Sacred Space

I've been wrapping tefillin now for a little over a month, every day except shabbat. It's a quick process, but has extended little by little as I add a few words of the prayer I say. I now read two of the three paragraphs relating to putting on tefillin.

Today, as I entered the downstairs "office" I've been using, I saw a newspaper with a disturbing headline that I'd left there yesterday. I turned it over. Then, I saw someone's business card with a photo on it. I looked around and saw my mass of clutter--car models, papers, office supplies, junk. Too much distraction.

I realized that, for me, this room is starting to have some importance. It's my mini-shul now, and as that sacred space, it deserves better. So, it's time to clean it up. The table should be uncluttered, the hutch unburdened, the shelves, neat. Because whatever may be happening when I tie those leather straps onto my arm and head, it is putting me in a different frame of mind. That may very well be the entire purpose of doing it. I'll keep on and see.

I Lay Tefillin for the First Time Today

Thanks to Rabbi RR, I got my first lesson on wearing tefillin today. This longtime ritual means actually following the instructions in the Shema prayer to wear the words as a "reminder between your eyes" and as a "sign upon your hand." So, you essentially tie a box with the prayer in it onto your bicep and on the top of your forehead above the hairline (if you have one) using leather straps.

You must tie them in a certain way and get the symbols correct. The numbers 3 and 7 are important. Also meaningful is that this ritual uses the head, the heart (the one on the bicep points to it) and the hand. This means that thought, feeling and action are all combined--that's a powerful trio.

The head must rule. The Rabbi told me how the word for king (melech) and fool (lemech) use the same letters, M, L and CH. So, using the first letters of the Hebrew names for head, heart and liver (action), which correspond to these three letters, it's a matter of having the parts PARTS IN THE RIGHT ORDER that defines the difference between a king and a fool. It probably works better with the real Hebrew. 8-)

Once you've got everything set up properly, the procedure is to say the Shema (Daily declaration of faith) prayer and then carefully put everything back in it's containers and bags for tomorrow. You take off the tefillin in reverse order that you put it on, so it's hand, head, arm.

Laying tefillin is a very literal activity, but as someone who grew up Reformed--and had lots of gaps in his education--this is a nice first step to experiencing something of what my more orthodox ancestors did. I'm especially honored to use Rabbi RR's fathers tefillin.

Updates as they happen.