The question then follows, considering that there are instances in which the Torah commands the writing of verses in specific places, does the Torah ever mandate the writing of amulets? Are mezuzah and tefillin, the self-commanded (bind and write these words) scrolls of the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and others) kameot? Do they serve to protect the Jews wearing them and dwelling in spaces upon which they are written? Perhaps. There are many stories in the Bavli and throughout later Jewish folklore that suggest that tefillin protect the wearer from harm.
Tractate (henceforth, the Hebrew, Masekhet) Ketubot of the Bavli recounts a famous story about the death of Rabbi Yehudah haNasi, the head of the Jewish community, the famous sage who is said to have codified the Mishnah. He is so prolific that this text, like others, refers to him not by his full name (Rabbi Judah the Prince), but simply by the name Rabbi (Master)(1), often vocalized Rebbi. The short story on Ketubot 104a is as follows:
ההוא יומא דנח נפשיה דרבי גזרו רבנן תעניתא ובעו רחמי ואמרי כל מאן דאמר נח נפשיה דר' ידקר בחרב
סליקא אמתיה דרבי לאיגרא אמרה עליוני' מבקשין את רבי והתחתוני' מבקשין את רבי יהי רצון שיכופו תחתונים את העליונים כיון דחזאי כמה זימני דעייל לבית הכסא וחלץ תפילין ומנח להו וקמצטער אמרה יהי רצון שיכופו עליונים את התחתונים:
It is related that on the day that Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi died, the Sages decreed a fast, and begged for divine mercy so that he would not die. And they said: Anyone who says that Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi has died will be stabbed with a sword.
The maidservant of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi ascended to the roof and said: The upper realms are requesting the presence of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, and the lower realms are requesting the presence of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi. May it be the will of God that the lower worlds should impose their will upon the upper worlds. However, when she saw how many times he would enter the bathroom and remove his phylacteries, and then exit and put them back on, and how he was suffering with his intestinal disease, she said: May it be the will of God that the upper worlds should impose their will upon the lowerworlds.(2)
In addition to the story’s significant comment on suspension of care that prevents a person from leaving this world, the part I want to focus on here is that, in addition to the prayers of his students, the life-support that Rebbi is connected to (tied to, even) is his tefillin. They are a charm that protects from death, which must be removed when one goes into the bathroom. More on that here.
The Bavli also recounts a truly tragic story, not of tefillin that prevented an old man ready to greet death from the ability to finally cross-over, but tefillin being assumed to be the amulet that protects their pious wearer from disaster. A story is related in Bavli Shabbat 13a-b:
תני דבי אליהו מעשה בתלמיד א' ששנה הרבה וקרא הרבה ושימש תלמידי חכמים הרבה ומת בחצי ימיו והיתה אשתו נוטלת תפיליו ומחזרתם בבתי כנסיות ובבתי מדרשות ואמרה להם כתיב בתורה (דברים ל, כ) כי הוא חייך ואורך ימיך בעלי ששנה הרבה וקרא הרבה ושימש תלמידי חכמים הרבה מפני מה מת בחצי ימיו ולא היה אדם מחזירה דבר:
The Sage in the school of Eliyahu taught a baraita that deals with this halakha: There was an incident involving one student who studied much Mishna and read much Bible, and served Torah scholars extensively, studying Torah from them, and, nevertheless, died at half his days, half his life expectancy. His wife in her bitterness would take his phylacteries and go around with them to synagogues and study halls, and she said to the Sages: It is written in the Torah: “For it is your life and the length of your days”(Deuteronomy 30:20). If so, my husband who studied much Mishna, and read much Bible, and served Torah scholars extensively, why did he die at half his days? Where is the length of days promised him in the verse? No one would respond to her astonishment at all.
This heartbroken, grieving young wife, demands that the Sages explain how her young husband, who devoted his time to the study of Torah, for which the reward (as prescribed in the Deuteronomy text itself) is said to be long life, died in his prime. She brings with her her deceased’s tefillin, the physical marker that he wore to embody his commitment to Torah and its commandments [link to conclusion]. We can infer that her husband, the ideal Torah student, was fastidious in his observance of the mitzvah of tefillin. And yet, he died a young man. The Sages are initially speechless(3), unable to respond to her raw grief. Tefillin are assumed to be a sort of kamea that protects their wearer from death; the shock the wife and the Sages exhibit in this story indicates the exception that proves the rule.
This literary trope is echoed in the modern Jewish canon in S.Y. Agnon’s 1939 novel, A Guest for the Night. In this scene, Daniel Bach recounts to the narrator and to his father, Reb Shlomo, his horrific experience in World War I fighting in the Emperor’s army.
Daniel went on: ‘So careful was I to put on tefillin every day that if I did not manage to put them on I ate nothing for the rest of the day. One night I was lying in the trenches, buried up to the neck and over in soft, rotting earth. The guns fired without stopping; piles of dirt erupted and slid into the trench, and the smell of burnt flesh rose all around me. I felt the fire had caught my flesh and I was being burned to death, and I was almost sure I would not come out alive: I would either be consumed by the fire or buried in the ashes. At that moment the sun appeared in the sky; the time had come for the morning prayer. I said to the Angel of Death: Wait for me until I fulfill the commandment of tefillin. I put out my hand to seek my tefillin. My hand touched a tefillin strap. I thought a bullet had struck the bag where the tefillin were kept and they had been scattered all around. But when I pulled the strap and touched the tefillin, I was struck by a stench. I saw that one strap was fastened to the arm of a dead man, for that trench was a mass grave, and that arm belonged to a Jewish soldier, who had been blown to pieces as he stood in prayer adorned with his tefillin.’(4)
The impact of his recounting of wearing his own tefillin every day while at war is amplified by the horror of encountering the corpse of another pious Jew, struck down by the battle’s machine gun fire while reciting his morning prayers, supposedly shielded by his tefillin. Tefillin are supposed to protect the Jews that wear them; sometimes they do, and when they don’t the tragedy of their deaths is literally magnified. Tefillin are kameot.