Regarding women and tefilin and why they are different than let's say tzitzit which Rav Moshe Feinstein technically permitted if a woman's talit was different colored than a man's tallit to avoid beged ish issues, it could be that beged ish is an issue with tefilin (although I have never seen someone compare tefilin to a beged directly it is certainly classified as a garment when wearing them on Shabbat to save them from damage).
I believe Rav Meiselman explained that tefilin really should be worn all day by men to fulfill the mitzvah according to many authorities. In modern times we don't have the focused concentration needed to wear tefilin all day so we reduce wearing them to only during morning prayers when our mind can be focused on the mitzvah.
Other than that time we no longer promote even men wearing tefilin since the potential denigration of the tefilin by not focusing thought on them disrespects the mitzvah. The only reason we even wear tefilin at all during tefillah is because men have no other choice since wearing tefilin is mandatory for them.
Anyone else such as a woman who is not already obligated to wear tefilin are discouraged from doing so for the same reason we discourage men from wearing tefilin all day, the potential negative outweighs any potential positive benefit.
There could also be the same argument made for women wearing tefilin as an optional mitzvah being the same as men wearing an optional pair of tefilin such as tefilin according to Rabbeinu Tam. The Shulchan Aruch advises against this practice since it could be viewed as yuhara or arrogance since it is showing extra observance of an optional pious act in front of others.
Shalom,
Elisha Paul
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/22/2014 07:25PM by mlb.
