Ramah Camper Writes For The Washington Post About T’fillin!
Bravo to Ramahnik Rebecca Weiss for this wonderful article in The Washington Post about wearing t’fillin!
Here’s an excerpt:
It was Hanukkah and the blue and white candles had burned down to blackened wax. My father was in the other room, flossing. I sneaked into his closet and reached for the top shelf, for his embroidered velvet bag. Unzipping it, I felt for his tefillin: leather prayer straps wrapped around two small boxes, containing parchment inscribed with Judaism’s most sacred verses.
In the world of my father, and his father and his father before him, tefillin were worn only by men.
“It’s just weird,” my father had said when I asked for a pair of tefillin in sixth grade. “The other girls don’t do it.”
My father was right. I was the only girl who expressed interest in tefillin. But he was wrong, I thought, in calling it unnatural. For millennia, Jews everywhere wore prayer straps on their left arm, facing their heart, serving as a reminder to strengthen their connection with God. I wanted that spiritual connection too.