Living Torah Archives

Rabbi Chaim Jacobs and his wife Sora, have been the co-directors of Lubavitch of Scotland for more than four decades. In 1967, the Rebbe launched the now famous Tefillin campaign. A Yeshiva student at the time, Rabbi Jacobs began an initiative for students to visit the local Jews and help them don Tefillin. He remembers the Rebbe’s warm responses to the work they were doing.

In 1970, Rabbi Sholom Ber Lipskar was sent as a Chabad emissary to Florida, where he serves as rabbi and director of The Shul in Bal Harbor. A member of his community, a champion tennis player, invited him to meet his wealthy friend. Bringing his Tefillin to the tennis courts began a relationship that lasted well beyond that first encounter. In fact, the impact of that meeting is still felt by hundreds of children today.

The Rebbe gives words of encouragement to different people who recently began putting on teffilin (Collage).

Not long after the Rebbe launched the tefillin campaign, Mr. Bentzion Rader asked the Rebbe, “Why tefillin?”. The answer the Rebbe gave him, was only understood seven years later (1967).

“Knock, knock.” “Who’s there?” “Tefillin delivery from the Lubavitcher Rebbe.” (1961)

In 1975, Mr. Bentzion Rader went on a business trip to Detroit, Michigan. While there, he met a non-observant Jew whom he convinced to put on Tefillin. After reporting this episode to the Rebbe, he found himself doing a little soul-searching of his own...

Some ask: “What benefit results from the Tefillin campaign? You put Tefillin on a Jew only one time, and you have no idea if it has any lasting effect on him?” Every Mitzvah forges an eternal bond between a Jew and his Creator. In addition, the Talmud teaches that a Jew who dons Tefillin even once, becomes worthy of his share in the World to Come; his entire eternal future, depends on it.