A US Airways flight traveling from New York to Louisville diverted to Philadelphia when crew and passengers became alarmed as a young man strapped something to his head and arm while speaking in a foreign language. Turns out that what they suspected was a bomb, was actually Tefillin, otherwise known by their Greek name, phylacteries. Pictured here, they are ritual wear strapped on for weekday morning prayers by Jewish men, and in more recent years, by some Jewish women.
Tefillin, or phylacteries, are a set of small cubic leather boxes painted black, containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with the following verses from the Bible:
Exodus 13:1-10: Kadesh Li — the duty of the Jewish people to remember the redemption from Egyptian bondage.
Exodus 13:11-16: Ve-haya Ki Yeviakha — the obligation of every Jew to inform his children on these matters.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9: Shema — pronouncing the unity of the One God.
Deuteronomy 11:13-21: Ve-haya Im Shamoa — God’s assurance of reward for observance of the Torah’s precepts and warning of retribution for disobedience.
We can debate whether or not the airline personnel overacted or were simply doing their jobs. Or, like all such moments, we can learn a lesson from this sudden fame brought to a little known ritual. While I admit to being pretty sympathetic to the airlines and the decision they made, I think that lesson trumps the news. So what’s the lesson?
Imagine waking every day and asking yourself what things you are bound to. What ideas (symbolized by the tefillin on the head) and to what feelings or physical acts (depending on what you think is symbolized by the tefillin worn on the arm with the box closest to one’s heart) really define your life? How will they be present with you as go through your day?
While there are many ways to think about Tefillin and what they mean, it seems to me this is an understanding that can work for all of us, whether we wear them or not. Raising those questions is always a gift, and now it’s even news!
Author, radio and TV talk show host, and President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Brad Hirschfield is the author of 
posted January 21, 2010 at 2:24 pm
An episode like this helps all of stop, step back, and look at our cultural perceptions. A simple thing like knowing a bit about other religions helps. If I’d have been sitting next to him, as a clergyman, I have that knowledge, I could have helped. But there are things I don’t know about other religions and cultures which would equally land me in trouble! The question becomes: What cultural symbols, awareness, etc., should we all be acquiring in a world which is expanding far beyond *my* boundaries?
posted January 21, 2010 at 4:09 pm
To deal with the crisis facing our civilization, we must be both realistic and imaginative. The realism part consists in recognizing how bad our situation is. The entire Western world is at present under the grip of the modern liberal ideology that targets every normal and familiar aspect of human life, and our entire historical way of being as a society.
The key to this liberal ideology is the belief in tolerance or non-discrimination as the ruling principle of society, the principle to which all other principles must yield. We see this belief at work in every area of modern life. The principle of non-discrimination must, if followed consistently, destroy every human society and institution. A society that cannot discriminate between itself and other societies will go out of existence, just as an elm tree that cannot discriminate between itself and a linden tree must go out of existence. To be, we must be able to say that we are us, which means that we are different from others. If we are not allowed to distinguish between ourselves and Muslims, if we must open ourselves to everyone and everything in the world that is different from us, and if the more different and threatening the Other is, the more we must open ourselves to it, then we go out of existence.
This liberal principle of destruction is utterly simple and radically extreme. Yet very, very few people, even self-described hard-line conservatives, are aware of this principle and the hold it has over our society. Instead of opposing non-discrimination, they oppose multiculturalism and political correctness. But let’s say that we got rid of multiculturalism and political correctness. Would that end Muslim immigration? No. Multiculturalism is not the source of Muslim immigration. The source of it is our belief that we must not discriminate against other people on the basis of their culture, their ethnicity, their nationality, their religion. This is the idea of the 1965 Immigration Act, which was the idea of the 1964 Civil Rights Act applied to all of humanity: all discrimination is wrong, period. No one in today’s society, including conservatives, feels comfortable identifying this utterly simple idea, because that would mean opposing it.
To see how powerful the belief in non-discrimination is, consider this: Prior to World War II, would any Western country have considered admitting significant numbers of Muslim immigrants? Of course not; it would have been out of the question. The West had a concrete identity. It saw itself as white and in large part as Christian, and there was still active in the Western mind the knowledge that Islam was our historic adversary, as it has been for a thousand years, and radically alien. But today, the very notion of stopping Muslim immigration is out of the question, it can’t even be thought.
What would have been inconceivable 70 or 80 years ago is unquestionable today. A society that 70 years ago wouldn’t have dreamed of admitting large numbers of Muslims, today doesn’t dream of reducing, let alone stopping, the immigration of Muslims. Even the most impassioned anti-Islamic Cassandras never question—indeed they never even mention—the immigration of Muslims, or say it should be reduced or stopped.
You don’t need to know any more than what I’ve just said. The rule of non-discrimination, in all its destructive potentialities, is shown in this amazing fact, that the writers and activists who constantly cry that Islam as a mortal danger to our society will not say that we ought to stop or even reduce Muslim immigration.
Such is the liberal belief which says that the most morally wrong thing is for people to have a critical view of a foreign group, to want to exclude that group or keep it out.
