Tefillin campaign
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The Tefillin Campaign refers to a campaign by Chabad Hassidim to influence all male Jews, regardless of their level of religious observance, to don the Tefillin (phylacteries) daily. This was the first of the Mitzvah campaigns initiated by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, leader of the Chabad movement. He announced it on June 3, 1967, just two days before the outbreak of the Six Day War. The Tefillin campaign has continued ever since, and has become a trademark of Chabad-Lubavitch outreach.[1]
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[edit] Explanations
On one occasion Rabbi Schneerson gave two reasons for his particular choice of campaign, saying, "The first reason is that there is a passage in the Talmudic tractate of Rosh Hashanah[2] which says that once a Jew wears Tefillin on his head—even one time in his life—he falls into a different category as a Jew." Secondly, "When a Jew in Miami sees pictures of Jews at the Western Wall wearing Tefillin, he gets an urge to put on Tefillin himself."[3]
[edit] During the Six Day War
The Western Wall was the focal point of the Tefillin campaign activity: "As soon as the Wailing Wall was liberated a cable arrived from the Rebbe with instructions to intensify the 'Action Tefillin' throughout Israel, and to immediately establish a Tefillin booth near the Wall where even those who did not regularly observe Tefillin be given the opportunity to do so."[4]
