Cincinnati, Ohio has a vibrant Jewish community of about 30,000 or so people, with a nice Orthodox community as well including a few Orthodox shuls, and eruv, several kosher restaurants and a grocery, mikva and kollel. Cincinnati has a long Jewish history and is among the oldest of the Jewish communities in the USA.

Two secular Israeli internet stars, whatever that means, have put out a new smartphone app to help people put on tefillin.

This is Chabad shliach to Chiapas Mexico, Mendy Turgeman, putting tefillin on someone protesting with a big sign against bris mila. In the comments on the picture people were criticizing him and demanding an explanation how he could put tefillin on someone like that. he basically explained that he has a mitzva to love him as a Jew, and the protester has a mitzva to put on tefillin, despite his opinion on bris mila. The protester agreed to put the tefillin on as long as he wouldnt have to put down his sign. He said he is opposed to bris but has no problem with tefillin

Well, it actually happened. After an organization meant to help improve the efficiency of the trains commented critically, and then retracted, on the installation of a booth for putting on tefillin in a train station, Minister of Transportation Betzalel Smotritch criticized them and said anybody can set up such a booth in train stations and if there is any trouble he will help get it approved.

I must say, he kept his word.

Today the Women of the Wall decided to set up a tefillin booth in the central Tel Aviv train station, as they had said they would. They had requested a permit in advance, but Smotritch never responded. They decided to go ahead with it anyway, but moments later the station manager told them to shut it down and leave. They turn to the administration of Israel Railways and to Minister Smotritch and the decision was quickly reversed and they were allowed to stay with their booth and offer passerby to lay tefillin.



I think Minister Smotritch was right to allow it. He could not really stop it, especially after what he said last week. Not allowing them to man the booth, or woman the booth is perhaps more appropriate, would have turned this into a fight that would have ended up all over the media and probably in the Supreme Court. This is not the Kotel and is not a Haredi or religious stronghold that would be considered a provocation. I think he was right to just let it be and succeed or fail on its own merits and public interest.

Though, according to Srugim, Smotritch denies he gave them the permit to stay. He says he is too busy with solving the public transportation crises of Israel and dealing with the traffic jams to get involved in this. Despite his denial, UTJ (among others) criticized Smotritch for allowing the WOW women to install the booth.

The City of Tel Aviv has decided to prohibit stands for PR and stands for prayer (basically for putting on tefillin) within 100 meters of schools, kindergartens and any other public institution meant for the use of children...

There is somewhat of an outcry about this, calling Tel Aviv leadership anti-Jewish, anti anything with a Jewish flavor, and leading a competition among cities trying to wipe away anything that seems Jewish.
sources: Kikar, Srugim, Kipa

It is sad, and troubling, that Judaism is so scary, and threatening, to so many people, especially in Israel. 

On the other hand, children are easy targets. They should be off limits. I understand parents who raised their children a certain way - they don't want someone coming along and trying to sell a different lifestyle and different messages to their children. Children are often impressionable. Wait until they are adults. The people putting tefillin on these kids would not like it if a group of people went to their kids schools and targeted them with messages of anti-shechita under the guise of animal cruelty, or anti-circumcision or humanistic messages such as loving people of all faiths or pro-LGBTQ messages. Nobody wants their children targeted with messages against those they imbued in their children. Wait until they are adults and then try to persuade them to put on tefillin.

This is different than the booths in train stations that recently came under attack. That was targeting adults, for the most part. This is targeting children.

A "flurry" of tweets, that could have turned into a fight, turned funny, and still could turn into a fight.

An organization called "Ba Rakevet" is dedicated to reporting (on twitter) information about issues with the trains in Israel in order to encourage improved service. They report on delays, technical failures, and all sorts of problems.

Yesterday they tweeted the following:

אז ביררנו...
ואסור לפתוח דוכנים להנחת תפילין בתחנות הרכבת.
נתקלתם - דווחו לנו ונעביר הלאה לטיפול pic.twitter.com/g2gBZJUDTH

— בארכבת (@InTheRakevet) February 5, 2020

Kikar paints the image:

some guys in yeshiva,  who all share a room together in the dormitory, became curious about their roommate. They had no idea when he ever davened and put on tefillin. He would learn every day until late at night, and go to sleep late. H ewould also wake up late in the morning and miss the davening in the yeshiva. When he would wake up, he would go immediately to the beis medrash to resume learning, but his roommates never saw him daven or put on tefillin. They were disturbed and curious and decided it required more investigation.

They began by asking him directly - when do you daven? He responded that he davens in the dorm room when nobody is there as they are already learning in the beis medrash.