The dilemma suggests the solution. What is now unthinkable, must become thinkable; what is now unsayable, must become sayable; and ultimately it must replace non-discrimination as the ruling belief in society. I know that this sounds crazy, utterly impossible. But fifty or a hundred years ago it would have seemed crazy, utterly impossible, that today’s liberalism with its suicidal ideology would have replaced the traditional attitudes that were then prevalent. If society could change that radically in one direction, toward suicidal liberalism, it can change back again. It’s not impossible. […]
In the same way, modern liberalism says that it is evil to believe that some people are more unlike us than others, because that would also be a violation of the liberal principle that all people are equally like us. The equality principle of modern liberalism says that unassimilable immigrants must be permitted to flood our society, changing its very nature.
This is the ubiquitous yet unacknowledged horror of modern liberalism, that it takes the ordinary, differentiated nature of the world, which all human beings have always recognized, and makes it impossible for people to discuss it, because under liberalism anyone who notes these distinctions and says that they matter has done an evil thing and must be banished from society, or at least be barred from a mainstream career.
This liberalism is the most radical and destructive ideology that has ever been, and yet it is not questioned. Communism and big government liberalism were challenged and fought in the past. But the ideology of non-discrimination, which came about after World War II, has never been resisted—it has never even been identified, even though it is everywhere. What is needed, if the West is to survive, is a pro-Western civilization movement that criticizes, resists, and reverses this totalistic liberal belief system that controls our world.
posted January 21, 2010 at 6:17 pm
I’m glad I swore off flying on commercial airlines in November, 2001, and I do not understand how any sentient being can bear to entrust his life to such idiots.
posted January 21, 2010 at 6:55 pm
Do Xtains worship without these? Jesus, Joseph, Saul/Paul, the Jewish Apostles and even Herod wore these and no Xtains know what they are?
posted January 21, 2010 at 10:05 pm
Rabbi, thank you for mentioning that women are also wearing tefillin.
Caren said:
Caren, it is interesting that you say this on a Rabbi’s (Jewish religious cleric’s) blog. Because “70-80 years ago,” at the cusp of the Shoah (Holocaust), the United States didn’t “dream of” admitting large numbers of Jews trying to escape Nazi persecution in Germany.
Isn’t it funny that once you replace one word, Caren looks a lot less like a “concerned Citizen” and a lot more like something else.
posted January 22, 2010 at 9:20 am
Some years ago I used to travel by air to many different location for my job with the government. I always say my prayers using my tallis and tefillin which I take as a carry-on when travelling. I had to explain my religious items to security personnel who did not understand their use.
I think that security personnel and flight attendents should be made aware of religious items for all religions. It is the fear of the unknown that makes us panic especially in this age of terrorism.
It is unfortunate that this incident had to be broadcast as world wide news because it can give ideas to terrorists.
posted January 22, 2010 at 9:35 am
Caren is a disciple of Pat Robertson and the Discovery Institute.
She even has David Klinghoffer on speed dial!
posted January 22, 2010 at 10:27 am
Several years ago I went to my usual TJ Maxx New Year’s Day Sale. All holiday merchandise was 75% off. When I reached the checkout counter I was told the Chanakuh plate did not qualify. Right then, I conducted a class in cultural unerstading 101!
posted January 22, 2010 at 10:41 am
Dean Blake,
Yes, I would say that most evangelical Christians know what tefillin are, but most Catholics would not.
posted January 22, 2010 at 11:21 am
I for one would like the word Phylacteries to disappear from the English language. Other people don’t understand phylacteries any more than they understand tefillin. If we teach them tefillin is our perferred word I am sure they will understand.
posted January 22, 2010 at 11:28 am
We are constantly bombarded with the need for “Sensetivity training to undersyand certain groups) Why not Jews?
posted January 22, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Several comments:
The flight attendants and pilots were doing their jobs. Yes, the tefillin had made it through security, but who knows if terrorists had found a “way past security”? Would the crew have been suspicious of a RSV Bible and wondered if the pages were made of a strange material? What we’re familiar with, we tend to ignore; what we don’t recognize, we tend to be suspicious of …
My understanding from a news report was that after the plane diverted and the man (and his sister, traveling with him) were interviewed by ground security (local police, apparently) and the tefillin quickly identified, the plane and its passengers MINUS the man and his sister, were sent on their way. If everything had been clarified, why were the two Jewish passengers detained, with the subsequent issues of rebooking, connecting with luggage, etc.? Either they were OK and should have been put back on the plane or they weren’t …
Will flowing robes and head to toe coverings now be subject to more complete search? or will the vast majority of passengers, with no reason to be suspect, continue to be treated to intrusive search? When will the world pick up on the Israeli approach to airline security?
posted January 22, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Hey MD, I am Catholic and I certainly know what tefillin are!
