CHAZAQ's Torah Talks #145 Rabbi Avraham Schachter - The Tefillin Awareness Project

this is the regular width and then when you go down here it becomes very narrow leather naturally stretches when you pull it then it becomes more narrow and then basically it becomes puzle when it reaches a certain width there's three different chetas 11 mm 10 mm 9 mm the different sheas of how wide the ruas have to be this is called a peeling rsua many problems with peeling ruas it's a sample of a the stitching number one that it starts to get a little bit zigzag which is it's ABS one it's not a perfect square you lose the [Music] Mitzvah and welcome to Torah talks kazak's Tuesday night program with special guests we have with us all the way from Brooklyn welcome thank you very much thank you for having me pleasure all ours filling awareness project very very exciting looking for to talking about theah of but before we do that if we get a little bit background about yourself I was born in Brooklyn New York grew up in Crown Heights non laab section nothing that not that there's anything wrong with laish but it just happens to be it's a non laab area from there we moved to Flatbush from there I kept I stayed in Flatbush all my life and I went toas from elementary school all the way up till after I got married amazing and I was like to have major as my for example he was a Reb for two years Andi rski was my rebbi and I learned with him for 25 years in the evening on the Monday night kabur so we had we had a special special uh cat with him amazing just for the record we had both r p and RAB B's Sons on tour talks Life and Legacy of both rabbis make sure to uh check that out whenever you have a chance the amount of Fe we get is tremendous we're very excited to do the Mitzvah of it's our first time having that topic on T talks and tell us maybe a little bit more about the the fill and awareness project how did it start uh is this relatively new has been around okay so this program started approximately 17 years ago um I wherever I've gone every Sho I've visited I see people people wearing that film too low down on their head that was basically the only thing that or M the only thing that bothered me because I couldn't really see what was going on in the other parts by the hand but uh then I realized when I went out of town it was in Florida I was uh visiting in Florida and I went to an elderly community and I saw that most of the people in the Sho were wearing the fil too low and M leevi from flush he's a he's a principal of a school here in flush he was there and I went over to him I said am I crazy well these people are wearing that filing too low they're probably not being they're not fulfilling the Mitzvah he said say you're right do something about it so uh I came back to New York I started thinking who do I talk to what do I do I called up different organizations I spoke to they said this a great idea we're too busy maybe try to find another uh person to help you out and I went back and forth in the meantime I spoke to different people and we came up with this concept which initially we thought was a great idea and it so what we did was had a few me and two friends of mine we went over to different raban they spoke to these Rabon said please send your mpal on a Sunday morning to this and this location which is the Avenue well where he got the hall for free and that's currently Rabbi is the r there who's my R also been in TX sure and we had four cim upstairs and some Yesa sent there b there and some some people did come from the other is but we had over 300 people wow it was a beautiful event but then I realized even though it was a beautiful event but cannot continue this way because first of all I have a full-time job besides for this so this is really basically I have now two full-time jobs but in any case um I saw the only way to continue this program is to go from sh to sh to Yeshiva to Yeshiva because otherwise it would be just impossible to continue and I'm excited to have this program in our hopefully very soon we're planning that out and um what what what do you think makes the different than all the other what makes take out okay so firstly there are many garas that discuss the importance of Mitzvah one gar says that the Mitzvah ofin is equal to all the other Mitzvah combined and then another gamar says that if you properly if you put on your properly it brings long life that's right and there are other garas that speak about the importance of but my point here is that Mitzvah is different than for example mat on PES or or which are but that's basically once or twice a year this is 300 times each year so 300 times each year you you are trying to fulfill the Mitzvah number one number two there are two bras each time you put on your at least for know one but for so it's two times and if you're not of course that's a serious issue besides for the BR there are hundreds and hundreds of God's name in vain is 100% And um so that's uh why I believe that Mrs that's my personal opinion is that of course I can't compare the importance of one Mitzvah of lul versus 300 ofan I'm not on that level to decide you know what's more important but just on the surface it definitely seems to be extremely important and no one disagrees 100% so I have this have the Merit to go to many many offices to give shim