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I see in the Sidur HaRasa"g that he makes a seemingly strange comment about the b'rakha(oth) of t'philin. He states:

התפילין כשמהדקים של היד על היד ושל ראש על הראש צריך לברך אקבמ"ו להניח תפילין

ha-t'philin k'sh'm'hadhqim shel yadh al ha-yadh w'shel rosh al ha-rosh ssarikh l'varekh "asher qidshanu b'misswothaw w'ssiwanu l'haniah t'philin"

Translation: "T'philin: When we fasten the Shel Yadh to the arm and the Shel Rosh to the head it is necessary to make the b'rakha 'Who sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to set t'philin [in place].' "

The note at the bottom of the page in the sidur says that he essentially holds like Rav Amram Gaon (i.e. the standard shitta of the Sepharadim) that a b'rakha is made on the shel yadh only, but it seems to me that a simple diyuq in his wording yields the possibility that he held like the shitta of making two b'rakhoth on t'philin, but the same b'rakha each time (i.e. l'haniah t'philin).

My question is: How does the Rasa"g truly hold in this reagrd? Do we know from anywhere else in Geonic literature? Is the language in his sidur clear on this fact?

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  • The second part of your question is clearly answered in the background information: he is ambiguous. :)
    – Yitzchak
    Commented Dec 11, 2013 at 14:57
  • I understand about the ambiguity, but I was more questioning my own analysis. As in, "Perhaps I am reading it incorrectly?" Kol tuv.
    – user3342
    Commented Dec 11, 2013 at 20:41
  • kotar.co.il/KotarApp/…
    – Double AA
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 5:23
  • it sounds more like he is saying you make the one bracha for both the tefillin shel yad and the tefillin shel rosh rather than the same bracha twice.
    – Dude
    Commented Jan 6, 2017 at 5:20
  • The Geonim held to say both brachot, like the ruling of the Beraita in the Talmud Berachot and was common practice until the time of the Rif(I saw it in a compilation of teshuvot from the Geonim; can get title if you want). There was alsoa minhag to say a third bracha when taking them off and I explicitly remember that the Gaon being asked replied that it was permitted to bless the third bracha, if one wished. L'ma'aseh, nowadays, we(sepharadim) still bless only one bracha like the ruling of the Rif. Commented Sep 8, 2018 at 20:46

1 Answer 1

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Naftali Wieder wrote about this (התגבשות נוסח התפילה במזרח ובמערב volume 1, pp 161-3):

The manuscript (אא) used for the printed edition refers to only one bracha, and the editors of the printed edition (דורזון, אסף, יששכר) refer in the apparatus to another manuscript (אדמא) that also lists one bracha, but this time במצות (see here) instead of להניח. Wieder points out that since there are no extant views that present במצות as the sole bracha on tefillin, this manuscript must have been the victim of homeoteleuton, and the scribe accidentally omitted the first bracha of להניח that was originally there (so this manuscript also points to two). Additionally, multiple genizah manuscripts of this section refer to two brachot.

To go one further step with אא: Wieder says that the manuscript itself has evidence of a correction. Namely, the scribe started copying the text with two brachot that was in front of him, and then erased his work (but not well enough to cover his tracks!) and changed it to the text we have in the printed edition. Wieder mentions a similar "correction" in a manuscript of Seder Rav Amram Gaon (but there, instead of erasing, the scribe added: "the halacha is not like this, we don't say two brachot").

It seems that all the evidence points to the original text of the siddur containing two brachot for tefillin: להניח on the של יד and במצות on the של ראש.

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  • Thank you @DoubleAA for the comment pointing to this source. I read it a while ago, but hadn't seen this question, and wouldn't have made the connection.
    – magicker72
    Commented Jul 18, 2023 at 1:15

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