What We Did At Summer Camp

Or, We Teach Them While They Are Away, So They May Take It Home

וּקְשַׁרְתָּ֥ם לְא֖וֹת עַל־יָדֶ֑ךָ וְהָי֥וּ לְטֹטָפֹ֖ת בֵּ֥ין עֵינֶֽיךָ׃

Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead.(Deut 6:8)

There I was, standing in the dance room of Camp Daisy and Harry Stein with gaggle of sixteen year olds, teaching them to wrap t’fillin. T’fillin, if you haven’t seen them before, are the leather phylactery boxes that contain the words of Shema and V’ahavta. Traditionally, Jews place the first box on our arm, next to our heart and then wrap leather straps from our arms to our hands. We then lay the second box on our foreheads while reciting daily prayers. This is not common practice in most Reform Jewish circles. Not because of any particular ideological concerns, but because most of us don’t daven daily.

One rainy afternoon at Camp Stein

Our primary prayer focus is on communal Shabbat and Holy Days: precisely when we aren’t commanded to this particular mitzvah. And so, t’fillin are usually found in the arena of the traditionally observant. It is definitely not commonplace to find them on the arms and heads of a female rabbi and a crew of excited teens.

This is also partly because in the communities where Jews regularly wrap t’fillin women are not obligated to the same mitzvot as men. But here at CBI and…