First, here is the story...(after some thoughts)
Plane diverted over tefillin
January 21, 2010
(JTA) -- A commercial flight was diverted to Philadelphia after a Jewish passenger's tefillin were mistaken for a bomb.
A passenger on the US Air flight Thursday from New York to Louisville mistook the religious prayer article as a bomb after the Jewish passenger had taken them out to pray, according to reports.
Tefillin consist of two boxes each on a strap of leather.
The passengers and crew were taken off the plane in Philadelphia. Fire trucks and police met the plane on the runway.
The Jewish passenger, reportedly 17, was questioned and released. No one was arrested in the incident.
So what is Tefilin?
Tefillin, (Hebrew: תפילין), are a set of small cubic leather boxes painted black, containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the Bible, with leather straps dyed black on one side, and worn during weekday morning prayers. The hand-tefillin, or shel yad, is placed on the upper arm, and the strap wrapped around the arm, hand and fingers; while the head-tefillin, or shel rosh, is placed above the forehead, with the strap going around the head and over the shoulders. The Torah commands that they should be worn to serve as a "sign" and "remembrance" that God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt.
I understand that not everyone has seen these "odd" little boxes. I get ho wforeign it may be. We need to ask ourselves have we lost our minds?
The source texts for tefillin in the Torah are obscure in literal meaning. For example, the following verse from the Shema states: "And you shall bind them as a sign upon your arm, and they shall be as totafot between your eyes."
I doubt that Tefillin will make a come back among reform Jews or in roads among the Conservative. They will likely be unrecognized by ever more Jews.
ReplyDeleteOn a parallel note I have noted Hindus who wear a thread bracelet on their wrists after they have gone to Temple,
I have pondered whether the prayer for Tefellin would go with putting on a bracelet, thread, perhaps magnetic beads as a way to use the prayer of binding upon ones hands.
This would be more discrete, practical and yet preserving a tradition,
bob