Printed fromJewishIdaho.com
ב"ה

The Winning Streak

Friday, 18 May, 2007 - 12:45 pm

Let me tell you about a phone call I received this week.  A fellow calls me up one night, and introduces himself as a Jewish businessman from New York.  Let’s call him Andrew.

“I just arrived in Boise for a one-day business trip.  As I landed in Boise, my wife informed me that my tefillin are sitting right next to the spot where my travel bag was the night before.  I had forgotten my tefillin.”

Being associated with Chabad in New York, Andrew had heard that Chabad has branches around the globe.  “Maybe there is a Chabad center in Boise and they can get me a pair of tefillin,” he mused.  With a few clicks on the Internet, he had my number and we were connected.

So at 10:30 pm I found myself at a downtown hotel giving Andrew a pair of tefillin to wear the next morning.

Andrew couldn’t help but express his gratitude and amazement.  He continued to relate:

“The only morning in my entire life that I forgot to put on tefillin, I was saved by Chabad.  It was in New York, and rushing out into the Manhattan Street I suddenly bumped into the Chabad Lubavitch Mitzvah Mobile (a synagogue and Mitzvah center in an RV that brings Yiddishkeit to your doorstep; New York has several that roam the streets every weekday).

“The one day I needed it, G-d brought the tefillin to me.  Now again, Chabad has given me the opportunity to continue laying tefillin every day consecutively.”

Now, I thought to myself, here is a Yid who genuinely cares about his Jewishness and wants to connect to his Father every day.  But this particular time his tefillin laying act seemed more precious than ever.

What is so special about this time?  Looking back at all the times he has put on tefillin, isn’t it only one of thousands?

                                                                       *                                    

Try making the same argument for Cal Ripken’s record of 2,632 consecutive baseball games played.  On June 6, 1993 he twisted his knee and barely managed to play the next game.  He ended up playing and cherishing that game.  Without it he never would have surpassed Lou Gehrig’s consecutive game record.

Essentially, the import of that particular experience is its link to the others.  True this is but one of thousands – but without it there would not be (a continuum of) thousands.

*

It’s not only the singular tefillin wrap that almost never happened—but every tefillin wrap—that keeps the streak alive.  This time it was precariously in danger of termination.  But every time Andrew puts on tefillin he extends the cycle.

Every act of laying tefillin is equally crucial.

* * *

This, I believe, is the message the Torah teaches in the beginning of the Book of Numbers.  G-d counts the Jewish people.  Not once and not twice, but three times in less than two years.  Twice, the result is exactly the same.

If G-d already knows the toll of the Children of Israel, and if the tally is identical – why count in the first place.  Aren’t votes, polls and tallies recorded to discover the statistics?

Yet the Master Statistician – who already knows all stats – seems infatuated with counting the Jews.

Indeed, the commentaries explain, it is an obsession.  G-d is possessed, but not with numbers.  He is not counting, but showing us that we count.  Each and every one of us.

If one Jew is missing, the tally is off.  The link is broken.

You and I, from New York to Boise and everywhere in-between, we are all essential links in the chain of the Jewish people.  Take one of us away and G-d loses not just a soul but a people.*

*Take one mitzvah away and you still have the other mitzvos.  The comparison here is only as the consecutive streak relates to the interdependency of every Jew.

Comments on: The Winning Streak
There are no comments.