Should We Pay a Jew To Put on Tefillin?

Should We Pay a Jew To Put on Tefillin? — Episode 205

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

Since we are now in the middle of the war, just like the other milchamos, the other wars — the Six Day War in '67, the Yom Kippur War — people, Jewish people from America, people that don't live in Eretz Yisroel, want to help. They want to do something, so they asked the Rebbe, "What can we do to help? We live here, we can't go to Eretz Yisroel." So the Rebbe answered then that our ammunition is mitzvos, and particularly the mitzvah of tefillin. This was the Rebbe in '67, also the Yom Kippur War. So the same thing applies today. People want to know, today, "We live here, what should we do?" Of course, people — everybody says Tehillim, they say Tehillim for the soldiers — but the feeling is, this is what the Rebbe wanted then, and the same thing should be now.

I remember the Six Day War: the whole world relied on what the Rebbe would say. Not only the religious people — even the non-religious people, even Meah Shearim [?] relied on it. Some of them even wanted to leave [unclear], but as soon as they heard that the Rebbe said to stay, they stayed. Meaning, whatever the Rebbe said, that's how it was.

The Rebbe says that when it comes to this, the emphasis of tefillin — I think this should be our emphasis, that we should try to be mezakim [others in mitzvos], and also try that people throughout the world should try to go out sometime to put tefillin on with Yidden who don't put on tefillin. As my Rebbi, Rabbi Mindel, said — he wrote an introduction to a letter in which he wrote that the Rebbe wore three crowns. The Rebbe wore the crown of [unclear], the Rebbe wore the crown of [unclear]. How many people in the world — thousands and thousands of people, I don't know if there's any other evidence, so many people came and were involved with the Rebbe, and the Rebbe was involved in everything in the world. He wrote letters to presidents, he wrote letters to prime ministers — he was involved in everything. So the Rebbe's emphasis on putting on tefillin — now, people think that the mezakeh of tefillin started in '67. So I want to share with you — I found a letter written in the '40s, 1942, 1943, at the time of the Holocaust, and I want to read what the Rebbe wrote. He was called then the Ramash. He wrote, in the name of the Frierdiker Rebbe, to the soldiers, members of the armed services, land, sea, and air, and he writes:

"Our sages say, he who puts on tefillin regularly merits long life. Brothers in the armed service, be very careful to put on tefillin every weekday. The putting on tefillin is a special merit which will evoke God's mercy that you will return home safely. We urge you to observe all religious precepts with the same care as tefillin, and you should regard it like that. And also you should try to see that other people should put on tefillin. The serviceman who has absolutely no possibility to put on tefillin in the morning should put them on later in the day, but before sunset."

Those are the words that the Rebbe wrote in the name of the Frierdiker Rebbe. So we see that tefillin was not only started in '67 — even at the time of the Holocaust, it was tefillin. Now, Jewish history didn't change for 3,000 years. Time changed, the place, the characters — but not the history. So just like then, in Egypt, and in Greece, in Iran, Stalin in Russia, and Hitler, so the same thing also now with Hamas. So this is the answer to people who want to know what we can do here in America to strengthen [unclear].

Now I want to share with you a letter — really it's two letters, but I don't know if we have time for both. One letter was written by someone — who is he, maybe a [unclear] — asking, how does the Rebbe know that tefillin is the thing, there are so many other mitzvos, why tefillin? The Rebbe wrote a very, very strong letter back, and if I have time I'll read it. But first I want to read the other letter — one that was written when the Rebbe came out with the tefillin campaign. People heard about it and became very much involved in putting tefillin on everybody. Some people, I guess, mentioned that they wanted to get paid for it — "I'll put on tefillin if I get something for it." So I want to read exactly what the Rebbe writes:

"Since everything is by Hashgacha Protis, Divine Providence, I must take a stand in regard to the other matter in your letter, which you mention in quite a casual way, without seeing anything wrong with it. I refer to the matter of a Jew suggesting to another Jew to put on tefillin, and the latter agreed on condition that the person suggesting it should do something in return. This is rather surprising and painful, especially in our time, when the Jewish situation in general is a difficult one, and when the observance of mitzvos, particularly the mitzvah of tefillin, is even more important than ever.

