One of my customers asked me the following question about peshutos mehudaros tefillin:
You have written in your website that Peshutos Mehudaros are “not acceptable in halacha according to all poskim.” Are they acceptable for temporary use? For example, may I use them as-is under the following circumstances:
A: If they are as kosher peshutos mehudaros can they be used until I am able to purchase a new pair (10-60 days)?
B: Can they be used for traveling so that my more expensive pair doesn’t get lost, stolen, or damaged?
C: Can they be used for visitors or friends that need to borrow a set of tefillin for a very short term (less than 30 days)?
Temporary use:
I would answer as follows: If you can’t afford a better pair, than you may use them. If this is your situation, I would recommend slowly putting small amounts of money away until you can afford better tefillin. As for buying things you can’t afford, this would seem to not be the Torah way of doing things. Each person will have to look at his lifestyle to determine if he is spending his money on lower priority items instead of saving for good tefillin. Of course, these are very personal calculations, and each of us always has to think about how we spend our money. There are many teaching in the Torah about the importance of spending money wisely.
Travel
As for using peshutos mehudaros for travel, I personally would not use them at all if I had better tefillin available. I would be very careful with them while I was traveling, but I would not bring peshutos mehudaros along on my travels if I owned better tefillin. Yes, people do lose tefillin during, but that wouldn’t stop me from dovening with my precious tefillin.
Guest Use
If I had a set of peshutos mehudaros that was kosher, and I had guests that did not have kosher tefillin, I would let them use them, after all, they are kosher, and any kosher tefillin is certainly better than no tefillin at all.
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