A Tale of Three Tefillin
Sitting in the winter sun on a patio in Tekoa, surrounded by children and grandchildren, we celebrated our grandson’s momentous day. He had put on tefillin for the first time minutes earlier, in the morning minyan, prayer service, in the community synagogue. Now we were enjoying a late breakfast with the immediate family, four grandparents and one great grandfather. Tefillin, or phylacteries as they are called in English, are the unique leather straps that bind the two small boxes, one to the head and one to the arm, each containing paragraphs from the Torah, our holy scriptures, that are central to our belief. It is a big moment for an almost thirteen year old who will be celebrating his bar mitzva in one month. This is a first public step taking the leap to adult obligations and practices. It is a palpable moment, one when you can actually feel the movement from the world of childhood to the world of adulthood. Pride and excitement mix with a sense of importance of the moment.
As we sit together savoring that moment and the beautiful day, each grandfather spontaneously and in turn shared a tefillin moment in his life. Zaydi Mike shared how he had worn tefillin every day since his bar mitzva except for the two and a half weeks he spent in the former Soviet Union in the summer of 1977. On the second day of that trip that consisted of an undercover mission to bring out names of Jews who wanted to make Aliya, he met an elderly man in the unmarked synagogue of Leningrad (St. Petersburg, today) on Shabbat morning. In a combination of broken English and Yiddish he shared that his only grandson, son of his card carrying Communist party son, would be bar mitzva next month. He desperately wanted to give this grandson tefillin in his hope against hope that his own Jewish tradition would not be snuffed out. He asked Mike if he had a spare pair of tefillin. The only set of tefillin that we had smuggled in to the Soviet Union, along with books about Israel, prayer books, Jewish history books and a copy of Exodus, was Mike’s personal tefillin, received at his bar mitzva. Days earlier, he had hidden them a pair of black wool socks deep in our suitcase in order to pass the scrutiny of the airport security when we landed. What this gentleman was asking of Mike was a big ask . If Mike were to give him his tefillin it would mean that he would not have tefillin for the next two and a half weeks. Until that moment he had never missed a day of putting on his tefillin. In a split second, Mike decided and made up to meet the elderly gentleman the following day. At the appointed hour on a bridge spanning the Neva River, he handed over his tefillin with a prayer and a mazal tov. I wonder where those tefillin are today.
The second tefillin story also took place in the former Soviet Union. This time the setting was a dark basement in Moscow seven years earlier, in 1970. On that morning, Shmuel Gurevich, our daughter in law’s father, now a retired physicist from Weizmann Institute, was undergoing a Brit Mila at age twenty five. It is hard to conjure up the scene and impossible to imagine what he was experiencing on that winter morning. Was it fear? Excitement? Danger? Awe? We took a collective breath as he continued his story. At the conclusion of the brit he was give a tiny pair of tefillin which he immediately began to use daily as he wrapped himself in them and cast his lot with those brave Jewish refuseniks. Committing himself to the Jewish people in Soviet Russia of 1970 was an act of incredible courage, almost unimaginable as we sit in the winter sunshine of Tekoa.
The third and final tefillin story was shared by my 99 year old father. His story took place in Hamburg, Germany in September of 1938. The Nazis are in power. Stores have signs indicating that they are under Jewish ownership. Jewish children are no longer allowed to study in public schools. Non-Jews are not allowed to work for Jews, and the list goes on. Fear is palpable in the air. My grandparents, who had meticulously planned their departure from Germany via the Noordam, a Holland America ship bound for the USA in late October, decided on the second day of Rosh Hashana to leave Germany forever the following day. They had received information indicating that if they did not leave immediately my grandfather would be arrested and incarcerated in a concentration camp. Hours before departure, amidst what had to be tumultuous confusion, although never a word has been shared about that, my twelve year old father was sent to Rabbi Holzer, their rabbi, to learn how to put on tefillin. His bar mitzva was more than two months off but his father, a secular Jew, who did not put on tefillin, made sure that his son learned how. That same grandfather returned to the traditional practice of putting on tefillin daily when he retired at age 65. Arriving on the shores of the United States days before his bar mitzva, my father and his brothers were separated from their parents for many long months, placed in foster homes while their parents looked for jobs and learned English. The tefillin my father received stayed with him during that difficult time.
Three tefillin stories, each spotlighting a piece of our recent Jewish history. The strength of our connection to tradition, the constant and consistent presence of the tefillin in the lives of Shachar’s grandparents will serve as a source of inspiration and guidance. This touchstone moment will be one to remember and return to in years to come. My hope for Shachar is that he will carry the three tefillin stories with him as he embarks on his own unique journey in life, declaring the words of Hosea (2:21-22) as he wraps the leather straps around his arm: וארשתיך לי לעולם, וארשתיך לי בצדק ובמשפט ובחסד וברחמים, וארשתיך לי באמונה וידעת את ה; “I will betroth you to me forever, I will betroth you to me in justice and righteousness, lovingkindness and mercy; I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you shall know G-d.”