Draft. This siddur is waiting for a rav's review. For a halachic question, ask your rav.
Hebrew, then English. Open "What it means" under any line for the explanation.
After putting on tefillin, say these two Torah passages (Shemot 13:1-16), so that you say all four tefillin passages every day:
וַיְדַבֵּר יְיָ אֶל משֶׁה לֵּאמֹר. קַדֶּשׁ לִי כָל בְּכוֹר פֶּטֶר כָּל רֶחֶם בִּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בָּאָדָם וּבַבְּהֵמָה לִי הוּא.
Hashem spoke to Moshe, saying: Make every firstborn holy for Me, the first to open every womb among the children of Israel, human or animal. It is Mine.
These two paragraphs are written on the parchment inside your tefillin. The Mishnah (the core text of the Oral Torah, edited about 1,800 years ago) counts four passages there. The Gemara (the rabbis' discussions built on the Mishnah) names them: these two, Shema, and Vehaya im shamoa. You say the last two every day in Shema. These two complete the set.
Mishnah Menachot 3:7; Menachot 34b; Mishnah Berurah 25:16וַיֹּאמֶר משֶׁה אֶל הָעָם זָכוֹר אֶת הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה אֲשֶׁר יְצָאתֶם מִמִּצְרַיִם מִבֵּית עֲבָדִים כִּי בְּחֹזֶק יָד הוֹצִיא יְיָ אֶתְכֶם מִזֶּה וְלֹא יֵאָכֵל חָמֵץ. הַיּוֹם אַתֶּם יֹצְאִים בְּחֹדֶשׁ הָאָבִיב.
Moshe said to the people: Remember this day, the day you left Egypt, the house of slaves, because with a strong hand Hashem took you out of here. No chametz may be eaten. Today you are leaving, in the month of Aviv.
Moshe said to the people: Remember this day, the day you left Egypt, the house of slaves, because with a strong hand Hashem took you out of here. No chametz may be eaten. Today you are leaving, in the month of Aviv, the spring.
Rashi (the classic Torah commentator, France, 1000s) reads "remember this day" as more than a one-time order: "It teaches that we mention leaving Egypt every day." You already do. The last verse of Shema says it morning and night: "I am Hashem your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt."
Rashi on Shemot 13:3; Mishnah Berakhot 1:5וְהָיָה כִי יְבִיאֲךָ יְיָ אֶל אֶרֶץ הַכְּנַעֲנִי וְהַחִתִּי וְהָאֱמֹרִי וְהַחִוִּי וְהַיְבוּסִי אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּע לַאֲבֹתֶיךָ לָתֶת לָךְ אֶרֶץ זָבַת חָלָב וּדְבָשׁ וְעָבַדְתָּ אֶת הָעֲבֹדָה הַזֹּאת בַּחֹדֶשׁ הַזֶּה.
And when Hashem brings you to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, Amorites, Hivites and Jebusites, which He swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, you shall carry out this service in this month.
And when Hashem brings you to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, which He swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, you shall carry out this service in this month.
Milk and honey from where? Rashi: "The milk flows from the goats, and the honey flows from the dates and the figs." On this reading, the honey in the famous phrase is fruit honey, not bee honey.
Rashi on Shemot 13:5שִׁבְעַת יָמִים תֹּאכַל מַצֹּת וּבַיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי חַג לַייָ. מַצּוֹת יֵאָכֵל אֵת שִׁבְעַת הַיָּמִים וְלֹא יֵרָאֶה לְךָ חָמֵץ וְלֹא יֵרָאֶה לְךָ שְׂאֹר בְּכָל גְּבֻלֶךָ.
For seven days you shall eat matzot, and on the seventh day there is a festival to Hashem. Matzot shall be eaten all seven days. No chametz of yours shall be seen, and no sourdough of yours shall be seen, anywhere within your borders.
