Writing about tefillin when you’re a woman is like talking about childbirth when you’re a man. Not really so relevant, not really our place to discuss. As I told a (male) guest when he broached the subject of giving birth, “Let’s just change the subject right now before I boot you out the door.” (Ever the polite one, I muttered the second half of that sentence under my breath.)
As a mother, tefillin is something else to think about for my teenage sons’ trips and carpools, something else to organize during bar mitzvah planning. Recently, when prodding my son to put Vaseline on his winter-dry hands, I found him mulling whether he should put it on at night, and make his blanket sticky, or in the morning, and risk greasing up his tefillin straps. He opted for nighttime, and it highlighted for me how tefillin is so central that he factors it in for daily decisions.
Years ago, I wrote a piece for the Forward about why I’m okay staying out of the “Orthodox Boy’s Club,” with regard to minyan and rabbinics. I have evolved somewhat; if I wrote that today, I would probably also mention the inherent risks of not having women represented at the top. However, those hesitations do not extend to tefillin – I’m grateful to be the wife, mother and daughter of men who don them each day, and happy to keep supporting them from the outside.
