I know what you’re thinking: “Rabbi Michaels, that’s a lot of parshios! How are we supposed to know anything about how to pick out good tefillin parshios? It all looks the same to us”.

I believe you can understand much more than you think. Take some time, look closely, compare, look at prices, and call me with questions. You may find that you gravite to a certain set of parshios. For example, some people like thicker writing and some people like thinner writing. Take every opportunity to study the writing of the sofer whose tefillin parshios you are considering. As you look at the various parshios keep in mind that all of the tefillin that I sell are kosher. Additionally, all of the soferim that write these parshios have smicha which gives them permission to write from either the Vaad Mishmeres Stam or another qualified bais din. As you go up in price, the quality of the writing gets nicer and more details of the halacha are followed.  Parshios in the $1300 range are pretty worked out as far as halacha, meaning you won’t be finding much in their writing that’s out of sync with the Shulchan Aruch, the Mishna Berura and the Keses HaSofer. As far as beauty of the writing goes, the prices go much higher. There is a mitzvah to create and own beautiful objects for mitzvos in general, and the writing of sefrei torah, tefillin and mezuzos has its own special mitzvah to beautify the lettering which is derived from the word  וכתבתם (and you shall write). The word וכתבתם is broken into its two parts, so instead of meaning, ‘you shall write’, it reads וכתב תם, ‘and you shall write a pure writing’ (Shulchan Aruch simin 32, sif 4). So by investing in beautiful parshios, you  are in fact owning something of great beauty that has been made to exacting halachic standards.

Tefillin Parshios are available in all the common styles of writing (Bais Yosef, Ari, Sfaradi).