Look at the words "of yours." The Gemara reads them closely: "Your own you may not see, but you may see what belongs to others and what is consecrated to God." What this verse forbids on Pesach is having chametz that is yours. It does not forbid laying eyes on chametz.
Pesachim 5bוְהִגַּדְתָּ לְבִנְךָ בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא לֵאמֹר בַּעֲבוּר זֶה עָשָׂה יְיָ לִי בְּצֵאתִי מִמִּצְרָיִם.
You shall tell your child on that day, saying: It is because of this that Hashem acted for me when I left Egypt.
You shall tell your child on that day: It is because of this that Hashem acted for me when I left Egypt.
The verse has a parent in any generation say "for me" and "when I left Egypt." The Haggadah takes those words at face value: "In every generation a person must see himself as if he left Egypt." It quotes this verse as the source. The same line is in the printed Mishnah.
Pesach Haggadah; Mishnah Pesachim 10:5The custom: touch the arm tefillin at "on your hand" and the head tefillin at "between your eyes."
וְהָיָה לְךָ לְאוֹת עַל יָדְךָ וּלְזִכָּרוֹן בֵּין עֵינֶיךָ לְמַעַן תִּהְיֶה תּוֹרַת יְיָ בְּפִיךָ כִּי בְּיָד חֲזָקָה הוֹצִאֲךָ יְיָ מִמִּצְרָיִם.
It shall be a sign for you on your hand and a reminder between your eyes, so that the Torah of Hashem will be in your mouth, because with a strong hand Hashem took you out of Egypt.
The Gemara learns a rule about how tefillin are made from the words "in your mouth." The sage Rav was asked how we know that tefillin may be written only on the hide of a kosher animal. He quoted this verse and read it: "from what is permitted in your mouth."
Shabbat 108aוְשָׁמַרְתָּ אֶת הַחֻקָּה הַזֹּאת לְמוֹעֲדָהּ מִיָּמִים יָמִימָה.
You shall keep this law at its set time, from year to year.
Which law? Two sages of the Mishnah disagree. Rabbi Yosei HaGelili reads it about tefillin and takes yamim as "days": by day and not at night, and not on every day, which leaves out Shabbat and Yom Tov. Rabbi Akiva says this verse is only about Pesach. Rashi translates: from year to year.
Menachot 36b; Rashi on Shemot 13:10The second passage (Shemot 13:11-16):
וְהָיָה כִּי יְבִאֲךָ יְיָ אֶל אֶרֶץ הַכְּנַעֲנִי כַּאֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּע לְךָ וְלַאֲבֹתֶיךָ וּנְתָנָהּ לָךְ.
And when Hashem brings you to the land of the Canaanites, as He swore to you and to your fathers, and gives it to you,
Rashi on "and gives it to you": "Let it be in your eyes as if it was given to you on that same day, and do not let it be in your eyes like an inheritance from your fathers." The land had been promised long before. Rashi's point: do not treat it as a given.
Rashi on Shemot 13:11וְהַעֲבַרְתָּ כָל פֶּטֶר רֶחֶם לַייָ וְכָל פֶּטֶר שֶׁגֶר בְּהֵמָה אֲשֶׁר יִהְיֶה לְךָ הַזְּכָרִים לַייָ.
you shall set apart for Hashem every first birth, and every firstborn animal that you own: the males are Hashem's.
What happened to a firstborn animal? In Temple times a male firstborn calf, lamb or kid was holy from birth. It could not be bought back. It was brought as an offering and its meat went to the kohen (a priest). Rashi adds that "animal" here means only these: another verse says "in your herd and in your flock."
Bamidbar 18:17-18; Rashi on Shemot 13:12וְכָל פֶּטֶר חֲמֹר תִּפְדֶּה בְשֶׂה וְאִם לֹא תִפְדֶּה וַעֲרַפְתּוֹ וְכֹל בְּכוֹר אָדָם בְּבָנֶיךָ תִּפְדֶּה.
