WEARING TEFILLIN: "YOU MUST BE CRAZY!"

I spend most of my time in the secular world. I’ve read the classics, my columns are internationally syndicated, and I consult with Fortune 500 corporations.

Hoo-hah.

I consider my greatest distinction that every day upon arising I wrap a pair of leather boxes containing sacred texts – one upon my upper arm, one at my hairline – and offer a half-hour or so of prayers.

Praying in its own may seem irrational for one whose day is absorbed in the mundane. But the boxes, known as Tefillin, seem beyond absurdity, the stuff of which Hollywood faux-Kabbalah is made. In a word, to the cynic or even hyper-intellectual secularist, Tefillin appear to be just so much hocus-pocus.

Many Jews, even the worldliest ones, see the distinction between human and beast in the human capacity to understand wisdom as an amalgam of the intellect, spirit, and motivation to action. Donning Tefillin is not simply a “prayer aid” or symbol of times gone by. To the contrary, it is a first-thing-in-the-morning underpinning of the rest of my day, one that will make it purposeful and directed toward creativity, not to aiding and abetting the world’s destructive forces.

DONNING TEFILLIN STIMULATES THE INTELLECT: The Biblical passages they contain are in themselves rich textual source material. But, the entire act poses an inescapable confrontation with the world’s most intellectually vexing questions: How does finite man grasp infinity? How did the world come into being? Is Creation random or purposeful? Will the world end? If so, how?

DONNING TEFILLIN STIMULATES SPIRITUALITY: This seems like a no-brainer. But, as my cardiologist used to day, “The case is not so easy.” How does the small and tangible connect us to the infinite and incorporeal? And yet, in some nearly incomprehensible, mystical manner, it’s true. The essence of our faith is the myriad ways that the finite and the Infinite intertwine. Each Divinely-mandated commandment that we perform is, in fact, preceded by the celebratory words, “I am doing this mitzvah for the sake of uniting the infinite Holy One with His finite manifestation on earth.

Spiritually, the Tefillin are a nexus of the Jewish past, present, and future. They are imploded mystically with the Exodus, the revelation at Mount Sinai, and all the pain and glory until the End of Days in which all of the world’s tumult will be reconciled in the coming of Messiah.

DONNING TEFILLIN IS A CALL TO ACTION: In their boxes and winding, it is as though they convey an energy that strengthens the weaker of our arms. They bend our longest finger in servitude of our hands to G-d. They dwell opposite our heart, the seat of our passion. They rest before our brain, the epicenter of our intellect. They knit together the nexus of head and spine, the very spot where thoughts and passions are converted to deed.

Donning Tefillin should not prompt the question, “Are you crazy?” Nor is it a prayer aid like worry beads. It is a Divinely-mandated rehearsal each morning for what the unity of intellect, spirit, and motivation will look like when they are at one with the Divine during the coming day.

I wish I could say that I attain that oneness every day that I wrap my arm and forehead in my Tefillin. Sometimes, I confess, it is more of a mechanical exercise. It’s good to keep in shape, regardless.

This, I do know: On the days that I do don my Tefillin with meaning and thoughtfulness, the time I spend at my work, with my family, with my study of Torah, with my recreation, with my G-d, with my friends, is all the more delicious. G-d is not a landlord who comes around to collect the rent but an intimate friend, and life doesn’t get any better.