Unable to ever catch him in the act of davening and/or wearing tefillin, they decided to lay a trap. A bit of subterfuge is always fun. They took out his tefillin from their place in the cabiet and tied the straps of the hand tefillin with the straps of the head tefillin. There was now no way for him to put on the tefillin without untying the knots, and thus they would easily be able to check if he had used them or not.

After a week they checked the tefillin again and found them tied exactly the way they had left them. It was clear they had not been touched all week.

They decided this was unacceptable and planned a public shaming of their roommate. They were going to confront him in public and demand answers and the truth.

One of the young men felt this was wrong and changed his mind about participating in this plan. He decided they need to ask if this is halachically ok to do. To that end they sent the question to the dayan Rav Dovid Axelrod. Can they confront and shame him publicly about not davenign and laying his tefillin?

Rav Axelrod responded that it is prohibited to do so and prohibited to continue with the plan as it was devised. They must immediately untie the tefillin straps and rewrap them in the bag the way they normally are. They should then tell the mashgiach of the yeshiva about all this.

Rav Axelrod said they cannot publicly shame him, and doing so is a situation that would cause a risk to his life - it is like dealing with a capital crime. Rav Axelrod said if we would have a sanhedrin today, we would have to convene the full sanhedrin of 71 to decide what to do about this. He cannot be shamed and they cannot even hint to anyone else in the yeshiva about this. Doing so would be pikuach nefesh and would be akin to murder.

Rav Binyamin Chuta also reacted similarly to the question when sent to him. Rav Chuta responded that the tefillin must be rewrapped the way they always are - the concern being that the shame he would experience by the public outing might cause him to leave religion entirely. He should be allowed to continue to learn and hopefully the light experienced in learning torah will bring him back fully.

As part of the international Jewish project called "International Lay Tefillin Day", also known as "World Wide Wrap Day", on Sunday February 3 2019, the Women of the Wall group has decided to participate and will set up a stand in downtown Jerusalem to offer female passerby, in addition to males, to lay tefillin. This will actually be their fourth year of this project.

Though the Jerusalem City Hall at first rejected the permit request from Women of the Wall, they have now approved it and WoW will move ahead with it.
sources: Jewish Press, Kipa

I admit that when I first heard the news blurb on the radio, I thought Women of the Wall will be opening a tefillin stand at the Kotel, offering female daveners to lay tefillin, "competing" with the Chabad stand on the mens side of the Kotel mechitza. I am a bit surprised that this is not the case and they will be opening a stand only in downtown Jerusalem...

It is surprising they got the permit from the new City Hall. Perhaps that is an indication that there will be little, or no, fighting over this and everyone will just let it pass quietly and uneventfully...

As reported by Kikar, A frum, Haredi, man found himself in a faraway land with no Jews. The beginning of this sounds like the start of a fairy tale.. Anyways, the traveler came across a local Jew - the local was happy to see another Jew and asked to borrow his tefillin and lay them each day the traveler was in town.

When it was time for traveler to leave and head back home, Mr Local Jew made a somewhat difficult request of his new Jewish friend - he asked if he would mind leaving his tefillin behind, for him to keep, and Mr Traveler would be able to replace them with a new pair when arriving back home in Israel. Mr Local Jew has no tefillin and has no way to get a pair, but Mr Traveler could easily get a new pair when he gets back home...

Mr Traveler thought about and happily decided to leave his tefillin for Mr Local Jew. When he got back home, he bought himself a new set.

After the fact, Mr Traveler asked a number of rabbonim if what he had done was correct and proper or if it was wrong - because he left his tefillin behind for Mr Local Jew he had to go a couple of days without laying tefillin until he could replace them! Maybe he was wrong for doing so.

The question was brought to Rav Chaim Kanievsky who said that what he did was proper, but he needs to make up for the days he did not lay tefillin by laying his tefillin twice per day, once at the morning Shacharis services and once at the afternoon Mincha services, to make up for the days he missed. Other rabbonim the question was presented to agreed with this response.

Rav Yitzchak Zilbershtein disagreed and, based on a psak from Rav Elyashiv, said Mr Local Jew had the status of "oness" and was exempt from his obligation and responsibility because of it - he has no way to get tefillin, there is nothing he can do about it. While Mr Traveler is not an oness, he has no excuse to intentionally stop doing a positive mitzva.

The whole story ad discussion is interesting, but what is most interesting, to me, is the idea that because he missed a few days of laying tefillin he has to lay tefillin twice a day for a few days to make up for it. I don't think I ever heard that before.

