A YOUNG REBBETZIN REFLECTS ON TEFILLIN
Most Unusual Impressions . . .

“Sensual.”

“Intimate.”

One almost wishes that English owned words that conveyed those emotions in a more sanctified manner. But, as the Biblical pesukim and passages from Chazal and Chasidus punctuated our conversation, one can have no doubt that our discussion of Tefillin was on the most sacred level.

Rebbetzin Miriam is still in her twenties and on shlichus with her husband Rabbi Mendel (names changed). She sat with me for two hours to respond to my questions on Tefillin from the perspective of a knowledgeable, devout Chasidah for whom the performance of the mitzvah is vicarious.

Born into a Lubavitcher family, experiencing Tefillin in childhood was a natural function of growing up in a religious home. Her first active encounter with the mitzvah came in pre-adolescence, when her father injured himself, and she was obliged to wrap the Tefillin around his arm. Yes, it was a privilege, she remembers. But, more than that, she said, the tactile sensation awoke and elevated her senses as only an intimacy with G-d could.

The awareness, however latent, became one and inseparable from Miriam’s spiritual growth. That growth naturally advanced as she studied the Biblical, Rabbinic and Chasidic insights into the mitzvah’s transcendent power.

Did this make her envious, even angry, that she had been denied that profound experience? “No,” she states emphatically. “Tefillin is part of ‘their’ path to intimacy with G-d. ‘We’ have our own.” More about that later.

Did her transformation to wife and mother affect her perception of Tefillin? Here again, her responses were unexpected as she describes her feelings in intimate, sensual terms:

“The first time that I saw Mendel in his Tefillin, we were still engaged. He came by after davenen to run an errand, and I could see the marks that the straps had left on his arm. Without thinking twice, I said to myself, ‘Now I know that my groom is not a boy or just one of the guys, but a real man.’.”

Somehow, the act of donning Tefillin had instinctively affirmed that her groom had truly attained manhood, that he brought with him the qualities, maturity and spiritual groundedness to raise a family that would be healthy in all imaginable ways. (By the way, after seven years they seem to be succeeding beautifully!)

Coming full-circle, the Rebbetzin makes sure that I get the point: “Mendel contributes to the family through the man’s path. I contribute through the woman’s path. We are guided by the essentially different ways that man and woman attain intimacy with G-d and each other.”

This begs the question of Tefillin taking holiness to the point of spiritual overload. I ask her, “If The Rebbe is the ultimate symbol of holiness, then what sense of super-spirituality does one achieve by beholding The Rebbe adorned in his Tefillin?”

Here the Rebbetzin’s response is entirely unexpected and provocative. She says that she can barely force herself to look at pictures of The Rebbe wrapped in his Tefillin. In fact, she routinely skips over those pictures when they are in a book that she is reading.

“Why?” I ask.

“I don’t really know how to put it into words, but I feel almost like I’m intruding on a moment that’s too intimate, when The Rebbe communes with G-d that closely. It’s like peeking in on him in the most personal of times, like violating his privacy.”
“It’s strange, I know,” she continues without being asked, “but I feel the same kind of vicarious sensuality when Mendel helps a man leig Tefillin for the first time. That moment is the most intimate connection that a man can have with a mitzvah, a holy time that his bare skin comes into the closest contact with a manifestation of G-d’s power.

“This is not a simple matter of slapping some leather on a person’s arm. This is the most sensory encounter than a man can have with God, and my husband is the catalyst for it. It makes me proud, but I also realize that it forever bonds Mendel to him, mentor to disciple, in this first, most intimate, metaphysical meeting.”

Now, I am intrigued even more by her lack of envy at being an observer, not a participant, in the mitzvah of Tefillin. Again, Miriam emphasizes that it is not an issue of depravation. To the contrary, Tefillin and the other time-bound mitzvot are “man’s way.” Women’s mitzvot are “woman’s way.”

“What do you mean by ‘way’?”

“The ‘way’ to gain intimacy with G-d. G-d’s mitzvot fill the empty places in the soul. Man has desperately empty places when it comes to the holiness of time and the sanctity of tactile things. For example, man sees a field of wheat and instinctively thinks of how many bushels it will produce, not its beauty. Thus, man’s intimacy with G-d can come only through focusing on commandments that attune him to the sacredness of time and beauty of the tactile world. So much of this is embodied in mitzvos like Tefillin.

“Woman, on the other hand, is profoundly aware of the sanctity of time and beauty of the tactile world, much of which comes through the miracles of her physical cycles and childbirth and rearing. She beholds nature and instinctively perceives its majesty, not how much you can get for that dozen roses. She sees a man in Tefillin and perceives communion with G-d, not merely a collection of laws. She alone is G-d’s partner in declaring when the mundane, workaday world ends and when the taste of the World to Come, Shabbos, begins. This is the ‘woman’s way’ of gaining intimacy with God.”

“Sensual.”

“Intimate.”

Not exactly words that we contemplate when we consider the mitzvah of Tefillin. But, maybe it’s time to add a few new words to the lexicon we use to describe the richness of mitzvot. Better yet, let’s not think of “adding” the words, but simply “rediscovering” them, for there can be no doubt that the nearness of Tefillin binds more than leather to skin. How much more intimacy and sensuality, in their holiest sense, can they bring into our lives?

As we concluded our conversation, Rebbetzin Miriam looked as though she had said nothing particularly profound. As for me, a man, I was transformed forever. Not bad, Rebbetzin. Not bad at all.