After davening we climbed up the approximately 200 stairs to our home and I remarked that a few months ago I attended a hanachas tefillin of a boy whose entire family made the trip from Los Angeles to put tefillin on at the kotel and what a ZCHUS that we live locally. Then we had a festive breakfast where my wife served a special cheese cake for the occasion. She normally bakes a mean "tefillin cake" where chocolate tefillin boxes adorn the cake but my son requested a cheese cake [plus I paskened that it's אסור to eat tefillin so the cheese cake was a better choice]. His deeper intention was that the gemara in kiddushin says that the entire Torah is equated to tefillin, so the the day of putting on tefillin is like shavuos where the custom is to eat cheese cake. Today was kabbalas hatorah. As the pasuk says about tefillin למען תהיה תורת השם בפיך tefillin is designed to put Torah in your mouth.
Another reason he chose cheese cake is because he likes it more.... [I didn't eat because I don't like cavities, fat and the yichy feeling sugar gives me.]
Then came speech time. Avi's father [I am referring to myself. I am my wife's first and hopefully last husband] told some stories about Rav Ben Tov who died a few years ago and performed many miracles based on his readings of peoples mezuzas and tefillin.
Then we learned a shtickel Sfas Emes [בא תרנ"ו]: The pasuk says כי שם השם נקרא עליך "The name of G-d is called upon you" and the gemara says that this refers to the tefillin shel rosh. We see from this that the tefillin emplaces [this is really a word. I looked it up] the name of Hashem upon a person.
Then the Sfas Emes rocks the velt with a chiddush. Just like the tefillin need parchment and ink and boxes, so too tefillin need to be placed on a Jewish body. This is alluded to by the saying of our Sages תפילין צריכין גוף נקי - Tefillin require a clean pure body. It doesn't say that your body must be clean when wearing tefillin but that tefillin REQUIRES a clean body. We don't just need tefillin - tefillin needs us! [I was zocheh to say a chiddush based on this chiddush, here.] Hashem knows that His people are capable of having a גוף נקי so he gave us tefillin.
[The Holy Books say that just as a woman gets the merit of the Torah of her husband and children, so she receives the merit of their tefillin. So Rebbetzin Ehrman [as some people call her. I call her when I'm hungry:-)] gets the merit of her son's tefillin.]
We then rose and started mixed dancing. The chosson hatfillin, his brother, his friend, his father and his sister Libi [she's one year old and LOVES to tantz]. Ay ny ny ny ny ny ny ny ny, I I I I I I, ay ny ny ny ny I I I I ain old milvado, ay ay yay yay yay......
A good time was had by all. Avi liked it so much he is putting his tefillin on again today!
Then my kids went off to school and I went to a government office where I met a Sefardi tzadekes working behind the desk, a savta named Miriam who is really into Hashem, doesn't like jewelry, took a long time till she figured out her husband, loves davening at the kotel, was weak until she started taking iron pills and r-31 so her body absorbed the iron, loves to help people, gave nutrition tips, and... and .... I could tell that her job doesn't terribly interest her but she is very open with her feelings and enjoys sharing. Israel.....
May we always share simchas:-)
Love and blessings!