Every firstborn donkey you shall redeem with a lamb. If you do not redeem it, you must break its neck. And every human firstborn among your sons you shall redeem.
Why donkeys, and no other non-kosher animal? In the Gemara, Rabbi Chanina says he put this question to Rabbi Eliezer in the great study hall. He got two answers. It is the Torah's decree. And donkeys helped Israel leave Egypt: every single person left with ninety donkeys loaded with Egypt's silver and gold.
Bekhorot 5bוְהָיָה כִּי יִשְׁאָלְךָ בִנְךָ מָחָר לֵאמֹר מַה זֹּאת וְאָמַרְתָּ אֵלָיו בְּחֹזֶק יָד הוֹצִיאָנוּ יְיָ מִמִּצְרַיִם מִבֵּית עֲבָדִים.
And when your child asks you one day, saying: What is this? you shall say to him: With a strong hand Hashem took us out of Egypt, from the house of slaves.
And when your child asks you one day, "What is this?" you shall say to him: With a strong hand Hashem took us out of Egypt, from the house of slaves.
You know this question from the Seder. Rashi: the Torah speaks about four children, and this one does not know how to ask a deep question, so he asks in a general way: "What is this?" Rashi's word for him is blunt: foolish. The Haggadah calls him tam, the simple one, and answers him with this verse.
Rashi on Shemot 13:14; Pesach Haggadah, the Four Childrenוַיְהִי כִּי הִקְשָׁה פַרְעֹה לְשַׁלְּחֵנוּ וַיַּהֲרֹג יְיָ כָּל בְּכוֹר בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מִבְּכֹר אָדָם וְעַד בְּכוֹר בְּהֵמָה עַל כֵּן אֲנִי זֹבֵחַ לַייָ כָּל פֶּטֶר רֶחֶם הַזְּכָרִים וְכָל בְּכוֹר בָּנַי אֶפְדֶּה.
When Pharaoh was too stubborn to let us go, Hashem killed every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from human firstborn to animal firstborn. That is why I sacrifice to Hashem every male that opens the womb, and every firstborn of my sons I redeem.
Redeeming a firstborn son is still done today. It is called pidyon haben. The Torah sets the price at five silver shekels, from the age of one month. The Shulchan Aruch (the main code of Jewish law) rules that a father redeems the son who is his mother's firstborn by giving five silver coins to a kohen, once thirty days have passed.
Bamidbar 18:16; Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De'ah 305:1, 3, 11Again, touch the arm tefillin at "on your hand" and the head tefillin at "between your eyes."
וְהָיָה לְאוֹת עַל יָדְכָה וּלְטוֹטָפֹת בֵּין עֵינֶיךָ כִּי בְּחֹזֶק יָד הוֹצִיאָנוּ יְיָ מִמִּצְרָיִם.
It shall be a sign on your hand and totafot between your eyes, because with a strong hand Hashem took us out of Egypt.
Rashi gives two explanations of totafot. One is Rabbi Akiva's in the Gemara: tat means two in one foreign language and pat means two in another. Two and two make four, for the four compartments of the head tefillin. The other is from the early grammarian Menachem: it is a word for speech. Whoever sees them remembers the miracle and talks about it.
Rashi on Shemot 13:16; Menachot 34bSay these while your tefillin are on. The Mishnah Berurah (a central commentary on daily Jewish law, published 1884 to 1907) calls it a fine custom. As in Shema, it is customary to touch the arm tefillin at "a sign on your hand" and the head tefillin at "between your eyes."
Mishnah Berurah 25:16; Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 28:1; Metsudah siddur noteInside each tefillin box are four Torah passages on parchment. This prayer is two of them, word for word. The other two are the first two paragraphs of the Shema, which you say later in the morning anyway. So the instruction your siddur prints here is simple: say these two now, and every day you will have read out loud all four passages that are tied to your arm and your head.
Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 32:1; Siddur Sefard, instruction before Kadesh LiThe Haggadah describes four children at the Seder. Three of the answers they are given are verses from this prayer. The simple child asks "What is this?" and hears: "With a strong hand Hashem took us out of Egypt." The wicked child and the child who does not know how to ask are both answered with one verse: "It is because of this that Hashem acted for me when I left Egypt." You say those lines every weekday, not only on Seder night.
Pesach Haggadah, the Four Children; Mekhilta on Shemot 13:14Rabbi Yoel Sirkis, a leading rabbi in Poland in the early 1600s known as the Bach, writes that he saw his own teacher do this. Every morning, with tefillin on his head, the teacher read these two passages. His reason: four passages are written in tefillin, so it is right to read all four each day while wearing them. In the 1890s the Ben Ish Chai (Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Baghdad) gave the instruction in almost the words your siddur prints here. He credits the Ramban (Spain, 1200s) and Rav Chaim Vital (Tzfat, 1500s).
Bach on Tur, Orach Chaim 38; Ben Ish Chai, Year 1, Vayera 25Both paragraphs speak of a sign "on your hand." In the first, the Hebrew word is spelled the usual way. In the second it has an extra letter hei at the end. Rav Ashi, one of the sages of the Gemara, read the extra hei as pointing to the word kehah, "weak": the weaker hand. It is one of the Gemara's proofs that the arm tefillin goes on the left arm.
Menachot 37a; Rashi on Shemot 13:9The verse says the tefillin on your arm will be a sign "for you." Rabbi Eliezer reads that closely: a sign for you, and not a sign for others. So it goes on the upper arm, which Rashi (the classic commentator, who lived in France and died in 1105) describes as a place that on most people is not seen by others. The Gemara adds a story. Rav Ashi saw the tefillin of Ameimar showing through a tear in his garment and asked about this rule. Ameimar answered: the rule is about where they sit, not about hiding them.
Menachot 37b with RashiThe Gemara tells how the great teacher Rav arrived in Babylonia from the Land of Israel, and a scholar named Karna was sent to test him. One question: how do we know tefillin may be written only on the hide of a kosher animal? Rav answered with a verse from this prayer: "so that the Torah of Hashem will be in your mouth." The parchment has to come from something you are allowed to put in your mouth.
Shabbat 108aCount how often this short prayer says it. Four times in sixteen verses we are told that God took us out of Egypt with a strong hand: three times as bechozek yad, "with strength of hand," and once as beyad chazakah, "with a strong hand." Both of the verses here about tefillin end with it. Whatever else tefillin are, the reason these two passages give for them is Egypt.
Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki of France, died 1105) reads the words "Remember this day" as a rule: we mention leaving Egypt every day. Not once a year at the Seder. Every day.
Why that often? The Ramban (Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, who lived in Spain in the 1200s) answers at the end of his comments on this passage, and he is blunt. God does not perform a sign or a wonder in every generation in front of every person who denies Him. So we were commanded to keep a permanent reminder of what our eyes saw, and to hand it to our children, and they to theirs, down to the last generation.
He lists how. Write it on your arm and between your eyes. Write it on your doorposts. Say it out loud morning and evening. He also explains the placement: the written record of leaving Egypt goes on the arm and the head, next to the heart and the brain, which he calls the places where thought lives.
Then the Ramban goes one step further. From the great public miracles, he says, a person comes to admit the hidden ones. He means that everything that happens to us, to a whole people or to one person, is a miracle too, and none of it is just nature running by itself. On his reading, the daily reminder of Egypt is meant to change how you see an ordinary day.
That is the Ramban's explanation, and it is one explanation. The verse itself gives a shorter one: "so that the Torah of Hashem will be in your mouth, because with a strong hand Hashem took you out of Egypt."
Shemot 13:3, 13:9, 13:14, 13:16,Rashi on Shemot 13:3,Ramban on Shemot 13:16The prayer opens with it: "Make every firstborn holy for Me ... It is Mine." The second paragraph gives the reason, as an answer to a child's question. Pharaoh refused to let us go, and every firstborn in Egypt died. "That is why" firstborn animals are offered and firstborn sons are redeemed.
Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki of France, died 1105) puts God's claim in one line: I acquired them for Myself by striking the firstborn of Egypt. The Torah says the same thing later, in the book of Bamidbar: "On the day I struck every firstborn in the land of Egypt, I made every firstborn in Israel holy for Me."
Holy for what? Rashi explains that the service of God was first done by the firstborn. When they sinned with the golden calf they were disqualified, and the tribe of Levi, who had not worshipped it, was chosen in their place.
What remains is the redemption. The Torah sets the price at five silver shekels, paid to a kohen once the baby is a month old. It is still done. If you are a firstborn son, it may have been done for you.
The Sefer HaChinukh (a book from Spain in the 1200s that gives a reason for each commandment) gives two reasons. The first would make sense even without Egypt. A person works hard for something, and the first result is the one he loves most, "like the pupil of his eye." He gives exactly that one to God. Doing so teaches him that everything is God's, and that a person has only what God shares out to him. The second is the Torah's: to remember the great miracle God did for us with the firstborn of Egypt.
So there are two reasons on the table. The Torah's own: it goes back to the night the firstborn of Egypt died. And the one the Chinukh puts first: give away the first of what you love, and you will remember where all of it came from.
Shemot 13:2, 13:15,Rashi on Shemot 13:2,Bamidbar 3:13 with Rashi on 3:12,Bamidbar 18:15-16,Sefer HaChinukh 18You say the line every weekday: "Hashem killed every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from human firstborn to animal firstborn." It is fair to stop on it. The Torah does not soften the sentence.
Start with what the Torah says came before. Pharaoh had commanded all his people: every boy that is born, throw him into the Nile. And before the first plague, God gave Moshe a message for Pharaoh: "Israel is My firstborn son. I told you: let My son go so that he can serve Me. You refused to let him go. I am going to kill your firstborn son." Nine plagues came and went first. The passage you just read says it happened "when Pharaoh was too stubborn to let us go."
Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki of France, died 1105) asks the hard part of your question outright. Why were the sons of slave women struck? Why the captives? His answers: the slaves also put the Israelites to work and were glad at their pain. The captives were glad too, and had they been spared they would have said their own god brought the plague on Egypt. And the animals? The Egyptians worshipped them.
You may find those answers enough, or you may not. Either way, notice that Rashi does not skip the question.
One more source. When the Egyptian army drowned in the sea, the Gemara says the angels wanted to sing. God stopped them: "The work of My hands is drowning in the sea, and you are singing?" On the same page the Gemara states it as a rule: God does not rejoice when the wicked fall. Then it adds a limit, in the name of Rabbi Elazar: God does not rejoice Himself, but He does cause others to rejoice.
So the question stays partly open. What this Gemara does say is that God Himself takes no joy when the wicked fall, the Egyptians included.
Shemot 13:15,Shemot 1:22,Shemot 4:22-23,Rashi on Shemot 11:5 and 12:29,Megillah 10bShort ideas from the Chassidic masters, the Kabbalah and the Mussar teachers.
The Maharal (Rabbi Yehuda Loew of Prague, who died in 1609) noticed that these two passages tell two sides of one night. The first never mentions the plague. It speaks only of the firstborn being holy, which he reads as a sign that God saved Israel's firstborn. The second is the one that mentions the death of Egypt's firstborn. And the commands to remember the day and to eat matzah appear only in the first. Why? He writes that the main point of the redemption is that Israel belongs to God. It is not that He killed the firstborn of Egypt.
כי עיקר הגאולה במה שישראל הם לה׳... ואין עיקר הגאולה במה שהרג הבכורים של מצרים.
