Broad Phylacte What? (poem)

Listen to audio version here

‘Observant male Jews’ wear phylacteries, also known as Tefillin, during ritual prayer times. These are small boxes that rest upon the forehead and either the left or the non-dominant arm.¹ They contain a few Torah verses, and are secured with straps that are wrapped around the head, arm and fingers. This ancient tradition is based on commandments in the Torah (the first five books of The Bible, written by Moses) in which God instructed Israel on how to remember their miraculous exodus from Egyptian slavery. Though the Torah does not specify when to wear these items, the reported practice is to wear them during formal prayer times. Some readers may recall one of Jesus’ stinging rebukes of the Pharisees was that, ‘...all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders (tassels) of their garments...’ (Matthew 23:5)

While Jesus reportedly wore the traditional Jewish shawl with tassels, there is no report of His wearing phylacteries. However, I believe He revealed to us the true phylactery. Curious? The key to my belief lies in where on the body God directed Israel to wear these items, namely, ‘...on your hand and as frontlets between your eyes’ ² The Tefillin are to be aids to remembering and reflecting (head-focused) on Israel’s deliverance out of Egypt by God’s ‘strong hand’ (in the face of Israel’s weakness and submission).

This triggers some questions: 

     1. What’s the correlation between the two positions?

The connection could be the link between perceiving/seeing and doing God’s will. What’s your take? 

     2. What does our non-dominant hand represent?

Since the dominant hand represents extensive practice in developing strength and fine motor skills, the non-dominant hand represents relative weakness and less skillfulness. The non-dominant hand and arm may represent either closeness to one’s ‘heart’ and seat of motives and emotions that should be submissive to God’s will (i.e., the left hand/arm); or relative weakness and submission before The Almighty God (i.e., whether left or right arm and hand). Again, what’s your take? 

     3. What have we learned about the frontal lobe of the brain?

The frontal lobe, which lies just beneath the forehead or frontal bone and is divided into left and right parts, is primarily engaged in our chief thinking functions, such as critical and analytical reasoning, judgment, cognition, memory, language skills, and our emotional traits. The left frontal lobe governs effective prescription, diagnosis, and calculation skills, and facilitates logical analysis. The right frontal lobe, however, contains the imagination, and the ability to notice abstract relationships or patterns.³ Imagination allows us to escape our current time, place, or perspective in favor of an alternative context, fanciful or mundane. It is our mechanism or instrument for specifying and maintaining a context that differs from our more immediate and stimulus-driven experiences or contexts, i.e., mentally simulating alternative events or contexts.⁴  So the frontal cortex, particularly the right side, is important for imagination. And since God, Himself, is particularly concerned about how we use our imaginations, which He reveals are sourced in our heart/spirit, no wonder He would require Tifillin or phylacteries to be worn on foreheads, but why not toward the right side?? He designed our imagination to be balanced and tempered by our cognition, critical and analytical reasoning, judgment, and memory functions. Working together, these produce the seeds that trigger our beliefs, words and eventual actions. What’s your take on this?

     4. So what?!

Do you recognize this is how faith works?? Godly faith first remembers and reflects upon God’s promises to us, whom He calls righteous because of Christ, and upon our past faithful experiences with Him; then, like God, Himself, it perceives and calls out ‘things that are not, as though they are,’ and patiently awaits for God to work it all out.⁵ This is how God exercises/releases His faith and instructs His angels to work out His spoken faith-vision. And since we are made in His image, this is exactly how He intends us to exercise/release our faith.

Thus, I believe the real objective of phylacteries/Tifillin was not to give Israel a proverbial ‘kink in the neck’ from looking back to their deliverance from Egyptian slavery. Rather, I believe it was to use this backward look as a major springboard to help the new nation build and release faith to overcome the significant challenges, and perceive the many golden opportunities that lay ahead in the Promise Land. While God, by His strong hand, ‘did all the heavy lifting’ for them to leave Egypt, He determined they should be faith partners with Him to get them settled into, and remain in their new land. To remain in the land would require obedience to His laws, both in letter and spirit. While the ‘letter of the law’ was clearly written by Moses, perceiving the ‘spirit of the law’ would require Spirit-directed imagination, just as it does for us today.

In essence, this is the ‘phylactery’, if you will, that Jesus revealed and prompts us to learn and to wear. In John 5:19, He said everything He did was based on what He ‘saw and heard’ God, Himself, doing.⁶ Since God is unseen spirit, where would Jesus have ‘seen and heard’ what God was doing other than in His imagination, sourced in His spirit, and is activated by/within His mind?

Today, we are fascinated with understanding and keeping up with technology’s cutting edge. Well…… how would your life be if you spent time imagining the ‘spiritual technology’ or savior faire involved in everything Jesus was, did, said, and even now does as our High Priest? I’d bet the more you imagined such, the more likely your own spirit will be ready to practice applying it to your life! God calls this walking in The Spirit.

Here’s a little something to give you a jump start.

While writing on the ground, physically,

Before God, He bowed spiritually,

Like a WiFi link that’s being refreshed,

To avoid in their trap being enmeshed.⁷

‘Only what I see The Father do, that’s what I do,’

His modus operandi, now extended to you.

Imagination, birth canal to/from your spirit,

Guard it very well, lest your carnal mind sear it.

Imagination, God’s modem for your life’s router.

Protect it well, as you would a valued computer.

God’s Word is the best password protection

For His gift of your imagination.

Indeed, to God, your imagination really matters!

It attracts His power to you, or from you it scatters.

Daily exercise your imagination on His Word, The Bible.

Consider this: Of all the books written, it ALONE has no rival!

Since The Bible now has been miniaturized,⁸

Wearing phylacteries need not be dramatized.

Ummm, what phylacteries do we Christians wear today,

God’s good favor and great power to attract our way?

Of wearing broad phylacteries, perhaps we all should repent,

And stop magnifying ‘the letter’, while missing God’s intent.

Allow His Spirit to captivate your imagination,

So you can perceive, reach and stay in your life’s destination.

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¹ In accordance with instructions in Exodus 13:9, 13:16, and Deuteronomy 6:8, 11:18

² Thrice confirmed in Ex. 13:16, Deut. 6:8 and 11:18

³ Lobes of The Brain, The Creation Wiki

⁴ The Neuroscience of Imagination

⁵ Romans 4:17 and 8:28.

⁶ John 5:19 Then Jesus answered and said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. I can of Myself do nothing.  5:30 As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.  

⁷ Woman caught in adultery, St. John 7

⁸ The Jerusalem Nano Bible