California-bound: An unintentional mitzvah

Someone, somewhere, in California is wearing a set of my tefillin.

I don’t know who or where, but I do know why — I donated my tefillin to him (I’m guessing that the recipient is a he, because most Jews who put on tefillin are males).

But my donation was not intentional.

Here’s how it happened …

I was spending several days last winter with some dear friends in Cherry Hill, NJ, which is near Philadelphia. As usual, I packed in my suitcase my set of what I call my “travel tefillin,” a pair that accompanies me whenever I leave home; another set always stays in my Queens apartment.

As usual, I keep the travel set, in its dark blue velvet bag, on a long wooden table in the bedroom that serves as my home-away-from-home whenever I visit Cherry Hill, a city with a growing Orthodox community. Also on the table usually are some books my hosts gift me whenever I visit, and a small bag of chocolate-covered mints, which I find on my pillow, like in a fancy hotel, when I am the family’s guest.

My hostess (I will call her Rose), a sensitive and spiritual and very modest physician who became a baales teshuvah as an adult, told me about a project that had caught her interest.

Shortly after a devastating wildfire that struck California earlier this year, leaving hundreds of people homeless and sometimes destitute, Rose was in contact with a Jewish organization that was collecting Judaica items for Jewish families who were stricken by the blaze; many had lost their homes, and everything therein. In response, a wide variety of Jewish organization — including several synagogues and Jewish federations, Chabad, Mazon, the National Council of Jewish Women, and the Marshall Fire Community Facebook Group — had reached out to suddenly-needy members of the community, collecting replacement items like Shabbat candlesticks, mezuzot, Passover seder plates, kipot, Kiddush cups and challah boards.

Rose, excited to do a mitzvah for people whom she did not know – one of Rambam’s highest levels of tzedakah – signed on to the chesed project. I overheard her enthusiastic phone conversations with representatives of one of the organizations.

Soon, she set to work.

She asked me, respectfully, for permission to go into “my room” to gather some stuff. That room had been the childhood room of her oldest son, who is now a haredi rabbi and lives in Israel.

My hostess had described the collection project to her son. Inspired, he told her that any of his possessions in his former living space were hefker, and could be gladly donated to the worthy cause. Stuff like kipot, Chumashim, siddurim and colorful talleisim that he would no longer put on, as well as tefillin, in their fading velvet bags, that he no longer used (when he visits from Eretz Israel, he brings along his current set).

Her items in her hands, I lent a hand as Rose packed them in her living room, then we schlepped the boxes of Jewish articles to a local UPS outlet for shipping to California.

The next day, when I arose early to daven in my room (since Covid, I have avoided the crowds of synagogues), I picked up the siddur I keep there during my visits, then turned to put on my tefillin.

They weren’t on the table.

Where are my tefillin?

They weren’t in sight. Or out-of-sight, returned mistakenly to my closed suitcase. Or anywhere in the room.

It was too early to awaken my hosts.

The family, fond of practical jokes, had not fooled around with an object of kedushah like tefillin, I was sure.

Then the answer dawned on me; my tefillin had lain on the table on which Rose had placed the pile of Judaica that she would send west; not recognizing my property, among the other tefillin bags, she assumed it had belonged to her son. And would soon belong to someone in California.

I shared my theory later that morning with my hostess — after I finished my sans-tefillin davening.

“Someone in California will be using my tefillin next week.”

My theory was plausible. Oops! Rose caught on immediately. And was very apologetic.

No need to apologize, I assured her – it was an honest mistake. And the person into whose hands my tefillin were headed clearly needed my spare set more than I did.

My hostess asked if she should contact the people at the Jewish organization in California to track down my tefillin, i.d. them, and return them to me. I said no – the pair were definitely destined to go to their eventual recipient.

I performed yeiush, a halachic declaration that renounces a claim on a lost object , conceding that it was gone forever and henceforth the rightful property of the individual into whose domain it comes — in this case, whoever received my tefillin.

That morning I put on a pair of tefillin that belonged to the family’s other son, who lives at home; I agreed to let my hostess pay for a replacement set for me – a working physician is in better financial shape than a sort-of-retired journalist whose main source of income is Social Security; and I added a story about the “missing tefillin” to my repertoire of amusing anecdotes that carry a serious message.

Rose never heard from the recipient organization about who had received my tefillin, or the other items she had sent.

The anonymity of my “gift” was assured.

This all raised a philosophical question in my mind: What does Jewish thought say about a person receiving schar – reward in the Next World – for a good deed done unintentionally? I was interested not just in my case, but in that of anyone who, without foresight, performs what turns out to be a mitzvah.

I called Rabbi Avrohom Braun, the long-time menahel at Ohr Somayach yeshiva in Monsey, N.Y., where I had spent some time in the study hall once a year for almost four decades.

I described the missing tefillin scenario to Rabbi Braun. Citing various sources in Chumash and Talmud, he declared, “G-d has interesting ways of causing a z’chus [a favorable merit] to happen.” In other words, I was on firm theological ground – G-d apparently had arranged for my tefillin to end up on the West Coast; therefore, I received credit for “donating” the tefillin. If a person is judged deserving, Rabbi Braun continued, “G-d enables someone to do a mitzvah.” In other words, G-d arranged for my tefillin to end up where they belonged.”

I, unintentionally, the rabbi said, would get a double schar ­ reward in Heaven – for my unwitting donation to the collection cause. Reward for the donation, and reward for each time the recipient uses the tefillin.

Judaism, in other words, recognizes that all’s well that ends well; Rose’s well-intentioned mistake will work in my favor. And in favor of the California recipient.

As they say in pickup basketball games, no harm, no foul — since I was able to use the son’s tefillin, I didn’t have to forego the obligation for even a day.

And I still had a set at home to use upon my return.

I had planned for a while to have both sets inspected – and repaired, if need be – by a competent sofer in my neighborhood. They had not been checked for several years.

I trust that the donated tefillin – mine, and others donated with more-intended kevanah ­ would be inspected for halachic fitness before being given to a grateful recipient whose own set had been lost in the wildfires.

In other words, G-d had decreed that my now-declared-fit tefillin will go on the arm, and head, of someone else, who would appreciate kosher tefillin.

Back home, I’ll have my second set inspected.

And I have a sense of relief – my travel tefillin are the property of someone whom Providence had decreed would gain something that a fire had taken away.