Maharal, Gevurot Hashem, chapter 38Why does "remember this day" come right after the command about the firstborn? The Sefat Emet (Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter of Ger, a Chassidic leader who died in 1905) says both are about beginnings. The Exodus was the beginning of Israel coming under God's rule, and the beginning is the main thing. Remembering it, he writes, brings strength and energy to everything you do. Forgetting it is how people fall into sadness. He adds that every person gets help from God at the start, and has to always remember it.
וזכירה זאת מביא כח וזריזות בכל המעשים. וכששוכחין ההתחלה נופלין בעצבות.
Sefat Emet, Parashat Bo, 5641Rav Kook (the first Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel, who died in 1935) explains why the verse about tefillin ends with "a strong hand." The whole basis of the Exodus, he writes, was a fight against the coarse side of life, the pull that sinks a person into the ordinary. That pull is so strong that breaking it took a strong hand. And the work has to be continued. For that you need a doubled force, one that takes in both what you do and how you see things: the hand and the eye.
כל היסוד של יציאת מצרים היה להלחם בטבע הגס של החיים... כי רק בכח כביר ומכופל זה אפשר להמשיך את מה שנעשה מני אז ביד חזקה.
Rav Kook, Olat Re'iyah, on Kadesh LiThe Zohar (the central book of Kabbalah) says that tefillin have a name of their own. They are not called a mitzvah. They are called "holiness." It goes on: a person crowned with tefillin stands as two things at once, a faithful servant and an only son. These two, it says, are the tefillin of the hand and the tefillin of the head, and they are one whole with no separation. Now read "a sign on your hand" and "between your eyes" again.
מַאן דְּמִתְעַטְרָא בִּתְפִלִין... בְּרָזָא דְּעֶבֶד נֶאֱמָן, בְּרָזָא דְּבֶן יְחִידָאי. וְאִלֵּין אִינּוּן תְּפִלָּה שֶׁל יַד, וּתְפִלָּה שֶׁל רֹאשׁ, וְאִינּוּן כְּלָלָא חֲדָא בְּלָא פִּרוּדָא.
Zohar, Parashat Bo 43a (Ra'aya Mehemna)In the Gemara, Rabbi Akiva says totafot is built from two foreign words that each mean "two." The Mei HaShiloach (teachings of Rabbi Mordechai Yosef of Izhbitz, a Chassidic master who died in 1854) hears two stages in them. First, you start doing mitzvot and feel no taste in them. They sit like a load on your shoulders. Later, God lets you understand the depth, and he calls that freedom. Each stage is called "two" because God is with you in both. That includes the first, when you act out of love without understanding yet.
שבהתחלה שאדם מתחיל במעשה המצות ועבודה ואינו מרגיש בהם שום טעם... אחר שעושה באהבה אף שאינו מבין העומק, גם כן השי"ת מסכים על ידו, והשי"ת יהיה עמו.
Mei HaShiloach, volume 2, Parashat BoThe practical laws. For a final ruling, ask your rav.
The Magen Avraham (a main 1600s commentary on the Shulchan Aruch, the main code of Jewish law) says you do not. He quotes an early midrash that these two, unlike the Shema, need not be said. He adds that whoever says them loses nothing, since they tell of leaving Egypt. The Mishnah Berurah (a central commentary on daily Jewish law, published 1884 to 1907) calls saying them "a fine custom." The Chida (Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azulai, 1700s) cites a stronger tradition: everyone must say all four passages daily.
Magen Avraham 25:6; Mishnah Berurah 25:16; Chida, quoted in Sha'arei Teshuvah, Orach Chaim 38:12After you put on tefillin. This siddur's instruction says so, and so does the Mishnah Berurah. The Kaf HaChaim (a Sephardic law commentary from the early 1900s) says right away is better and gives a cutoff: before Baruch She'amar, the blessing that opens the morning songs of praise. After it you cannot stop to add them. If you missed it, say them after Aleinu, before taking off tefillin. The Ben Ish Chai (Rabbi Yosef Chaim of Baghdad, died 1909) agrees: if you cannot say them before the prayers, say them after.
