When my grandson was almost bar mitzvah, I asked my son-in-law how he was planning on purchasing tefillin. I knew he was not rolling in money, and I was looking for ways to help him out. I told him that I would try to do what I could, and he was very pleased with my offer.
I am not the type of grandfather who gives tefillin as a gift, but I have a lot of good will. I approached an organization in Williamsburg whose goal is to provide tefillin for low-income families, and I put my grandson’s name on the waiting list for tefillin.
Several days later I received a phone call from the organization. “There is a wealthy man who wants to donate tefillin for your grandson!”
They gave me the wealthy man’s phone number so that we could communicate directly and arrange for the transfer of the funds.
I called the philanthropist, and he was very happy to hear that my grandson was a chashuveh bachur with the desire to grow in Torah and yiras Shamayim. “Do you know why I decided to donate tefillin?” he asked, and then he gave me a surprising explanation:
There is a Jew living in Williamsburg who has a special talent: You can tell him the secular date, even dozens of years in the past or future, and he can give you the exact Hebrew date of that day.
One day, out of curiosity, I went over to him and told him the secular date of my birthday. He responded immediately, “You were born on the 28th of Av!”
“I caught you,” I answered teasingly. “As far as I know, I was born on the 29th of Av, the day before Rosh Chodesh Elul.”
“It cannot be,” he stubbornly insisted. “It has to be that you were born on the 28th.”
“But everyone knows that when I was born it was in middle of Yom Kippur katan davening. Ask my father. Whenever someone mentioned my birthday, he would recall how at the time of my birth there was a tefillah for Yom Kippur katan going on.”
“Is that your sign?” he asked in wonder. “If so, I understand everything. On that year Rosh Chodesh came out on Shabbos, and they moved Yom Kippur katan davening up to Thursday. So I did not make a mistake!” He smiled – and I saw black...
Because if what he was saying was true, then my bar mitzvah took place on the wrong day, a day late, and because our custom is to start laying tefillin only on the day of the bar mitzvah and not before, it turns out that I missed out on the mitzvah of tefillin on the day of my bar mitzvah!
Do you understand what this means? I became a man, and I missed laying tefillin. This is a terrible loss! What could I do?
First, I did teshuvah. I asked Hakadosh Baruch Hu to forgive me for the mistake, and I davened to be zocheh to atone for the loss of mitzvas tefillin; but I had no idea how to do so.
Seize the Opportunity
Hashgachah brought about that a short while ago in shul I heard a shiur in which the rav said that if someone made a mistake and did not lay tefillin one day, it is possible to atone for it by donating tefillin for another Yid.
I immediately seized the opportunity and called the organization, and now I am zocheh to donate tefillin for your grandson, to atone for my sin.”
I was very excited by this story, both because I saw how Hakadosh Baruch Hu brings together the donor and the recipient in such a special way, allowing both of them to gain so much in ruchniyus and in gashmiyus, and also because the donor’s pain touched my heart. If only my grandson will know how to appreciate the donation he received, to learn from the yiras cheit, the fear of sin that the donor possesses.
But the story doesn’t end there.
At the shalom zachor of another of my grandsons, I told this story of the tefillin, and immediately afterward an avreich came over and told me, “I want to talk to you about this story.”
He planned on leaving me in suspense until after Shabbos, but I ruined his plans on the spot, asking him to take into account my overwhelming curiosity and tell me what was so special about the story I had told.
“I am not like that rare rich man,” the avreich said apologetically. “I did not understand that the information I had received incidentally affected me on a practical level, but now I understand that I am also obligated to do something.”
“What?”
“To donate tefillin.”
“Why?”
“For the same reason. A mix-up with the dates. I always knew two things about the day I was born. One: that on that day they made Birkas Hachamah, and two: that it was on the fifth of Nissan. That is what my mother wrote whenever she had to write down my birthday, and according to this information they made my bar mitzvah.
“Twenty-eight years passed since then. All the chareidi newspapers were addressing the topic of Birkas Hachamah and wrote that twenty-eight years prior, Birchas Hachamah had been made on the fourth of Nissan.
“I had to find out which of the two ‘facts’ was not true. One of the two had to be a mistake.
“Birkas Hachamah I could not deny. This was a huge, tremendous experience that came along with the exciting mazal tov and news of my entering the world, and therefore there was no choice but to move the date back and to determine anew that in fact I was born on the fourth of Nissan.
“Which means that I also lost out on a day of laying tefillin!”
I stood there open-mouthed in the face of the sad conclusion of the avreich sitting across from me, but he immediately composed himself and said, “How good it is that I heard your story! Now I know what I’m supposed to do – to fund the tefillin of another Yid. Tizku l’mitzvos!”
There is much to learn from this story, and I made a simple cheshbon that the zechus of laying tefillin every day of my life is worth at least thousands of dollars.
This means that I am a very wealthy man, and if we’re going to be honest, thousands of dollars is nothing compared to the zechus of laying tefillin.
