TEFILLIN: MY OWN EXPERIENCE
While the practice of putting on tefillin has been part of the (solely) male Jewish experience for many generations, tefillin were not a constant part of my own life. My traditional grandfathers used them daily—they were even buried with them. My own father used tefillin as a young adult, but I have no recollection of ever seeing him put them on.
My own daily spiritual practices grew as I passed into adulthood, but tefillin remained foreign to me. Nonetheless, I purchased for each of my sons a pair of tefillin for their bar mitzvah (a Jewish rite of passage for thirteen-year-old boys), gifts brought back from annual trips to Israel. I wanted them to have this ritual opportunity that had passed me by in my youth. Something deeply embedded in my soul yearned for expression through tefillin, though I did not know how to articulate it and did not realize that I could give it voice by simply putting them on. Instead, like so many other things we do as parents, I tried to express myself vicariously through my children.
And then my boys, prompted by their involvement in our local synagogue youth group and the conventions and trips in which they participated, started getting up early each day to put on tefillin before going to school. There was no internal debate, no one there to question their motives or practice. Sleepily, they would wake early and lovingly wrap these leather straps around their young and innocent arms and heads as inoculation against the world's callousness. I pretended to pass their rooms each morning for different reasons, but the real reason remained the same: I was taken by the expression on their faces that accompanied their daily practice. Tefillin helped center the roller-coaster ride of adolescence that they endured each day. "Perhaps it might help center me as well," I thought. So, one morning, I added the practice of tefillin to my daily morning routine.
It was awkward at first. I knew the rules and the how-to of the wrapping technique. I knew the laws and texts. But they had become somewhat irrelevant. I knew that routines take time to develop and I had to work out my own. Like new physical exercises that are peculiar at first, the fluidity of this practice was slow in coming, so I worked at it each day, carefully binding myself in the leather straps and prayer boxes, concentrating and focusing, avoiding the distractions of the emerging day. In some ways, these first days of laying tefillin were among the most honest ritual practices in which I have ever engaged. The practice of tefillin demanded my attention, for it did not come naturally or easily. I could not multitask as I did it or do it half-heartedly. After all, I was attempting to make contact with God.
After my morning prayers are finished and I remove the tefillin, telltale signs of the practice are left behind—reddened skin indentations on the arm and forehead, and a messy head of hair. But these are not disconcerting. Rather, I find these signs comforting as I look in the mirror and finish the process of readying myself for the day. I am proud of these marks, and I sometimes look for them on others as I encounter them on my way to work. This may remind Christians of the feeling they have following Ash Wednesday service, when they have ash on their foreheads and wonder "Should I wash it off, or am I supposed to leave it there all day?" In a similarly physical way, through my tefillin practice I remind myself daily of God's presence in my life, the nearness of the Divine, and the inspiration and guidance that I constantly seek.
Each morning I get up, get mostly dressed, and put on my tallit (prayer shawl) and tefillin before finishing my morning routine and rushing off to work. Sometimes I get up a little earlier, stow my tallit and tefillin in my briefcase, and make a stop at a neighborhood synagogue or one near my office for morning prayers. I also keep a set of tefillin in my office, which is particularly helpful in winter, when I often get to my office before the sun is up. As personal as the practice of tefillin is for me, I often yearn for a greater sense of community. I feel better when I join with others in a practice that makes me feel like a disciplined Jew. And I get particular joy from helping a new person who has joined us, awkwardly struggling with the practice, not wanting to ask for help or appear unsure about what to do.
So I gain a significant measure of spiritual fulfillment through my discipline. In an odd sort of way, it is a feeling similar to the one I get after forcing myself on the treadmill each evening, knowing how much better I will feel at the end of my workout, even if I dream up lots of excuses not to do it in the first place.