Mishnah Berurah 25:16; Kaf HaChaim, Orach Chaim 25:30; Ben Ish Chai, Year 1, Vayera 25The Ben Ish Chai takes up this case in his book Od Yosef Chai. He writes that it appears you may not. The passages are said to complete the four in the tefillin, so saying them with none on looks like false testimony: you read about a sign on your hand and are not wearing one. The Gemara says that about Shema without tefillin. He adds that you need not put tefillin back on, since at root this is not an obligation. Reading them as regular Torah study, like reviewing the weekly portion, is fine without tefillin.
Od Yosef Chai, Vayera 10; Berakhot 14bSome people put on a second pair of tefillin after the prayers, named for Rabbeinu Tam (Rashi's grandson), who ruled that the four passages go in a different order. The first Chabad Rebbe's siddur prints these two passages there and notes that some say them then. Sha'arei Teshuvah (a commentary printed with the Shulchan Aruch, from 1820) reports that people commonly said them then, and that some were careful to say them in the first pair too. The Mishnah Berurah: in the second pair, say all four.
Chabad siddur, Rabbeinu Tam tefillin; Sha'arei Teshuvah, Orach Chaim 38:12; Mishnah Berurah 25:16The law books state this for the Shema. The Shulchan Aruch rules that you must touch your tefillin often so your mind does not leave them. At the Shema's words about a sign on your hand you touch the arm box, and at "between your eyes" the head box. The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (a short guide to daily Jewish law from the 1860s) calls this a fine custom and adds a kiss. Each passage here has such a line near its end. The law books we checked do not mention them. The Metsudah siddur (1981) notes the same custom here.
Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 28:1, 61:25; Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 10:17; Metsudah siddurוְהָיָה לְאוֹת עַל־יָדְכָה וּלְטוֹטָפֹת בֵּין עֵינֶיךָ כִּי בְּחֹזֶק יָד הוֹצִיאָנוּ ה׳ מִמִּצְרָיִם.
It shall be a sign on your hand and totafot between your eyes, because with a strong hand Hashem took us out of Egypt.
מִצְוַת תְּפִלִּין שֶׁיִּכְתֹּב אַרְבַּע פָּרָשִׁיּוֹת שֶׁהֵן קַדֶּשׁ לִי כָּל בְּכוֹר עַד לְמוֹעֲדָהּ, וְהָיָה כִּי יְבִיאֲךָ עַד כִּי בְּחֹזֶק יָד הוֹצִיאָנוּ ה' מִמִּצְרָיִם, וּפָרָשַׁת שְׁמַע עַד וּבִשְׁעָרֶיךָ, וּפָרָשַׁת וְהָיָה אִם שָׁמוֹעַ עַד עַל הָאָרֶץ.
The mitzvah of tefillin is to write four passages: "Make every firstborn holy for Me" through "at its set time"; "When Hashem brings you" through "with a strong hand Hashem took us out of Egypt"; the passage of Shema through "and on your gates"; and the passage of "If you listen" through "over the earth."
וראיתי מעשה רב ממורי החסיד ... שהיה קורא בכל יום בבקר כשהיו תפילין בראשו פ' קדש ופ' והיה כי יביאך ואמר כיון שארבע פרשיות כתובים בתפילין ראוי לקרות כל הד' בכל יום בשעה שהתפילין בראשו.
I saw this done in practice by my teacher, the pious one... Every morning, when tefillin were on his head, he would read the passage of Kadesh and the passage of Vehaya ki yeviacha. He said: since four passages are written in tefillin, it is right to read all four every day while the tefillin are on his head.
זכור את היום הזה. לִמֵּד, שֶׁמַּזְכִּירִין יְצִיאַת מִצְרַיִם בְּכָל יוֹם.
"Remember this day." This teaches that we mention leaving Egypt every day.
