Berachot 23: Bathrooms

Should one return to the beginning of a prayer if the prayer is interrupted and delayed long enough to have completed the entire prayer?  Or can we begin from where we were cut off?  What if one simply needs to relive oneself - is that enough to invalidate the prayer?  How long can one wait - the time it takes to walk one parasang?  Or is having to use the washroom enough to compromise our focus and invalidate our prayer?

The rabbis discuss bathroom habits.  Must one remove one's phylacteries just before entering a bathroom?  Four cubits away?  Are we afraid that one will forget the tefillin and defecate?  Or forget them and break wind?  Steinsaltz teaches that we remove them four cubits from the bathroom, wind their straps, cover them with clothing, hold them opposite our hearts, and ensure that the straps are not dangling.  Before donning them again we should move four cubits away from the bathroom, as well. Beit Shammi say that we remove them at four cubits away, leave them in the window of the bathroom closest to the public domain and then enter, walking four cubits until putting them on again.  Bet Hillel say they can be held in one's hand when one  enters.  Rabbi Akiva says one can hold them in one's hand when one enters.

We are told of a prostitute who took tefillin from a window in the bathroom.  She came to the yeshiva and named a man there who had been her consort, saying that the teflilln were her payment.  The student then killed himself.  Holding them in one's hand made more sense.  But we must be careful not to forget them or to drop them, for that could cause a distraction from prayer.  

The Gemara discusses the instructions to relieve oneself thorough retaining modesty, which includes baring one handbreadth in front and two people behind.  The rabbis argue about whether this refers to urination/defecation or whether this refers to men and women's different techniques in urination.  They note that when defecating in a regular bathroom, one will sit and there are no drops of urine on one's clothes or shoes.  There's no need to dirty one's hands and so he is permitted to hold the tefillin in his hands.  In a makeshift bathroom, one will stand and thus there are drops which might be touched.  Tefillin must not be held in one's hands.

The rabbis ask whether or not teffilin can be held together with money in one's hat, or under one's bed near one's head while sleeping.  The answer seems to depend on custom - was the item holding the object intended to be used for such things?  Although Shemuel is lenient about phylacteries under one's bed while one's wife is present, the Gemara finds a baraita that conclusively refutes this.  Three handbreadths below or above his head is permissible, but not with his wife in the bed.