"Where is my mobile phone?" Ben thought. It was early on a sunny Wednesday morning. Ben was feverishly trying to get his stuff together so he could go off to school with his friend Danny, but he just couldn't find his mobile phone. Not that he was allowed to take it to school. He just wanted to know that it was safe.

"Ah here you are," he said excitedly, he had left it plugged in behind the couch. He put it safely in a drawer in his room.

"It still needs to get charged every so often, just like my Dad""You see," Ben said to Danny as they started off towards school, "the mobile phone lasts a long time but it still needs to get charged every so often, just like my Dad."

"How is your mobile phone like your Dad?" Danny asked.

"Well," Ben said, "my Dad puts on tefillin every morning; they are these black leather boxes that have parchment scrolls inside them. On the scrolls a scribe writes the Shema, the Hebrew prayer that declares the unity of G‑d and speaks about how much we love Him, along with a few more passages from the Torah."

"Hmm," Danny said. "When we are bar mitzvah we will also wear tefillin. But I cannot see what they have to do with a mobile phone."

"My Dad says that although he only wears them for the morning prayers, it's as if he's wearing them the whole time" Ben said. "It's like the phone—you plug it in once a day and then it stays charged for the whole day."

"Interesting," Danny said. "I wonder what it feels like to be charged up by tefillin all day. We'll find out when we're bar mitzvah!"

Just then the boys got to school. Their first lesson was on the Torah reading of the week, Shemini.

"What does Shemini mean?" asked their teacher, Mr. Benson. Some boys in the class answered together: "Eighth."

Danny and Ben both put up their hands. All the other boys just looked puzzled"That's right! The Sanctuary, the Mishkan, had been put up by Moses every day for seven days, and then taken down. That was in last week's reading. This week's reading tells how it was put up on the eighth day, and it stayed up. But even concerning the earlier seven days, it is interesting that each time it was put up, it caused a connection with G‑d. And then it was taken down, but the connection was still there."

Mr. Benson looked round the class. Everyone was focused on him, for once. "Does that remind you of anything?" he asked.

Danny and Ben both put up their hands. All the other boys just looked puzzled. Mr. Benson looked from Danny to Ben and back. Which one should he ask? "You both seem very keen," he said. "You can answer together."

With one voice they answered. "Tefillin!" said Danny. "Mobile phones!" said Ben.