Ben Simon's job to try and fix as much as possible Abraham has been doing this job for 20 years he spends about an hour checking every scroll a computer does a final scan to ensure accuracy there are many laws how to do it how to write how it should look and and and it's it's could be sometimes draining Rabbi Kaplan has run this workshop for over 15 years and he says he's never seen a time like this demand keeps growing and growing and we try our best to produce as much as we can to supply the needs of Jews all around the world the completed Scrolls end up in leather boxes like the ones made at another Workshop about 130 Mi to the South the leather used to come from sheep but now Rabbi isai bad founded b l in 197 9 in a religious settlement in the Israeli occupied West Bank each piece starts at around 2 ft long Craftsmen shape the compartments for the Scrolls by making these bumps they take the skin and start stretching it these Nubs will eventually be compacted into a cube just a few Ines wide they have to do it in stages or it will break religious law regulates every step in the making ofine one of the rules is that the single strip of leather must not get punctured shaping the compartments that will eventually hold the Scrolls can take up to a year it all depends on The Artisan's techniques and the climate where he works the Le leather dries faster in arid parts of Israel workers shave away excess leather in between trips to the hydraulic press these four metal bars keep the empty spaces in place they repeat this step up to 15 times and each time the boxes take on more precise angles the leather needs to dry and set after each squeeze workers trim excess material and press it until they get a square shape according to Jewish mysticism the shape reflects the architecture of the Jewish temple that once stood in Jerusalem where Al axam mosque is today these fully formed casings btim in Hebrew are 40 mm x 40 mm the sides are embossed with the Hebrew letter Shin an initial representing two of God's names the letter is accentuated using a set of small scrapers workers bend the extra material backward creating the bottom flap for the Box to refine the Angles and symmetry Craftsmen use band saws and Sanders this bell-shaped tool carves a notch for the leather straps by now the leather is as hard as wood the bottom panel is carefully cracked open revealing the compartments within the four B biblical passages in tiim outline the core beliefs of Judaism two commemorate The Exodus from Egypt and the obligation to educate children about it the others hold the shama prayer which proclaims there's only one God the passages are written on a single long scroll for the armed fine and four separate Scrolls for the head workers tie both parts with c's hair and sew the boxes shut with senu from the lower leg of a cow once the scrolls are placed inside they're only removed every few years to make sure the letters haven't smudged or broken they airbrush the batim with a coat of black paint to match the color of the straps in The Next Step black absorbs all colors and doesn't reflect any back according to tradition this represents how God exists throughout the Universe without any divisions or separations the straps are usually 2 to 3 ft long enough to wrap around a person's arm at least seven times a number that represents completeness in Judaism according to religious law men over the age of 13 are supposed to bind tiine every weekday the earliest evidence of tiine comes from the Dead Sea Scrolls dating as far back as the 3rd Century BC but the details of how to make and wear them are said to have been passed down orally from Moses at Mount Si other sources indicate that the practice emerged during the 2 Century BC when the Jewish macbes were at war with occupying Syrian Greek forces several Empires outlawed Jewish practices including tiine later when praying with them wasn't technically illegal it had fallen out of popularity for most of modern history wearing teine was a practice mainly observed by the most religious Jewish sects it took a war to change that nearly 60 years ago Israel Defense Forces have taken necessary steps to meet all eventualities in 1967 tensions between Israel Palestinians and surrounding Arab states were at an all-time high a month before the Six-Day War started the leader of the kabad kidik movement in New York urged his followers to help others put on [Music] to he said they would provide Israel with spiritual protection Israeli forces captured East Jerusalem in June 1967 including the walled old city which has sites sacred to Muslims Christians and Jews this area is controlled by Israel to this day and remains a contentious flasho and today's ongoing fighting with Hamas and Gaza pushed many Israeli soldiers to seek out their own pair I cannot tell you how many soldiers going into Gaza said to me I'm not going in Gaza without the I was shocked just like in 1967 rabbis and Yeshiva students have increased Outreach to Jews around the world who have never warned fine Jewish blood pressure exactly the rabbi who ignited the thilan Revival died in 1994 but many of his followers regularly make the pilgrimage back to his synagogue in New York City I serve in Ukraine and coming here for the few days to be with my colleagues with the RAB gives me energy for the whole year over 5,000 rabbis from the kabad lubich movement gather each year in Crown Heights Brooklyn for an International Conference of schlim the Hebrew word for emissaries including Rabbi Kaplan who oversees the scribes Workshop in safed he said that these rabbis from around the world are his biggest customers Rabbi Abraham Rapaport lives in New Jersey he makes Tik Tok and Instagram posts about Judaism I feel like there's a Renaissance there's an Awakening of the Jewish soul you can be in America and protect and bring a blessing to a Jew on the other side of the world so fillan's a good way to start a 2023 survey of these rabbis representing thousands of international Jews found that all almost every single one of their congregations had witnessed an increase in traditional observance since October 7th yesterday I picked up six pairs of Fillin new pairs of Fillin for people who have committed to put on Fillin every [Music] day there's no official count but several organizations estimate that tens of thousands of new pairs of tailan have been distributed all over the world in the past few months oh by the way this is a PA of ordered yesterday on the way to Manhattan New York being shipped now at the same time scribes across Israel have been called up for military duty and others have found it hard to stay focused I have a couple of scribes who couldn't start Couldn't Write after the attack on on Sim they couldn't come to work they came and said I'm sorry R Kaplan I can't write my head is somewhere else and I'm making mistakes and just wasting my time so there's a growing backlog even as the orders are rolling in a pair of tiine can cost from $450 to over 2500 but as scribes do their jobs Rabbi Kaplan has lost an important source of income tourism people come here for the good breathe and for the spiritual ear that there is here this Hilltop city is one of the four holiest cities in Judaism it has undergone much change over the centuries amid war and population shifts it's now almost completely Jewish after its Palestinian population fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war and once again the shadow of War Has Fallen over the city the last few months as the fear of rockets from Lebanon has left the streets empty this is usually full of tourists look it's locked it's empty there's nothing here nothing happening The Visitor Center attached to Rabbi kaplan's Workshop is also empty this Center was a vibrant Visitor Center and since October 7th we had no visitors but it's filled with reminders that Jews have kept their faith in tough times before these are really tiny tiny old set ofine which people say they were able to actually hide and use during challenging times if it's dur the Holocaust or communist Soviet Russia they were able to hide them in their pockets and and use them every day Rabbi Kaplan believes that struggles push Believers to search for meaning in life people are seeking and searching for some connection to something greater bigger than what we just see around us which is so shaky he says that the practice ofin is a statement of faith in God but that it's people who have the power to make things better this is a reminder we have with through our Command ofin and this is a reminder which belongs to every human being

Channel: Business Insider

Views: 891,721

Keywords: Business Insider, Business News, tefillin

Id: _OYxADDluNI

Length: 17min 46sec (1066 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 23 2024