In the Hebrew Bible, the word totafot appears only three times, each in reference to t’filin or phylacteries—small boxes containing parchment with short passages from the Torah—that are to be worn on the head. The word’s literal meaning is obscure, and gave rise to various rabbinic etymologies. After discussing these in light of modern linguistic and ethnographic knowledge, Stanley Dubinsky and Hesh Epstein present an explanation provided by the contemporary biblical scholar Jeffrey Tigay:

Tigay argues for an interpretation . . . wherein totafot is a headband, and suggests that the use of the word is as much metaphorical as it is literal. Tigay explains the probable source of the word’s root meaning (“something that encircles”), illustrates how its use in Exodus could be understood metaphorically (i.e., “something one holds close”), and points out that contemporaneous Egyptian and Assyrian art from the 8th century BCE shows the wearing of headbands to be typical of peoples (e.g., the Israelites) living in the region northeast of Egypt.

In discussing the earliest translations of totafot, Tigay notes that it is almost always used in reference to something that “completely encircles the part of the body on which it is worn.”

We are thus left with a way of understanding totafot as an ordinary word, as Rabbi Moses Naḥmanides [1194–1270] would have it, neither borrowed from Egyptian, Coptic, or Phrygian [as one talmudic opinion suggests], nor connected to other cultures’ magic rituals for dispelling evil, [as some modern scholars have asserted]. And rather than involving some mysterious allusion to the construction of the head t’filin, its meaning is a straightforward metaphor reminding us how important it is to keep the teachings close to us and foremost in our minds.

As this newsletter noted last week, Gaza is not suffering from famine, and the efforts to suggest that it is—which have been going on since at least the beginning of last year—are based on deliberate manipulation of the data. Nor, as Shany Mor explains, does international law require Israel to feed its enemies:

Article 23 of the Fourth Geneva Convention does oblige High Contracting Parties to allow for the free passage of medical and religious supplies along with “essential foodstuff, clothing, and tonics intended for children under fifteen” for the civilians of another High Contracting Party, as long as there is no serious reason for fearing that “the consignments may be diverted from their destination,” or “that a definite advantage may accrue to the military efforts or economy of the enemy” by the provision.

The Hamas regime in Gaza is, of course, not a High Contracting Party, and, more importantly, Israel has reason to fear both that aid provisions are diverted by Hamas and that a direct advantage is accrued to it by such diversions. Not only does Hamas take provisions for its own forces, but its authorities sell provisions donated by foreign bodies and use the money to finance its war. It’s notable that the first reports of Hamas’s financial difficulties emerged only in the past few weeks, once provisions were blocked.

Yet, since the war began, even European states considered friendly to Israel have repeatedly demanded that Israel “allow unhindered passage of humanitarian aid” and refrain from seizing territory or imposing “demographic change”—which means, in practice, that Gazan civilians can’t seek refuge abroad. These principles don’t merely constitute a separate system of international law that applies only to Israel, but prolong the suffering of the people they are ostensibly meant to protect:

By insisting that Hamas can’t lose any territory in the war it launched, the international community has invented a norm that never before existed and removed one of the few levers Israel has to pressure it to end the war and release the hostages.

These commitments have . . . made the plight of the hostages much worse and much longer. They made the war much longer than necessary and much deadlier for both sides. And they locked a large civilian population in a war zone where the de-facto governing authority was not only indifferent to civilian losses on its own side, but actually had much to gain by it.