2 Times the Rebbe Suggested to Have Tefillin Checked

Welcome to our weekly program, The Inside Story of Chabad in America, through the Mindel Archives.

Next week, this coming Sunday, is Shivasar B'Tamuz, that's the beginning of the Three Weeks, and the Chazal tell us that Tamuz and Av are the chodoshim, the months of aveilus, mourning for the churban, the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. The first Beis Hamikdash was destroyed because of giluy arayos, the second Beis Hamikdash was destroyed because of sinas chinam, and we went into exile, and we are still in golus. We are now, as the Rebbe says, the ikvesa d'Meshicha, and will soon become the geulah.

So here I want to share with you a letter. Now this program will be also — I mean next week will be connected, because it's more or less the same question, but next week is a different answer. But this week I want to share with you a letter from the Rebbe, an answer to someone who asked a question, a strange question.

The question is, and I'm going to read it: "When will Mashiach come? Will he ever come, Rebbe? We're having doubts, we're mixed up. Generations are coming, generations are going. We were promised, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, that Mashiach is coming." By big tzaddikim, even the Previous Rebbe, he writes, in 1941, that it is promised the geulah is at the door, and people were ready, people were saying, "Is he coming? Will he come? Tell us." And then they write that because of that, they started to look into the radio missionary programs about Mashiach — "We want to know, is Mashiach coming or not?"

So here I'm going to read to you the answer to this person, and at the end of this program I want to share with you a story.

First let me read the question, the way the Rebbe wrote the answer to this person:

"Your letter dated [such and such] reached me with some delay. In it you write that you have been listening for the past year and a half to a certain radio program which has to do with the prediction of the coming [of Mashiach]. You write that this program and the literature which they supply freely has confused you."

This is an old letter, from the original old paper, so it's hard to read.

"Since you write that you have attended a Lubavitch yeshiva for five years, I trust that it is unnecessary to write to you at length as to what the Jewish concept of the coming of Mashiach is. Our Sages have stated, in brief but meaningful sentences — and you can find a resume of it in the Mishneh Torah of the Rambam, who was the Guide for the Perplexed in his generation as well as in all succeeding generations to this day — in Hilchos Melachim, chapter 11 and 12. There you will find the fundamental principles as to the person of Mashiach, and the conditions before his coming, and during the days of Mashiach.

It is very surprising, and a great pity, that you have wasted and are wasting so much time to listen to missionary programs and reading their literature, which, as you yourself suspect, are only deceptive and intended to confuse. How much better use you can make of the time by studying the Torah, which is the true guide in life and contains also clear information and guidance on all questions, especially such a question as the coming of Mashiach.

Since our Sages of blessed memory have emphasized that the important thing is the deed, I want to take advantage of this correspondence in practical ways. The coming of the geulah through our righteous Mashiach will bring about our geulah from the golus. Consequently, it calls for reflection on the causes that had brought about the golus. Here again our Torah throws light, and it is expressed in our prayer: 'Because of our sins we have been exiled from our land.' Thus it is clear that in order to nullify the effect, it is first necessary to nullify the cause, and this is where my practical suggestion comes in — namely, to emphasize the need of each and every one of us to rectify the cause of the golus through the strengthening and adherence to the Torah u'mitzvos in the daily life, and thus hastening the geulah sheleimah.

But if anyone asks, 'I am only a single individual, what can be accomplished by a single mitzvah or good deed?' — the answer is again given clearly: a Jew must consider the whole world, as well as his own world, equally, as far as good and evil are concerned. Therefore, even one single good deed by one single individual will tip the scale towards the good. It is surely unnecessary to elaborate on this to you.

I suggest that you should have your tefillin checked, if this has not been done within the past 12 months, and that you should be meticulous in observing the mitzvah of tefillin every weekday. Also, that every day, after prayer during weekdays as well as on Shabbos and Yom Tov, you should say several chapters of Tehillim."

And the Rebbe signs with blessing.

Okay, so this is the answer to this person. Next week there's a — more or less the same question — about Mashiach, why we're in golus, and that I will do next week.

But now, talking here about checking tefillin, I want to just mention a story of the Rebbe about tefillin. Out of town somewhere, there was a maggid shiur, or a rosh yeshiva, a middle-aged person — and he, he was a mistake, I mean, there's no mistake in him now, but he always questioned that learning Chassidus is bitul. He always had this, and he had a brother, and he spoke to his brother — always, when they got together, he told him, "This is bitul Torah, you shouldn't know what it is."

So his brother, who was a neutral person, wrote to the Rebbe, and he wrote to the Rebbe, "What do you — my brother always speaks about Chassidus, that it's not necessary to learn Chassidus. What should I answer him?"

So the Rebbe says — even though we're not in Elul yet, usually that's when we check our tefillin — but he answers, in reply to your question, he should check — ask the rosh yeshiva to take his tefillin and ask him, let's say, to check his tefillin.

Now, what can the brother do? He's not going to tell him that the Rebbe told him to check his tefillin — he'll probably do the opposite. So, anyway, he asked a few people, and he told him, "You know what, I'm going to check my tefillin — maybe you also want to have your tefillin checked."

Anyway, he did that. His brother gave him the tefillin, they went to a sofer, they checked his tefillin, and the sofer opened up the tefillin — and the batim were empty. Apparently, when his father gave him the tefillin — I don't know, he forgot, or I don't know what happened — empty, maybe this was the tefillin from his bar mitzvah, that he put on. In other words, he learned Torah, he was a maggid shiur, he was maybe even a rosh yeshiva, learned nigleh, and maybe never put on real tefillin in his life.

Could be the Rebbe saw — and this is the Rebbe's way — behold, when it comes to different things, health or other things, the Rebbe saw: how can a person say something — that Chassidus is bitul — there's probably something missing in him. So the Rebbe saw that he has to check his tefillin. Not that the Rebbe knew whether he had posul tefillin or not — I don't know, we once brought a story that the Rebbe said it's like a vacha, whether there's been new ones or not, I don't know — but the Rebbe saw something, and that's how the Rebbe looks at everything: that anything in gashmiyus has to do — because there is a lack in ruchniyus.

And the same thing, as we read this letter today — that this person went to listen to missionaries about Mashiach, whatever — so the Rebbe asked him, "Check your tefillin," because maybe there's something wrong in the way you conduct yourself.

And this is a lesson that we can all learn out, and with Hashem's help, next week we will continue — the second answer from the Rebbe, why we are in golus.

Thank you.