A study performed by the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine on 20 Jewish men has discovered that putting on tefillin daily, for a duration of 30 minutes each day, has cardiovascular health benefits.

Dr. Jack Rubinstein led the research group and gather 20 Jewish men for the study - 9 who don tefillin daily and 11 who do not. All the men were in good health and between the ages of 18 and 40. They recorded baseline information of the participants and then again more data after laying the tefillin for 30 minutes.

To quote:

The usage of tefillin, also called phylacteries, dates back to scriptural commandments in the books of Deuteronomy and Exodus urging the faithful followers to comply with religious law and to "bind them as a sign upon your arm.” Rubinstein says the binding of the arm and the discomfort users often report may serve as a form preconditioning and offer a substantial degree of protection against acute ischemic reperfusion injury (a section of the heart is deprived of oxygen and then damaged when re-oxygenated) that occurs as a result of a heart attack.
"One of the ways that protection occurs is through pain,” says Rubinstein, also a member of the UC Heart, Lung and Vascular Institute. "Feeling pain is actually a preconditioning stimulus.
"We found people who wear tefillin in either the short or long term, recorded a measureable positive effect on their blood flow. That has been associated with better outcomes in heart disease,” says Rubinstein.
Blood flow was higher for men who wore tefillin daily and improved in all participants after wearing it just once as part of the study, explained Rubinstein. Men who wore tefillin daily also had fewer circulating cytokines—signaling molecules that can cause inflammation and negatively impact the heart—compared to non-users, suggesting that near daily use elicits an effect similar to that observed with other methods of eliciting remote ischemic preconditioning-like effect.
[...]
Rubinstein says there are studies out of Israel that have found Orthodox men have a lower risk of dying of heart disease compared to non-Orthodox men. This protection is not found in Orthodox women who usually don’t wear tefillin.

There you have it. Wearing tefillin daily makes your blood flow better.

In light of the recent tefillin incident in the airport in Israel in which a lady (turned out to be a professor of multi-cultural society studies) berated a Chabadnik for helping someone lay tefillin and also acted extremely childlishly and the overwhelming support offered by the public, both frum and not, for the Chabadnik as being in a public space and having the right to do what he did without bothering anybody, there is still what to consider.

A post in The Times of Israel blogs raised an interesting issue that should cause us all to take pause for a moment and consider our actions and responses. The post compared our reactions, the reactions of most people being the same, to this incident in which we all told her that it is a public space and she should mind her own business and they have just as much a right to be there and do their thing as she, and between our reactions to the fairly regular incidents at the Kotel of women, led by Women of the Wall, putting on tefillin and reading from the Torah and the reaction of Haredi people nearby and the reactions of people around the world who see the images.

When confronted with the Chabadnik putting tefillin on someone we said he is in a public space and has the right to do so, with a willing partner, and they should be left alone. Why is it that so many of us do not say the same thing regarding the Women of the Wall at the Kotel? They are putting on tefillin in a public space, everyone else should mind their own business - whether you like what they are doing or not/ Scream at them and whistle at them to disturb and harass them? What makes you, or us, any better than this childish professor in the airport?

I am open to hearing reasoned explanations as to what the differences are, as to why we can support the Chabadnik's rights but not the rights of Women of the Wall.

amazing story.. translation after the post



translation:
another small item about Chabadnikim, tefillin and airports..
Once I was with Natan Sharansky in a European airport. Early on Sunday morning we flew to a conference of Jewish students from across the continent. The local Chabad rabbi accompanied us.
In the airport he pulled out tefillin and offered them to Sharansky to lay.
I got upset about this. How does he know if the minister had put on tefillin or not? (I did not know and it would have never occurred to me to ask. A persons relationship with the Creator is in the realm of the intimate and private, in my opinion).
I mumbled some angry words in the ear of the minister, that maybe he should also offer me to lay tefillin, and I might be very happy to!
After he lay the tefillin happily with a smile, and after he looked at me as if under my appearance of a good girl I am actually a "bandit", Natan said to me:
You should know that when nobody else was in Russia, when we were there in the big prison, completely disconnected from the rest of the Jewish nation, when nobody else dared to try to communicate with us, not Israel, not the USA, Chabad was there. With mesirut nefesh and putting themselves in grave danger. So, always, anything a Chabadnik asks of me, I will do.

There is something strange going on with tefillin nowadays. There was Neta Barziliai's hairstyle and Eurovision, with the Eretz Nehederet skit spoofing her hairstyle on "Naftali Bennett" using tefillin boxes. Then there was the professor of culture in the airport harassing a Chabadnik helping someone put on tefillin. And let's not forget a short while ago a number of Chabad street booths being forced to close down for being unlicensed, until pressure was put on authorities to allow them to reopen.

