Binding, bonding, blessing

(JNS) — Mark was preparing for his bar mitzvah. Besides the excitement of the Shul event, to be perfectly honest, he was also looking forward to receiving lots of gifts and money, as is the “tradition.” He was particularly anticipating a large monetary gift from his Uncle Abe, a very wealthy and generous man. How shattered and disappointed Mark was when Abe presented him with his bar mitzvah gift: It was … a pair of tefillin!

It was only many years later that Mark happened to check his tefillin and discovered that inside lay a check from Uncle Abe for $5,000 with a little note saying, “Mazel Tov, Mark! I hope you will use the tefillin and the money in good health.” Sadly, the check had long since gone stale and Uncle Abe was no longer in the land of the living.

Quite a sad story. But to my mind, sadder than Mark not getting his money was the fact that, clearly, he never bothered to wear his tefillin.

In recent times, we’ve been privileged to witness the most inspirational scenes of secular Israelis, including thousands of IDF soldiers, enthusiastically putting on tefillin and observing this time-honored tradition. Indeed, it has been beautiful to behold.

This week in Parsha V’etchanan, we read not only Moses’s recap of the Ten Commandments but also the first chapter of the Shema Yisrael. Included there are several important biblical commandments, including binding the tefillin on our arms and around our heads every day.

Is the mitzvah of tefillin just a religious, ritual obligation, or does it represent more? Does it have any practical bearing on our lives in the modern world?

We live in a very different world from the one our parents grew up in. For the more senior among us, life today is very different from how we were raised in our youth.

Never mind that corporal punishment, which was used for millennia, is now strictly verboten. That is a good thing. We certainly do need to talk to our children rather than simply punish them. Communication is far more effective than penalties.

I remember, in my own childhood, kids having to write 500 times: “I will not throw spitballs at the teacher.” I would not describe that consequence as a very enlightened method of discipline.

But even today, there does need to be some form of discipline. There does need to be some kind of consequence for our actions or inaction.

Parents and teachers today are struggling to discipline a generation of students more than ever before in history. Sure, it’s always been a struggle, but never like today.

How often we hear the lament of parents and educators: “What can I do with them? They just won’t listen!” Yes, young people today expect to be fully independent. “Rules are for fools,” they say.

I was speaking to a respected educator from New York not long ago and he said that today’s kids live at home with their parents, but it’s strictly on a “room and board” basis: “I have my digs here. I eat and sleep here. You provide my ‘room and board’ but don’t you dare tell me what to do.”

While young people have always tested the limits, the excessive displays of this today are frightening and dangerous. It is not uncommon today to hear about children who call Lifeline or other social service centers to report their parents for child abuse. Why? Because they tried to discipline them.

They used to say: “Adolescence lies somewhere between infancy and adultery.” Young people are craving and demanding total independence with zero responsibility. The breakdown of discipline in today’s society has reached colossal proportions. Clearly, there must be some rules and basic standards of behavior, even in our democratic 21st century lifestyle.

May I suggest a somewhat different solution? It is not pedagogic but practical, not scientific but spiritual—but it may help.

The Talmudic sages maintained that it has always been a fundamental principle of Judaism that “The commandments were given to us to refine humanity.”

Every single mitzvah has infinite, cosmic effects unseen by us, but also, by practicing the commandments, we become more refined, more mature, more elevated.

Each commandment works in its own way. If we practice tzedakah regularly, we will become more generous by nature. If we are kind to people and animals, we will become more sensitive and gentle human beings.

And so it is with Mark’s tefillin. If we bind the leather straps and casings on our arms and heads, we will inevitably become more inclined to dedicate ourselves to something higher than ourselves. The hand tefillin face the heart, representing our emotions and feelings. The head tefillin represent our intellect. Wearing them helps us dedicate our minds and hearts to God. We put our own personal notions and nuances aside and learn to do what is right, important and, dare I say, sacred.

The tefillin straps are bound tightly and constrain us. They bind us and restrain us. They help us learn and practice a greater measure of self-control. You can’t move about as freely while wearing tefillin. Yes, they really do discipline us.

If our sons are not wearing their tefillin, perhaps this is a contributing factor to the chaos and anarchy of our generation. Perhaps loosening the tefillin bonds has resulted in our children’s loss of balance, restraint and self-discipline.

I cannot promise any instant panaceas. But I do believe that if we could inspire more and more of our young men to wear their tefillin, it might not only change the cosmic balance of the universe, Israel and Am Yisrael, but also their own personal character and behavior. We might actually engineer a return to discipline and derech eretz, and our younger generation will live an ethical, responsible and respectful way of life. 

The world would be a much better and blessed place.