Objects

The painting shows a boy wearing a yarmulke, with a tallit on his shoulders, while learning to put on phylacteries, one of the parts of the bar mitzvah ceremony, the introduction of a Jewish boy into adulthood. | A Jewish boy who has reached the age of 13 and one day according to Jewish religious law becomes an adult. From now on, he can read Torah on the bimah in the synagogue and put on phylacteries for morning prayers to protect him during prayer from sin and evil. | Phylacteries, in Hebrew t(e)fil(l)in (from t[e]fil[l]a - prayer) - are two small, open caskets made of leather or metal (silver) in the shape of a cube, in which are placed scrolls of parchment with handwritten quotations from the Biblical Book of Exodus (13,1-10 and 11-16) and Deuteronomy (6,4-9 and 11,13-21). Two thongs are attached to the base of the phylacteries, with the help of which men fasten them to their forehead and left forearm (Z. Borzymińska, Filakterria (Phylactery), entry in: Polski Słownik Judaistyczny (Polish Judaic Dictionary), vol. 1, Warsaw 2003, see in the online version of Słownik: https://delet.jhi.pl/pl/psj?articleId=15043, accessed on 22 November 2021). | JO