Tefillin Barbie – "A Song Every Day"

What Now? Where to?

Realizing this blog hasn’t posted anything in a long while. Author is working on a book — hope to share in some form sometime soon — and dealing with a variety of pressures from daily life and city and national worries. So, just by way of greeting, sharing pictures of DC Tefillin Barbie in 1) her sukkah, surrounded by message-filled images and a shelter, however shaky; and 2) post-sukkah sparseness, trying to figure out what is next.

DC Tefillin Barbie in her cardboard and cloth sukkah with dried greenery roofing. Tefillin Barbie wears store-bought clothing, tallit and tefillin crafted by soferet Jen Taylor Friedman plus homemade kippah and shoes. Furnishings and lulav and etrog are homemade. More details in post. — DC Tefillin Barbie in her sukkah, 5787. Full description below.

DC Tefillin Barbie (see post for details on her appearance) at a table with a laptop. Talmud volume and siddur are off on a side-table. — DC Tefillin Barbie at her laptop, post-Sukkot 5787.

Barbie in 5787 Sukkah. DC Tefillin Barbie in her cardboard and cloth sukkah with dried greenery roofing. Tefillin Barbie wears store-bought clothing, tallit and tefillin crafted by soferet Jen Taylor Friedman plus homemade kippah and shoes. Furnishings and lulav and etrog are homemade, so is tiny siddur (a replica of Siddur Eit Ratzon). Soferet Friedman supplied the Talmud volume, when Barbie arrived in DC in 2014. Decorations include a sign reading “Help us to see that no work truly prospers unless it bring blessing to others…never seek to dispossess others of what they have planted.– from Reform Prayerbook” (This is included as a wall in her sukkah every year, based on a larger canvass sign that once hung in the Occupy K Street sukkah and now usually hangs outside the larger, outdoor sukkah); a “Sumud Sustainers” image from Palestinian Legal including a keffiyah-kite is visible near the front (new for 5787), and a piece of artwork from a friend is in the back (also new for 5787).

Barbie post-Sukkot. DC Tefillin Barbie (see above for details on her appearance) at a table with a laptop. Talmud volume and siddur are off on a side-table.

Just BTW: We were assured by our local Councilmember that National Guard would be told to honor the law and stay 50′ away from Ballot Drop Boxes. But this was the view on the eve of voting.

Three National Guard standing at drop box for ballots near Foggy Bottom Metro station and GW University (Northwest DC) at rush hour, October 8, 2026. Directly violating current law. See, e.g., Brennan Center, The Conversation, and NPR. See also DC Board of Elections.

Is this 1959 or 2014? Prayers for a Change

DC Tefillin Barbie would love to focus on her passions of Jewish text and gender studies. But — don’t let that frozen smile fool you — she’s got other pressing concerns as well.

She finds, in fact, that concern for the racial tensions exploding in Ferguson, MO, and around the country dominate her prayers.

For example, upon donning tefillin in the morning (Koren Saks translation; Barbie’s own meditations):

From Your wisdom, God most high, grant me [wisdom], and from Your understanding, give me understanding.
Help me understand how our country remains so divided and how to help promote a better vision and a more just reality.

May Your loving-kindness be greatly upon me, and in Your might may my enemies and those who rise against me be subdued.
I pray in the spirit of the Talmudic great, Beruriah, who scolded her husband, Rabbi Meir for praying that “sinners be no more,” insisting instead that he should instead pray that the sins that should be no more. (See Berakhot 10a; Midrash Psalms 118)

Pour Your godly oil on the seven branches of the menora so that Your good flows down upon Your creatures.
There are so many areas of the globe in need of attention, but may our collective actions bring more divine flow to Ferguson, MO, and other spots in need of extra oiling.

You open Your hand and satisfy every living thing with Your favor.
May these straps, donned in prayer, remind me to keep my hands on productive, positive work for a better world and keep my mind away from panic, hatred, or despair.

Tefillin Barbie Tries a New Siddur

Soferet [scribe] Jen Taylor Friedman uses her scribal arts to create a variety of ritual items: ketubot [marriage certificates]; scrolls of the Book of Esther; scrolls to be used in mezuzot [doorpost markers] and tefillin [ritual boxes bound to arm and head]; as well as complete sets of tefillin. In 2007, she became the first woman we know to have completed a full Torah scroll. (More about female scribes)

UPDATE: An earlier version of this blog listed vegetarian tefillin among HaSoferet offerings. This was in error. Apologies. See discussion and comments below.

Since 2006, Taylor Friedman has also been providing mini-tallitot [prayer shawls] and tiny tefillin for Barbie® dolls.

One of these “Tefillin Barbies” recently traveled from Montreal to Washington, DC.

DC Tefillin Barbie arrived with a volume of the Babylonian Talmud in her hand. Seems she was studying something in Yebamot. This tractate focuses on marriage of a widow to her brother-in-law, but I believe Barbie may have been exploring passages, which appear near the beginning of the volume (4b, 5b), about tying of tzitzit, ritual fringes.

Study vs. Prayer

Early critics of Tefillin Barbie argued that, because tefillin are donned for prayer, Barbie ought to have a prayerbook in her hand, not a Talmud volume; some also criticized the particular edition of the Talmud she uses. (See, e.g., DovBear; more below).

In response, Taylor Friedman’s website now explains that Barbie is engaged in “daf-yomi” [page a day] study of the Talmud. (This practice requires seven years of daily discipline to complete. Some women in Israel and in the U.S. engage in this study, but it is usually considered a male enterprise; in addition it’s usually considered an orthodox practice, although non-Orthodox Jews also participate.) She adds:

Barbie is hardcore, see? She’s taking daf-yomi shiur before minyan starts, telling you that she’s sorry you don’t get that Tosafot but we don’t have time to get into it right now and she’ll go through it with you if you can stay afterwards.

Perhaps a real hardcore Barbie fan might get a whole set of mini-Talmud volumes, so she is carrying the right volume for any particular day of the seven-year Daf-Yomi cycle: For example, she’d be starting Moed Katan/Hagiga [Minor Feast/Festival Offerings] today (8/13/14). But I’m pretty sure DC Tefillin Barbie downloads her learning off the internet or uses a local library volume.

Meanwhile, having been warned “that tallit and tefillin are not designed to come off, and that this is a collector Barbie, not a toy suitable for small children,” I assumed Barbie might be pretty set in her ways. But when she arrived, I realized that she was, in fact, a Barbie doll…

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