He is 65 years old, from London, and this was the first time he had ever put on tefillin. In fact, it is the first time he had ever seen tefillin. When I asked him to put them on and brought him over he started to cry.
When I began wrapping the strap on his arm he asked, "What is this all about?" He had no idea what the mitzvah of tefillin is, yet he cried when I started to put them on him. I asked him again if his mother was Jewish.
I explained that we put them on to fulfill the commandment that Jewish men are to take Hashem's words, bind them on our arm and put them as a reminder between our eyes. After the Shema I had him stand by the Kotel and open his heart by talking to G-d. He loved it. He said it was very special to him.
To me it seems so strange that a Jewish man 65 years-old from London had never even seen tefillin before, but then…, I had never seen them either, not until I came to the Kotel for the first time when I was forty years-old.
Maybe the Very First time a man puts on tefillin might be very moving for him. But for those (most) who have put it on every weekday they needed to, year in year out, I doubt if they truly find it so particularly moving.
ReplyDeleteIf you do it right it certainly is "moving"...
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