Don’t make assumptions–you’re just as bad as that ignorant flight attendant if you do.
posted January 22, 2010 at 4:21 pm
I’m going to show my ignorance but I have a question: is praying in public as this young man did permissable in the Jewish community? I guess so or he wouldn’t have done it, but as a Christian I felt that prayer is a private matter between me and the Almighty and if I were to do it in public, I’m imposssing my beliefs onto other people. Any answeres?
posted January 22, 2010 at 7:56 pm
Jack West,
I am not a rabbinical scholar but this is what I’ve found through study:
Praying in public is fine. For example, people pray at the Western Wall in Israel, and although this place is sacred and somewhat separated, it is still public. My understanding is that it isn’t *where* you pray, it’s *how* you pray – that is, that manner in which you conduct yourself. I believe R. Akiva said that a self-important show-off, one who uses their knowledge or “piety” for bragging rather than personal growth, is like a carcass lying dead in the road: people will notice it, but quickly run away from it in disgust. And especially if knowledge is for sharing and educating, that does the prideful person no good. This particular case with the air travel just happened to be a manner of confusion. The Jewish man praying, as far as I can tell, was not trying to be prideful in his prayer, but pious.
posted January 22, 2010 at 9:28 pm
I read some news article about this incident and saw some interviews done with the security people who dealt with the situation and this is what is bothering me most of all is that no one just asked the person what the tefillin were. He apparently tried to explain after people already started freaking out and no one would listen to him. Someone in an earlier comment suggested that the ailine employees just did their job and to some degree they did but I also believe that they are guilty of letting paranoia take it way to far. This could have been handle with far less drama and no need to stop the plane and remove the person. The fact is the people who commented that the lack of knowledge about religion was a big part of why this happened were right. Tefillin aren’t some secret ritual, pictures of Jews praying with tallis and tefillin on are very common and I’d imagine every American has seen such a picture at one point or another. I also can’t help but imagine that given that he was almost certainly wearing a kippah (head covering, also known as a yarmulke) would clue people into the fact that he was a Jew and that he was praying. I also wonder if there were not any Jews on this flight who might have helped explain to the flight crew what tefillin were and their use (the flight did originate out of New York after all
.
For Jack West:
For Jews prayer can come in 2 forms, spontaneous prayer you can say at any time in your own word and prescribed prayers that are to be said with particular prayers at certain times of the day. The individual in this situation was probably praying on the plane to fulfill his morning prayer obligation. So, he was not deliberately making a show of praying in front of a plane full of people, rather he was trying to fulfill his religious obligations in a less than ideal place. If you fly to Israel its very common to see groups of orthodox Jews gather some place on the plane to say morning or evening prayers.
posted January 23, 2010 at 6:10 am
No wonder the airlines are having so many problems getting and keping passengers. To remove this person and his sister from the plane is a violation of their rights. I know of another incident recently where a man was removed from a flight because he did not have a passport. He was not trying to leave the country illegally, his passport had expired. They told him if he would go to Houston he could get a new passport and he would be allowed to get back on the plane and continue his trip. He made the expensive trip to Houston, paid the extra money required to get a new passport and returned to the point where he was to be allowed to return to te plane, He was refused entry to the plane, the airline refused to allow him to enter the plane to talk to his wife and would not allow his wife to disembark. He had to return home and she was forced to continue her trip to Africa. Fair………what was fair about it?
posted January 23, 2010 at 9:20 am
A marvelous example of Rabbi Brad’s thoughtful and erudite approach to things. In glaring contrast, compare it to David Klinfhoffer’s “kingdom of priests” anemic entry on this same topic.
Interestingly enough, Mr. Klinghoffer was quick to pounce on this unusual incident- but then, it involved a ritual object.
By contrast: Unlike Rabbi Brad, Mr. Klinghoffer has been silent about the significance of the just past Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and about the earthquake which struck poverty-stricken Haiti. But those are ‘social justice’ issues- a topic foreign to Mr. Klinghoffer’s elitist priestly worldview.
Apparently, Mr. Klinghoffer does not seem to know any black people whom he regards as equals on a social level.
posted January 23, 2010 at 10:19 am
Everett is on target.
Klinghoffer is even a defender of “Hitler’s Pope” !
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posted February 3, 2010 at 11:47 am
Pardon me, but in this case I think we need to be less defensive and more practical. If you can hide an incendiary bomb in a shoe heel, you could hide one in tefillin, and a terrorist could easily disguise himself as a Jew. I’m no expert on religion, but I find it hard to believe that Hashem would be sorely displeased if someone postponed the ritual while in flight. Once airline personnel have reason to believe a threat exists, of course they’re not going to wait for explanations until they’ve neutralized the threat. If the gentleman really were a terrorist, he could be simply buying time until he can trigger whatever device he might be using.
I agree that flying has become too uncomfortable and that airline personnel are sometimes too brusque, but that’s a hardship for all of us, Jewish or not.
posted May 11, 2010 at 2:02 pm
Whether or not this was handle properly by the ailine and authorities is up for debate but there is no doubt that this young man handled it with wisdom. Hopefully this incident will raise awareness about tefillin and other Jewish traditions.
For those who are interested in more information about tefillin please visit http://www.stam.net
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