to give inspiration to many different people all types of backgrounds and many of them unfortunately are not firm they're not holding they're not religious yet and uh what I try to do is that whenever I finish the the inspiration the shear the class I try to go around you know everyone take something upon yourself and many many people than God took upon himself and they conly take upon thems and the question is why do you think is it that the first mitvah that comes to their mind is filling as opposed to all the other well off the top of my head I would say uh talk that's a pun top of my head so it's first of all you're you're um you're wearing the T you're putting the t is on your head which is the brain you're putting it on your hand which brings kak which is so it's your representing to the right correct so it's you feel like you're yeah I'm wearing my T and this is a this this is me I am connected to Myan I'm just that's off the top of my head right but besides for that like I said before mrsan is so different than many other mitzvas besides for the garas I mentioned there are many more garas that discuss the importance of Mitzvah again and then it's 300 times each year and the rambam also writes and it's brought down that each time you put on yourin your this is many people don't know that check out the gar eight MIT say each time you put on the so it's 300 times8 every year so that's a big number so I think that's that that can answer your question 100% 100% so um many of us are putting on about 300 times a year the reason for that is I I'll never forget that many years ago at kazak we we inspired one of these young teenagers to take upon himself to continue wearing and uh you know they they were talk about their accomplishments and one boy will get up there and I put onine for the whole month Sunday and Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and Saturday I'm like Saturday he's like yeah we we set to put it on every single day so the reason we we we have 300 times is not 3605 that because Shabbat we don't put on holidays and that's because there's an there's a there's a there's a there's a covenant between us and and we know in Judaism there's two witnesses that are needed so there's for a man there's the there's and there's Shabbat and holidays whenever you have Shabbat and holidays you don't need the so that's the reason for that but what issues come with regards to potential issues are there with regards to thein what's a big deal like I could just imagine someone saying that to himself exactly so that's a uh very important question to answer there are approximately 20 different issues that we found in the past 17 years with people's filling now we do this program we do not check inside we don't check the parot we check only the outside of the I said the word only that's a mistake I shouldn't have said only because there are more issues that people have with that Fillin on the external issues than internally what do I mean so I can now discuss we can now discuss the different issues I'll just say what comes to mind sure number one the kar the knots the knot of the RO the knot of the head you cannot just put it wherever you wish the says that the knot cannot lay no part of the knot can lay below where there's where there's no hair growing once it little part of that knot hits an area where there's no hair growing you're not M the Mitzvah at all that's also something that not everyone's aware of so that's the knot so we make sure that the knot is in the right place that's the knot the not making sure that feeling is not too big or too small right yeah that's that's resizing yeah that's coming up talk about that now since you mentioned it we make sure that it's positioned in the right place to make sure it's not too low not too high that it's in the right place and if necessary the sofim on the spot they have tools and they adjust the tillin they adjust the knot in order for it to make it tight to make it in the right place then there's the C of the yach the C of the yach has to be touching has to be properly placed has to be made properly sometimes we see by the way the you had the rush not improperly made some someone tries to adjust it they mess it up and they sometimes it's not made properly okay that's the knot then there's the ruas the straps for those that have the watch we have here a rsua so sometimes one of the issues we find by ruas is that this is very very narrow see one part this is the regular width and then when you go down here it becomes very narrow that's because it was used for so many years iess right and because leather naturally stretches when you pull it whether it's you're pulling it on your arm especially here by the by the by the muscle when you pull it then it becomes more narrow and then basically it becomes pule when it reaches a certain width and we give out these cards these cards that show you the width of how wide the there three different sheas either 11 millimet 10 millimet 9 millimeters the different sheas of how wide the ruas have to be that's one issue with the ruas the other one is that they have to be perfectly black sometimes they become off they become brownish and that's say and sometimes they even have a tear they tear in it and they lose the you lose the width and then your puzzle so then now this is another type of