In the middle of summer, as I was walking up First Avenue, I stopped outside a magnificent building, admiring its structure, fantasizing about housing our Chabad center there. I began to imagine where the shul and classrooms would be. I envisioned thousands of people coming in and out on a daily basis. I was mesmerized, until I was jolted out of my daydream by a “Hey! What are you staring at?”
And that’s how I met Simon*, a 73-year-old Jew who has been living in homeless shelters after a spate of bad luck 40 years ago, in which he lost his home and all of his possessions. He struck me as a deeply intelligent, worldly and knowledgeable person.
Of course, I asked him to put on tefillin, but he adamantly refused. “Never did it and never will.”
I asked Simon how I could reach him, since he doesn’t have a phone, and he gave me his email address. I invited him to attend our Simchat Torah services and was pleasantly surprised when he showed up and danced and had a great time.
Over the following months Simon stopped by my office many times. We had lots of good conversations, but each time I asked him to put on tefillin he refused.
Now, I like a challenge. So the more he resisted, the more determined I became. He had never even had a bar mitzvah! But because he is so intelligent, he used every argument in the book against me, consistently refusing.
Simon has no phone, no wallet, no bank account, no home, no possessions. The only thing he possessed was a laptop to check his email. And one day, he put his bag down for a moment and it was stolen. “Why would someone steal my laptop?” he asked me. “Why?!”
“If G-d gives me a laptop, I will put on tefillin,” he declared.
Well, I knew what I had to do. “I would be happy to be G-d’s emissary and give you a laptop,” I said.
But Simon was hesitant. He didn’t like the sound of it. He felt like I was kind of forcing him to put on tefillin. But the laptop was enticing. He took two weeks to think about it, then came back to pick up the brand new laptop I had asked someone to donate.
I rolled up his sleeve, wrapped the tefillin, and then took out the Shema, thinking I would need to read it word for word for him to repeat. And then Simon astounded me! He bellowed the Shema so loudly, with every fiber of his being and all the energy his 73-year-old body could muster. I thought the walls were shaking!
And for that moment in time, Simon was not homeless. He had come home, connected to millions of other Shema-saying Jews worldwide, bonded to G-d Almighty in the most powerful way.
Remember the building I was dreaming about? With thousands of Jews walking in and out daily? This is that building, I realized! Nothing can give Hashem more pleasure than this homeless Jew putting on tefillin and saying Shema, creating another brick in the Third Temple which will be rebuilt very soon.
As Simon proceeded to recite the rest of the Shema flawlessly and with meaning (I have no idea how he knew to read Hebrew like that!), I thanked G-d for allowing me to do this beautiful mitzvah—a laptop for tefillin.
*Name changed to protect privacy.
Have a great Shabbos
Rabbi Uriel Vigler