Bar Mitzvah in a Barber Shop

Yossi Farro, a bochur from Crown Heights who was in Upstate New York this week, stopped in for a haircut on Friday morning on his way to Queens to spend Shabbos Gimmel Tammuz at the Ohel.

Entering the barbershop in Liberty, NY, he spoke with the man behind the counter, whose wife owns the shop. The man said he remembered Farro coming in for haircuts as a young child, and said that although he does not work in the shop, occasionally he spends time there.

“While speaking with him, I asked him if he is Jewish,” Farro said. “He said that he is. He also said he would be happy to put on Tefillin.”

Farro says he went to the car to get his Tefillin, and when he returned the man said that while he has seen people doing so, he has never put on Tefillin before.

And so at 60 years old, he put on Tefillin for the first time, on Erev Gimmel Tammuz.

It was quite an emotional scene, Farro describes. “His wife began to cry from joy, and all the other barbers in the shop joined in, as we celebrated and wished him ‘Mazel Tov’ on his Bar Mitzvah,” Farro said.