My Friend Needs Help

I have this... friend, see? And my friend has this... problem. But he can't ask for help.

I know what you're thinking. "Well, if he has an embarrassing problem, he should just pretend to ask for help on behalf of someone else. That way no one will know it's actually his problem." Very funny.

No, this isn't my problem. I'm not saying I don't have any problems, just that this isn't one of them. (For an up-to-date list of my problems I can forward you the latest spreadsheet/ powerpoint presentation, put together by my wife and what I have always assumed to be a high-powered consortium of judges, spiritual-leaders and in-laws. Additional bandwidth charges may apply. Not for sensitive viewers.)

But no, this isn't one of my problems. I'm talking about someone else, a good friend of mine, whom I love dearly, who is either blissfully ignorant or sadly oblivious of his... shortcoming. He can't ask for help because he doesn't even know he has a problem.

How shall I put this delicately? My friend is a good person. Does mitzvahs on occasion. Let's say he goes to shul now and then. I mean aside from Shabbat. Crack of dawn in the morning stuff. Helps to make the minyan when a good man is needed.

And when he's there, as all good Jewish men do, he puts on tefillin. You know what tefillin are, right? If you don't, ask your friend or go look it up on Wikipedia or something. You kind of have to know what I'm talking about to get this next bit. I'll wait.

So he puts on tefillin and davens along with the minyan, or patiently waits for the minyan to finish its davening, as the case may be. Whatever. He's done a good deed. Shkoach.

The thing is, what he's done, and keeps doing, is awesome. Most people, and certainly not my friend, don't appreciate how awesome doing a mitzvah is. He's properly shaking the foundations of creation in time with his actions when he does the will of Hashem. The angels themselves cannot bear to look at the inexpressibly bright light that emanates from my humble friend's unassuming movements. The nachas that he gives to Hashem by these tiny acts would make your average Jewish grandmother swell up until she popped.

Now there's reward for these actions. That's one of the principles of Jewish faith. After he dies my friend will be taken up to heaven and his life examined, instant by instant, in a detail we cannot imagine. Every fraction of motion, thought and whim will be judged. In context, of course, and with mercy, but with nothing at all left out.

When this happens, among other things, my friend will be presented with that overwhelmingly beautiful light brought into being when he went to shul those days and put on tefillin there. It will be all the brighter for the earliness of the hour (like they say: l'foom tzara agra - according to the effort so is the reward) and it will feed his soul like a breath of fresh air to a drowning man. It’s what keeps a soul going for eternity.

My friend won't necessarily expect it though, because he doesn't really consider these things when he's doing them. I think he will be delighted, surprised and relieved when he sees what his good deeds have wrought. Good for him. May his reward be greater and greater.

Except... You still with me? I'm getting closer and closer to a point here. Just a few more paragraphs. I'm trying not to embarrass anyone. Besides myself, I mean.

So here's the part that makes me shiver. I mean whenever I think about this I get this sick feeling in my stomach. Like that time in Standard 3 when I didn't do my homework because I left the textbook at school for three days in a row and the teacher let me know in a penetrating voice lest I miss a word what kind of horror I had perpetrated and what kind of child I was and exactly how far I had fallen short of minimum human standards. Yes, I have my issues. We've discussed that. Moving on.

When my friend is presented with his heavenly reward for putting on tefillin he will see them pull out of his present a huge chunk of the stack of goodies he's holding. He'll see he's been left holding precious heavenly reward for pitching up and taking part and going through the motions and sharing the burden with the community and encouraging others around him... but nothing for actually doing the mitzvah.

So my friend will be upset, right? "Hey", he'll say, "where's my tefillin?"

"Sorry, sir, but you never put on tefillin during your most recent lifetime. Would you like to try again?"

An awful sinking feeling will envelope him at this point. They don't make mistakes in heaven.

We've seen this before, right? Like when you daven but without kavanah (intention), and you get rewarded for being there but you haven't actually done the mitzvah. Now that's a proper tough one, but which we all understand. It's not really unexpected, right? We get our brief or extended flashes of inspiration when praying and we do our best to concentrate and take it all seriously and we'll see what came out of our prayers when they're given back to us after a-hundred-and-twenty. We're aware of that one while it's happening. This one comes as a shock.

"What did I do wrong?” my trembling friend asks his angel. "Was it kavanah?"

"No, sir. You simply didn't perform the mitzvah of tefillin."

Confused, my friend considers how this could be. "Oh no! They were pasul! I should have had them checked more often."

"No sir. As kosher as Rabbi Klein could get them. No problem there."

Through his tears, my friend asks in a choking voice, "What was wrong?"

"You put them on the wrong part of your body," says the angel sympathetically. If souls could faint, that would be the part when my friend collapses.

The angel goes on to explain that both the head- and arm-tefillin have prescribed positions on the body. The one on your head has to be behind the hairline, or for those of us who don't need hair, where the hairline used to be. This comes from a drasha: "...and they will be totafot between your eyes." That phrase "between your eyes" is compared to the same phrase in another context - "You shall not make a bald spot between your eyes." Since tearing out the hair between your eyes is nonsensical, it must refer to your hair along the center line of your head. That is the place for tefillin, and to paraphrase some advice that is hopefully irrelevant to this audience, "If it's not on, it's not on."

And there we leave my enlightened friend, gutted to be learning the laws of nature too late to help himself. But not too late for you.

Yes, if you didn't guess it by now, you're the friend. Or your husband, your son or loved one. I can't stand it anymore and I have to say something, if not for selfless reasons then to discharge my own obligation. YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG. You've put in all the effort, the time, the bravery in coming to shul, the fiddling with straps, the earliness of the hour… You’re on the brink of performing awesomeness… and then you hold back from getting the reward.

PLEASE. Please. Look in a mirror. Ask the Rabbi to shorten the straps. Get used to having it feel a bit different, sit a bit higher on your head. Overcome the inertia of doing it the way you always have.

Please. For me. Fix your tefillin. Put them where they're supposed to be.

So why don’t I approach people directly whom I see doing it wrong in shul? Why broadcast this appeal to everybody and waste the time of those who don’t need it/want it/care? I have. I’ve tried before, and been cheerfully and gratefully received, but I’ve also been rebuffed and embarrassed and it’s made me afraid to speak up.

But it pains me to see my brothers losing out when they are so close, and I am ashamed of my inaction, so I have to do it some other way.

I apologise if I have angered / embarrassed / bored you and/or wasted your time. If so, welcome to the internet. It could have been worse.

But if what I’m shouting about applies to you, and especially if you think it might apply to you (‘cause then it almost certainly does) please make the effort to correct the placement of your tefillin. Don’t be wearing them like you’re Bjorn Borg with his sweatband. You should be like a unicorn, with a horn going up, up, out of the top of your head.

Ladies, help me out by encouraging your menfolk to do it right. You know you share his reward in a combined Olam Haba (World to Come), right? You’re half the same soul after all. If you needed persuading then there’s something in it for you, too, so ask him if he knows what I’m going on about.

Get your Rabbi to help you. (Some Chabad Rabbis are shy and reluctant. Persist.) If you’re doing it at all, you may as well do it right. It's such a shame to miss out.