daf bit: Menachot 36

[cellio]

Today tefillin (phylacteries -- glad to help :-) ) are worn only during morning prayers, but this was not always the case. Today's g'mara discusses how long to wear them. R. Yaakov said one must wear them until sunset, but the sages said until people (in general) go to sleep. Both agree, however, that if a man took them off to enter a privy or bath-house and in the meantime the sun set, he does not put them back on. R. Eleazar, however, says that if one's purpose is to guard them, one may put them on after sunset. R. Nachman said that R. Chisda and Rabbah ben R. Chuna used to say the evening prayer while still wearing them. (36a-b)

So why did we stop wearing them all day? Is there a halachic argument, or is wearing them all day just too inconvenient in a world more modern than that of the g'mara?

And while I'm asking questions about ritual garments/aids, given that we remove a talit gadol before entering the privy, why is it ok to enter wearing a talit katan? I mean yes, it's impractical to remove it, but that could also be an argument for not wearing it in the first place.

Comments

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, we stopped wearing tefillin all day because as a practical matter, we can't maintain a guf naki. Even in the days of the gemara, only those who spent all day learning would wear tefillin all day, people in the real world couldn't commit to maintaining that level of cleanliness all day.

I don't know why we remove the tallit gadol in the privy. Some have pesukim on them, but others don't. Perhaps it's the practical issue that a tallit gadol, being, well, large, is hard to keep out of things that you might find in a privy, while a tallit katan is, well, smaller.

[cellio]

I would think that anything with long-hanging-down parts, whether the supporting garment is gadol or katan, would pose a practical problem, but I have no personal experience.

I had thought the issue with the talit was the special status of the tzitzit, which made me wonder why tzitzit on one kind of talit are ok but not the other. The talit is just a rectangular garment and nothing special, after all. (Assuming no writing, which I hadn't considered but you're right that some do.)