I was learning a piece from Reb Yonason Eibshitz this morning that confirmed a thought that I had about the price of tefillin. He writes about how much money people would spend for a hat (even back then), how the hat had to be perfect, exactly what was in style, not even a drop too tall, short, etc. Shoes, he notes, are something that people will pay twice what they are worth even though they only last a few years. But when it comes to tefillin, those same people want to save money at the expense of doing the mitzvah in the best way possible. Back then a good set of tefillin lasted 10 or 15 years, whereas nowadays the kind of tefillin that I enjoy selling will last a lifetime–guaranteed. If you spent even $1,000 or $15,000 on tefillin and divide that price by the number of years a lifetime set will last, you will see that expensive sets of tefillin are quite cost effective. If a person spends $1,000.00 on tefillin and uses them for fifty years that comes to only $20.00 per year!
