“But Rabbi, Today is Not Tisha B’Av“

By Benny Friedman

My grandfather, Rabbi Sholom Gordon of blessed memory, was many things. Among those many things, he was a self-diagnosed “Teffilin addict.” Wherever he went, he went with a pair of Teffilin, just in case he would run into a fellow Jew who hadn’t yet put on Teffilin that day.

One day, as he was making his tireless rounds through one of three hospitals where he was the Jewish chaplain, he asked a Jew he saw if he would put on Teffilin.

“Rabbi,” said the man. “It’s the afternoon! You don’t put Teffilin on in the afternoon!”

To which my grandfather responded, “actually, on Tisha B’Av we put on Teffilin in the afternoon.”

“But Rabbi, today is not Tisha B’Av,” said the man.

My grandfather got very serious, looked at his beloved fellow Jew and said, from the depths of his heart, “Any day that a Jew doesn’t put on Teffilin is Tisha B’Av!”

May it be speedily in our days, that this Tisha B’Av will be the very last time we are required to wait till the afternoon to put on our Teffilin.

May the Shechina never again cry bitterly because one Jew forgot to put on Teffilin, and may the entire world be filled with happiness and holiness, joy and celebration, peace and brotherly love, with the coming of Moshiach now.