a problem this is called the peeling rsua the peeling rsua which is there was a many problems with peeling ruas which we don't have time to get into right now but um that's also issue we check for so that so far we hit the ruas and we hit the now we'll talk about the stitching the stitching which is on the lower portion of the most of the time time there's a problem it's on the this is a it's a sample of a r most of the so the three issues that we see on the the stitching number one that it starts to get a little bit zigzag which is it's this is this does not have any this is removed so it doesn't have anything but if it once the becomes a not one it's not a perfect square you lose the Mitzvah so there's three problems we've seen number one it becomes off doesn't not straight number two it's rips sometimes they tear and number three is that they're missing now we've seen even by 14year old boys in a specific Yeshiva in Lakewood I just happened to been in Lakewood that two of the boys in the class had half of the Tre R were missing now how that happened why that happened 14 years old I know so doesn't it makes no sense the only thing we can think of is that the cipher was in the middle of doing his work and something he got Disturbed and he didn't finish job but uh it doesn't happen often that they're missing but it does happen often that they become a little bit zigzagged and they don't keep straight so that's it's ABS the same way the top has to be perfectly Square which is called Rua this top one must be squ the same way theas have to be perfectly square and um do you see a lot of have have you seen that the top is not square that it's chipped off on the corners yeah so that's another thing that we see we see the corners are also have to be perfect sare it's not very common but we see it especially by boys that are not so learner they don't realize when they say they stand up they hit their they hit the bookcase then they realize they don't realize that the corner got got hit and then you lose the corner you lose the Mitzvah so that's um let's see so we hit the ruas we said U thear oh yeah there's also sometimes warping that they starts to bend especially during covid time when people sweat it they ding the outside and they didn't realize that their head was sweaty or wet so first of all we tell Boys in yeshivas make sure do not put on gel on your hair because that also causes the bottom of the Fillin to be to warp and besides for gel which is an issue if your hair is wet or if your scalp is wet it also causes the bottom of the T to begin to lose the shape and then that that's also abso so that's uh that's as far as that's concerned wow yeah wow wow wow so so so much details so just understand tap a little bit better filling awareness project you come to the shoes to the you have so from they come and on the spot they fix the issue okay good question so the answer is depending on where we go and how big the sh is that's how I decide how many Sim and bamers people at botam experts I bring along so for example my largest program I've done was in m and it's called shiners they have a bunch of tents and they have every 15 minutes that go to has the to be there and amazing amazing with yeah so they start early in the morning and then they go till late in the morning uh manam continuous and they're large manam so we we approximate that there was 3,000 people throughout the morning wow and we had 20 Sim set up so I had to bring cim from Spring Valley from Mony from Lakewood from Staten Island from Brooklyn because those are the s that I was recommended or I knew and um so that was that was a big one so as far as what we do so we set up tables we make it pretty make it look nice we call bovic so it's uh so people are attracted to come over to the tables we have props we have signage we have big posters Um Papa posters we have two types of Poa posters whether it's for the lfish or for the english- speaking people or for the yish speaking kidish people we have totally different signage and um sometimes I bring both of them when they obviously when there's a mixed crowd but otherwise uh we make the tables nice and we have calipers which is a tool that measures the riua measures the width of the ruas as well and we bring tools and paints we have a painting tables sometimes the painting tables are about 10t long 30 straps right yeah for example Bing back to the rsas the ruas must be perfectly black and many many times even by the most learned people they don't realize that the Blackness starts to fade and it's time again to to paint it right and before you P we do both sides oh okay so some there's a talk about if you want to do black on black there's a whole U difference of opinion which one is preferred we're not going to get into uh into the different sheas but there are different sheas I'll just I'll it's not too hard to to get one of these quote unquote markers that we call it and to fill in the Black by the way right but if you do it yourself it's very important before you do the painting job you have to say shame According to some if you do not say those words before you do the painting your painting was nothing even it looks good but it was worthless so you have to say the word not but so that's important to know I could tell you some stories if you want please yeah before we do our