6
Now I know that some of you will claim that the story about the tefillin is nothing less than an allegory about God and the people of Israel. Rabbi Elimelech the Scribe represents the Lord, King of Kings, and the tefillin stand for Israel, which we learn from the fact that the blessings over the tefillin include the phrase “and who is like your nation Israel.” And God is living in a simple dwelling because He had a desire to live among the earthlings. The absence of even a chair in His house signifies the absence of the Shekhinah. And He rushes to the parlor room because He anticipates the return of God’s glory to Zion in our very own time. On the contrary, however, I tell you that far from being allegorical, everything is just as it appears. The tefillin are simply tefillin, as is stated in the Torah: “Bind them as a sign upon your arm and let them be a band between your eyes.” I’ve got much to tell, but living at a time when the taste for performing the commandments has been lost, it’s best that I simply do my part and let those who are enlightened remain silent.
7
My grandfather, of blessed memory, used to say that there are two things that a man never stints on: bread and tefillin. I am a descendant of good people and I was spoiled as a child. I used to think to myself: Grandpa, how do you compare bread and tefillin? After all, when my mother used to give me bread I would risk offending her by asking if I could have cake or pastries or wafers or pretzels (Heaven forbid!) rather than bread. But tefillin, on the contrary, have been dear to me every single day from the very first time that I wore them. When I was despondent I would put on tefillin in preference to a piece of bread which I was too distracted to look for. On my wall I hung my tefillin bag with the two tefillin tied securely inside; the aroma of my tefillin was contained within, and the Holy One did not smell it. My friends, you undoubtedly know the story of the son who left his father’s table and ceased practicing good deeds and performing the commandments. Better that I should conceal my appearance within my tefillin bag and not parade my sins in public.
8
Did I really expect that my tefillin would remain mine for all time? After all, before they came to me they belonged to someone else and before that to yet another person, and in the same way, after one hundred and twenty years, they will pass from me to someone new. Someone once found in an old notebook a story of a Jew who, on his deathbed, wrote to the local rabbi a description of his specific place in the synagogue so that in the distant future, when all the synagogues and houses of study in the Diaspora are destined to be reassembled in the Land of Israel, his proper seat will be assigned to him. In that same future, who will inherit my tefillin? Maybe I myself, or the man who owned them before me, or the man before that. But I’ve always said: Don’t be a dark cloud. It might very well be that in an earlier incarnation I was the man who owned these tefillin, and in a still earlier incarnation I was that other man who wore these tefillin. Since there is no proof to the contrary, it must be so, for, after all, the headband of the tefillin is fitted to a specific head. So in the distant future I will lift my head out of my coffin and flex my arm, and the two tefillin will fly to me like doves returning to their nest.
9
Much time has passed since my bar mitzvah, and I’ve traveled far since I first wore my tefillin. Many times, exhausted by the ravages of life, I was too rushed for deep prayer so I would put on my tefillin for a brief prayer. On my head the tefillah was like a tired bird wanting to perch quietly but who is forced to move by arrows that are aimed at it.
Once, during the Ten Days of Repentance — before the conflagration — I asked a scribe to inspect my tefillin. I never knew if Rabbi Elimelech, of blessed memory, had written them in his youth or in his old age, and in any event, since they were more than a hundred years old and had rested in plenty of tefillin bags and had been used by many hands, perhaps the writing had been effaced and the letters had become indistinct. When the scribe returned them to me, he said: I am astonished by the gentleman’s tefillin. I asked why. He said: Even though the writing is old, it looks as though it were written today. Does the gentleman know who inscribed them? I said to him: And if I tell you his name, are you familiar with my locale? He said to me: Nonetheless, tell me. I said to him: Rabbi Elimelech the Scribe. He said to me: Do you mean Rabbi Elimelech of Buczacz who lived in the days of the great Tzaddik of Buczacz, may their honor protect the people of Israel? I nodded yes. He said: Since I mentioned their names, let me tell you what I have heard about them. I said: After all, they’re from my own city and it would please me greatly, since I love to hear even simple things about simple men from my home, all the more so about two righteous men like them. So the scribe told me a story about a righteous man on whose tombstone were inscribed the words ABRAHAM OUR FATHER THE Tzaddik and DAVID OUR KING as an allusion to the dead man, Abraham David, may his worthiness protect us. There was in town a wanton troublemaker who went to the authorities and told them that the Jews had rebelled against them and had crowned a king for themselves. The authorities dispatched an agent to investigate. When the agent came to inspect the tombstone, instead of DAVID OUR KING he found written DAVID OUR FING, and the Jews were saved because to be imprisoned in Buczacz could be a catastrophe. And the Jews were well aware that a great miracle had occurred when the agent found “fing” instead of “king,” since “king” was what had originally been written. Now, the residents of Buczacz are deep thinkers and they quite naturally love to do research and search for explanations for everything, so they started an inquiry to discover who had switched the K to an F. One man finally rose and said: Do you remember the handwriting of Rabbi Elimelech the Scribe, of blessed memory? The rest responded: Of course we recognize his handwriting. This very day we read in the synagogue from a Torah that was written by Rabbi Elimelech, and the F on the tombstone is identical to the F ’s in his Torah. And so everyone then knew that even in the world hereafter Rabbi Elimelech had not forgotten his children. And the scribe also said to me: Does the gentleman know that it is a tradition among us that no man who wears tefillin written by Rabbi Elimelech ever suffers a divorce? I told him that I knew that. He asked me: Is the gentleman married? I answered: Thank God. He took a deep breath and sighed. I never knew why he sighed, whether it was because he did not have the pleasure of a peaceful house or because at that particular time his business of writing tefillin was dwarfed by the writing of divorces. In any event, not every scribe manages to be like Rabbi Elimelech and not every man is worthy of wearing the tefillin of Rabbi Elimelech.
10
One night I dreamed that I put on the tefillah for the arm but not for the head, and the dream upset me a bit. During the course of the day additional anxieties entered my life and I forgot my dream until the Master of Dreams caused it to recur. I went to a wise man and told him my worry. He said: Do you know what I would suggest? That you’re getting signs that your tefillin have to be inspected for flaws. I said to him: I’ve had them inspected and there are no flaws. So he had no response. When the dream occurred a third time, I said to myself that there must be something to this. I convened a panel of three judges and told them my dream. I saw a look of concern on one of their faces but I paid it no heed. Some people are melancholy and some are cheerful. But in fact I couldn’t get my mind off the tefillin even when I wasn’t saying my prayers, like when I would see them hanging in their bag on the wall and I would go over and anxiously touch them to make sure that I had not placed them in their bag improperly. But they were always in their rightful place and in their proper order. One time I discovered that the bands of the head tefillah were not properly tied, so I stood there and tied them, as I always did, in the shape of a dove’s wings. The next day I discovered that the wings were spread like the wings of a dove who wants to fly from its nest. A short time later my house burned down, and the tefillin burned with it. I don’t know if I was a victim of the evil eye or one of those judgment decrees that comes upon a man suddenly. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.