"We live in a time when all '-isms' have gone bankrupt, and it has become obvious that there is no other way for Jews but to identify with authentic Judaism through the commitment in daily life to the fulfillment of the mitzvos. This has been the only consistent factor which has preserved our Jewish people and Jewish individuals through our long and difficult history. Other factors which are vital to the existence of other nations — such as political independence and territory of their own, language, culture, and so on — have not been constant factors in the preservation of the Jewish people, and have changed from one extreme to another, as is well known.

"Only such things as putting on tefillin, which is already written in the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch and goes back to the giving of the Torah at Sinai, remains the same and unchanged — as has also been proven by archaeology, as the tefillin that have been found at Masada. It is also well known that in every generation there have been persons or groups who deviated from the way of the mitzvos, but before long they returned to the fold and began to observe the mitzvos again, or they were assimilated and lost completely to our Jewish people.

"There should therefore be no doubt in everybody's mind at this time that the real mainstay of our people, and the secret of its survival — which is no secret at all — is adherence to the mitzvos in daily life. For this reason — and this underlines it — it is shocking to hear that when a Jew is asked to put on tefillin, he agreed to it only if he were paid for it in some way."

So apparently we see here that when some people were asked to put on tefillin, they said only if they were paid — and this is the Rebbe's answer.

Now, this reminds me of something. This is the sh of the Rebbe — there's a letter. Our family lived in Cleveland, Ohio. My father, a"h, every week, every Shabbos, bochurim from Telshe — the yeshiva was in Wickliffe, another neighborhood, maybe 40 minutes' drive. The bochurim wanted to learn — quite a few bochurim, there were two cars of bochurim, maybe 10 or 12 bochurim came to learn every week. They couldn't come during the middle of the week, because, unfortunately, if the hanhala would find out, they wouldn't give them permission. So they came on Shabbos, when there were no [unclear], and they took taxis — two taxis — and they came from Wickliffe, and we lived in the Heights, which is about 40 minutes away. The cost was quite a lot.

One day they came to my father and said that they don't know whether they can continue to come, because they have no money. I mean, how do bochurim have money? It cost a lot of money, $40, $50 — they didn't have it. They tried the mashpia, but he had no money either. So — my father told me — Rabbi Raichik from California happened to be in Cleveland that year collecting money; he was a shliach. So he happened to be there, and Rabbi Raichik said, "I think we should raise money here — they want to learn, but they have no money. I think we should raise money," or, "we should give the money." But my father, I remember, did not agree. So Rabbi Raichik says to him, "You know what, you used to write to the Rebbe before — ask the Rebbe. They learn every week, they want to learn, and they can't afford it — what should we do?"

So my father asked the Rebbe. And the Rebbe answered — this is in Yiddish — that it doesn't have to lower itself so much, that we should pay somebody to learn. If they want to learn, they will find a way. So my father came back and told Rabbi Raichik, and Rabbi Raichik agreed, and in the end they came and they learned, and they found a way.

This reminds me of this — that just as the Rebbe held that they want to put on tefillin only if they get paid, it doesn't seem here either that the Rebbe agreed with that.

Sometimes I heard — I heard from a Rabbi [?] — he once told me that he came to the Rebbe and told the Rebbe that he gave out, before Pesach, 500 matzos for free. He thought the Rebbe would get excited. The Rebbe said, "Did anybody pay anything?" He said, "No, it's for free." The Rebbe was not excited. I mean, you give out matzah, fine — but if a person pays for it, that means probably he'll use it before Pesach, he'll make use of it. But a lot of people — and I know people who give out matzah two weeks before Pesach — say they made a matzah, and it was before Pesach, and that happens many, many times. So you have to know what's really happening. Sometimes we think it's good, but the Rebbe knows the people better.

So over here also, if people say, "I'll only put on tefillin if you give me money" — [unclear] — this is something we can learn out. But anyways, the main thing is that we can learn out from here that now is a time that we should try to do — tefillin. Thank you very much.