And now today an attendant on a line of the train systems in Israel told a Chabadnik to stop soliciting people to lay tefillin. When challenged, the attendant explained that he received complaints form passengers about him bothering people.

I have seen the Chabadniks in action. They usually don't pester people. They ask briefly and move on. If someone says yes they stop and help them put on tefillin, and if someone says no they move on to the next person. That being said, if people really complained, maybe this specific person was using a more aggressive approach. If people really complained, it is the attendant's job to stop such behavior on the trains. I don't know what happened in the leadup to the incident so I cannot judge it one way or the other.

All I can say is that something strange is going on. Maybe it is some divine plan to keep tefillin in the news and make people more familiar with it, keep people thinking about tefillin. Maybe we are meant to analyze our own relationship with our tefillin and the mitzva of donning them and check ourselves to see if we are doing it properly. I don't know what it is, but all these incidents are happening for a reason..

the following incident was videoed in Ben Gurion Airport - a Chabad fellow asked this fellow named Gad Kaufman if he would be willing to don tefillin. Kaufman agreed and they began the process. This woman created a scene, which Kaufman videoed. After he posted it to his Facebook page, it went viral.

First of all, her approach in this is extremely childish. She acted like a third grader in the method of her attempt to chase them away.

Second, she said this is a public place so you need to be off to the side. Why? if it is a public area, he has as much right to be there as she does. He doesnt have to move to the side, nor does she. she is free to move if she wants, and so is he - or to stay where they each are. if something is bothering her, she is welcome to move. He shouldnt impinge on her personal space nor do things that are a disturbance to the public, but he was not doing anything like that. He was doing something she personally didnt like or want to see, so she can move.

Once again a Chabad tefillin-stand in a secular neighborhood has been dismantled and removed by local authorities.

It happened recently in Herzliya, and the mayor was "Jew-shamed" into condemning the removal and allowed them to put it back into action. Now it happened in Ramat Aviv Gimmel. City supervisors forced the closure of a tefillin-stand while the Chabadnik was putting tefillin on people. I don't know about the booth in Herzliya, but the one in Ramat Aviv has supposedly been active for upwards of 20 years and only now has been dismantled.

The argument offered is that it is incomprehensible that in the Jewish State, in the first Jewish city (i.e. Tel Aviv), they cannot operate something Jewish like helping people lay tefillin and hand out parsha sheets.
source: Actualic

I am obviously not against Chabad helping people put on tefillin, but I don't think the argument holds water. You can't just do anything you want anywhere you want just because you are doing something Jewish and are in the Jewish State. You want to put tefillin on people and don't want to pay the relevant fees for the necessary permits, do it without a booth. I see plenty of Chabadniks on the trains and walking around malls and wherever else without a booth and putting tefillin just fine on plenty of people. If you want a booth and want to put it in a place that doing so would require a permit, go get the permit. If it requires paying a fee, pay the fee or request an exemption from the fee based on being a non-profit or whatever. Or

Machon Keter - an organization that studies and encourages finances according to a torah approach - has published an interesting psak regarding the purchase of tefillin.

The question they dealt with was how to relate to holy objects - tefillin and mezuza - that was purchased from someone who does not pay his taxes. Is such a person - a sofer who does not pay taxes - passul or lose his status of being a trustworthy and reliable person (from a halachic standpoint)? Are using such objects considered performing a mitzva via an aveira? can you make a bracha on such tefillin?

Their conclusions were that:
1. a sofer who evades taxes or steals from other people is not passul from writing holy objects like tefilllin and mezuza and his status as trustworthy and reliable remains.

2. somebody who buys tefillin "black" cannot make a bracha on the tefillin he acquired through an aveira. By buying "black" he is assisting in an aveira, and cannot make a bracha, and therefor eit is also prohibited to purchase tefillin like that.  However, if the person already wore the tefillin, bdieved he fulfilled his obligation - the tefillin themselves do not become passul.

If the buyer truly does not know what the seller does regarding the paying of the required taxes, despite being negligent in not clarifying before purchasing, he can make a bracha on his tefillin. And, this is dependent on his knowledge at the time of purchase - even if he finds out later that the seller did not pay his taxes, he can continue putting on his tefillin.
source: Kipa

I am pretty sure that at least 99 times out of 100 a buyer will have no idea if the seller is paying taxes or not and won't even think of asking. It might even be rude to ask, as if you are saying you suspect that he is doing something illegal. The relevant situation might be where you ask for a discount of the taxes for paying cash.