וּבַעֲבוּר כִּי הקב"ה לֹא יַעֲשֶׂה אוֹת וּמוֹפֵת בְּכָל דּוֹר לְעֵינֵי כָּל רָשָׁע אוֹ כּוֹפֵר, יְצַוֶּה אוֹתָנוּ שֶׁנַּעֲשֶׂה תָּמִיד זִכְרוֹן וְאוֹת לַאֲשֶׁר רָאוּ עֵינֵינוּ, וְנַעְתִּיק הַדָּבָר אֶל בָּנֵינוּ, וּבְנֵיהֶם לִבְנֵיהֶם, וּבְנֵיהֶם לְדוֹר אַחֲרוֹן.
Because the Holy One, blessed be He, will not perform a sign and a wonder in every generation before the eyes of every wicked person or denier, He commands us to always make a reminder and a sign of what our eyes saw, and to pass it on to our children, and their children to their children, and their children to the last generation.
תָּם מָה הוּא אוֹמֵר? מַה זּאֹת. וְאָמַרְתָּ אֵלָיו "בְּחוֹזֶק יָד הוֹצִיאָנוּ ה׳ מִמִּצְרַיִם מִבֵּית עֲבָדִים".
The simple child, what does he say? "What is this?" And you say to him: "With a strong hand Hashem took us out of Egypt, from the house of slaves."
רַב אָשֵׁי אָמַר: מִ״יָּדְכָה״ כְּתִיב, בְּהֵ״י כֵּהָה.
Rav Ashi said: it is learned from the spelling yadkhah, written with a hei: the weak one.
אָמַר רַבִּי חֲנִינָא: שָׁאַלְתִּי אֶת רַבִּי אֱלִיעֶזֶר ... מָה נִשְׁתַּנּוּ פִּטְרֵי חֲמוֹרִים מִפִּטְרֵי סוּסִים וּגְמַלִּים? אָמַר לִי: גְּזֵירַת הַכָּתוּב הִיא, וְעוֹד שֶׁסִּיְּיעוּ יִשְׂרָאֵל בִּשְׁעַת יְצִיאָתָם מִמִּצְרַיִם, שֶׁאֵין לָךְ כׇּל אֶחָד וְאֶחָד מִיִּשְׂרָאֵל שֶׁלֹּא הָיוּ עִמּוֹ תִּשְׁעִים חֲמוֹרִים לוּבִים טְעוּנִים מִכַּסְפָּהּ וּזְהָבָהּ שֶׁל מִצְרַיִם.
Rabbi Chanina said: I asked Rabbi Eliezer... why are firstborn donkeys different from firstborn horses and camels? He told me: it is a decree of the Torah. And also, they helped Israel when they left Egypt. There was not a single Israelite who did not have ninety Libyan donkeys with him, loaded with the silver and gold of Egypt.
שֶׁרָצָה הַשֵּׁם יִתְבָּרַךְ לְזַכּוֹתֵנוּ לַעֲשׂוֹת מִצְוָה בְּרֵאשִׁית פִּרְיוֹ, לְמַעַן דַּעַת כִּי הַכֹּל שֶׁלּוֹ, וְאֵין לוֹ לְאָדָם דָּבָר בָּעוֹלָם רַק מָה שֶׁיְּחַלֵּק לָנוּ הַשֵּׁם יִתְבָּרַךְ בַּחֲסָדָיו.
God, may He be blessed, wanted to give us the merit of doing a mitzvah with the first of a person's fruit, so that we know that everything is His, and that a person has nothing in the world except what God, may He be blessed, shares out to us in His kindness.
בִּקְּשׁוּ מַלְאֲכֵי הַשָּׁרֵת לוֹמַר שִׁירָה, אָמַר הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא: מַעֲשֵׂה יָדַי טוֹבְעִין בַּיָּם, וְאַתֶּם אוֹמְרִים שִׁירָה?
The ministering angels wanted to sing. The Holy One, blessed be He, said: "The work of My hands is drowning in the sea, and you are singing?"
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