Hayom Yom: Tackling Life's Tasks - 2 Menachem Av

A Story with an Echo

Interpreting5 the Biblical promise that “all the nations of the world will see that the Name of G‑d is proclaimed upon you and will fear you,” our Sages state that this verse refers to the tefillin that are worn on the head.

At a farbrengen on 24 Iyar, 5727 (June 3, 1967), soon after Egypt’s closure of the Straits of Tiran and two days before the outbreak of the Six Day War, the Rebbe cited this assurance that the observance of the mitzvah of tefillin endows the Jewish people with added strength. He highlighted the contemporary relevance of this promise — that in the current moment of crisis, too, observing this mitzvah would bring the Jews awe-inspiring victory.

Throughout the world and particularly in Eretz Yisrael, chassidim eagerly responded to the Rebbe’s call. Using every possible means to reach out to their fellow Jews, soldiers and civilians alike, they offered them the opportunity to perform this mitzvah.

Shortly after the liberation of the Kotel, the Western Wall, in Jerusalem, many Lubavitch chassidim, some of them also in uniform, invited the soldiers praying at the Wall to anchor the powerful feelings welling up within their hearts in the observance of this mitzvah. There soon appeared a pushcart equipped with spare pairs of tefillin, and manned by approachable chassidim who were anxious to provide spiritually-aroused visitors with a tangible means of expressing this inspiration. In the years since that time, many of the hundreds of thousands of Jews who have since put on tefillin had their first encounter with that mitzvah during a visit to that holy site.

Soon after the tefillin campaign began, a well-known Lubavitcher businessman in London, Mr. Benzion Rader, was asked by a neighbor: “Why did the Rebbe choose this particular mitzvah?”

The chassid didn’t know the answer, so when he next visited “770,” later in 1967, he posed this question at yechidus.

The Rebbe gave two answers. Firstly, “A Jew who has worn tefillin on his head even once in his life no longer belongs to a certain category that is discussed by the Sages in Tractate Rosh HaShanah.”6

The Rebbe then gave his second answer: “When a Jew in Miami sees a photo of Jews putting on tefillin at the Kotel, he may be inspired to do the same.”

Years passed. In 1974, the London chassid flew to Miami on business and arranged to meet one morning with a local Jewish accountant. When the latter arrived early at the chassid’s hotel room and found him still wearing his tallis and tefillin, he asked in surprise: “So you put on tefillin?!”

“Sure,” said the chassid. “And what about yourself?”

“Well, originally I didn’t,” said the accountant. “In fact, not since the day of my bar-mitzvah in New York 50 years ago. But one day I saw a photo of Jews putting on tefillin at the Kotel, and I felt an urge to do the same….”