An avreich from Modi’in Illit relates: On Shabbos kodesh I felt that my mouth was simply screaming – not the type of screams you hear, but the type you feel. I was in such terrible pain, and I could not identify the source. Was it coming from my teeth or from my jaws? It felt like everything together. I thought to myself: What extra mitzvah could I commit to perform so that in its zechus the pain will pass? I remembered that there was a small tear in my tefillin straps. Each time I donned tefillin, I would notice the tear and tell myself that soon I’d go and exchange the straps. But afterward I put the tefillin into its bag and forget about it all until the next day. This time, I decided to take action. Who knew – perhaps there was a connection between the pain and the kashrus of my tefillin straps? Regarding tefillin it says, “so that Toras Hashem shall be in your mouth.”
That Sunday morning I went immediately to someone who deals with tefillin and asked him to change the strap on my tefillin shel rosh. He did this quickly, and afterward he checked the straps on the tefillin shel yad and told me that their time had come as well, and it would be appropriate to switch them.
The tefillin received the refurbishment they needed, and when I awoke on Monday morning I said Modeh ani with extra joy. The pain had disappeared.