final message definitely very very informative by the way you this amazing initiative very very important people do it basically every single day and sometimes they do it wrong and what what a waste and unfortunately it's across the board no matter of how how yeshivish the people are or how modern Orthodox they are across the board there's the issues there are issues even by ran because you can't be an expert in every single field you try to be an expert in every field of but it's almost impossible to become an expert so I'll just tell you a story from RHA Feinstein which was the God lador In Our Generation make sure to listen to theak Tor talks with his son ruen F that was very inspiring and uplifting okay so everyone knows that he was a genius he knew everything he knew everything including tan but I was told by two reputable people includ including a relative of his that when it came to a difficult question regarding someone's Fillin he some brought him someone brought him his thill he wasn't sure about something 100% go to The Experts go to the people that are is that are involved with this all day long ask them the question so even Raa which to some people say I can't believe that's true but I had this confirmed by two um two people that are honorable just mentioned another story when I went to different to a more modern School the cipher looks at the boy's fill and it was like a 14-year-old boy he says um where did you get your filling oh my father put it on Amazon so all of us we dropped he said what on Amazon you put F and he yeah I got it for $175 including the bag so actually I went on Amazon to see if it was true it was like $175 including the bag and and Amazon interestingly at that time when I looked at it it said if you're able to um pay for better quality you should try to get better quality this is like the lowest quality they say it was kosher of course and it's was it closer we don't know so the end of the story is we told the told the father of this boy because there was a father and a son that were there go to Lakewood because it was it was in Twin Rivers New Jersey he said go to Lakewood because that was the closest town that we knew where we can find a and let him open it up let him check it out I didn't want to hear this end of the story because I knew more less uh before before listening what it's all about so um I just like to give a couple of messages number one make sure do not leave your fillan in a hot car during the summertime if you leave your fill in a hot car it is 100% going to be a problem now the question is how many hours and how many degrees is it outside so I'll just tell you if you're if it's 85 or 90 degrees outside with the windows closed inside the car it's way over 100 degrees and if you leave your your Fillin it loses and you must then go to a to a b to a saer and have your checked because what happens is and I had this verified by many cyh he says a number of people brought me that fill and after they left it in the car and the ink starts to drip and starts to from within the bottom within the pares yeah on top the written the written words on the paros are they start to drip and then becomes P with a cold car it's also not good to keep it in a car a cold car but hot cars are much bigger issues so we've been to like I said to base marriage Gava BG we've been to SATs both satma types of shs and both BB of shs and and uh Young Israel in Hollywood young israels in Brooklyn and I haven't gotten complaints complaints is sometimes the line is a little bit too long because you can't really figure out how many C to bring sometimes I bring three C sometimes one sometimes up to 20 C so that's something you can't really know for sure aming for taking upon yourself this holy like you said in the beginning so many amazing benefits long life so many applied to it so we have a we have and Tor talks a final message for our broad audience okay I would say the final message uh since I'm doing this for so many years with I'd like to say that I really believe this might say sound a little bit extreme that it's an obligation of every school and every Sho to bring this program to their to their to community I don't get paid a penny I don't take a penny this cost thousands of dollars this program so don't think it's a business I'm not this is not I'm not trying to promote any business but I promoting I'm trying to promote Mitzvah and and and people people to be the mitvah almost every day of their lives that's what I'm trying to promote and I see it every day no matter which Shool I go to whether it's a rub that's a well-known rub and in the most religious community or if it's not such a religious community every time we've go we saved tens and tens of thousands of people over the last 17 years wow can are amazing 100% true very very very important to do the mitv and to do the right you want to thank you for coming for doing a Torah talk with us we should amen thank you very much for all your work that used on WE we've seen you around all over the place and you're doing tremendous work for for the CL be able to do much more we want to thank our amazing audience thank you very much for joining us for yet another amazing kazak tour talks Tuesday nights 8:30 p.m Eastern Standard Time kazak orgif c ha AZ aq. 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