Many years ago, in my childhood, probably in the mid-1980’s my father (Rabbi Yisrael Rubin) told this very unusual story in our Sukkah, thanks to an indirect regards from a Sukkah guest who had recently come from Israel.
It was in his earliest years in Albany, perhaps his first winter, in the mid 1970’s, when there was an especially harsh winter. Someone told Rabbi Hodakov (the Rebbe’s Chief of Staff) that somewhere in Central New York State there was a commune (holdover from the 60’s) that had quite a few Jews involved, even the leader was Jewish, and there were reports of bizarre practices. If something could be done to help the young Jews involved there. So Rabbi Hodakov called my father and asked him to go down there and see what could be done.
Back then my parents had a large ol’ hand-me-down used car, that still had “wings”. My mother recalls that the car had little heat. But they bundled me up and headed off to this remote rural place. They were new Shluchim, they had little experience with this kind of situation. (Though before moving to Albany my father did give Torah classes in the West End Bar NYC or maybe it was The Cauldron operated by Moshe/Marty Schloss, a macrobiotic place in Manhattan and many of the clientele back then were Beatniks). It was a long trip in an old car in a cold winter.
Somehow they found the place. (Amazing before the days of GPS!) The commune was an island to its own. It was like entering a parallel universe. It was a cluster of yurts, primitive basic huts, and some of the people strolling around wore much less clothing than expected in the dead of winter. It was some exercise in mind over matter. There was likely a great deal of mind-altering and hallucinating substances. Some people there introduced themselves to my parents with names like Sunshine or Humility. They were in a totally different frame of mind.
My father asked to speak to the leader of the commune. They said that was possible but as the leader was now in the midst of a vow of silence he wouldn’t be able to have a conversation. Still, my father asked to go in to see him. He went into the yurt to find this man (with distinctive features) sitting cross-legged by the fire. There was a low table near the fire, and my father remembers there was a Hebrew/Jewish book on the table but can’t remember what it was. He tried talking to the man, but was getting nowhere without the back and forth engagement of conversation.
So he asked the man if he’d like to put on Tefillin. The man contemplated for a while, and then nodded. So my father took out the hand-Tefillin, and wrapped it on this man. When he bent down to reach for the head-Tefillin from the bag, the man leapt upwards and began to dance around the fire with only the hand-Tefillin, wordlessly but with great passion and intensity.
My father was a little overwhelmed, didn’t know what was coming next, so when the man settled down a bit from the eccentric dancing around the fire in the yurt, my father took off the hand-Tefillin and left – without even putting on the head-Tefillin.
They spoke to a few more people a bit, tried to engage best they could, and then left the commune for home.
About a decade later or more, sitting in the Sukkah that night, based on certain descriptions, my father had reason to believe that the indirect regards that the Sukkah guest shared from Israel was about this commune leader, who apparently found his way back to Judaism and Jewish observance, and was using his charismatic influence in teaching Torah.
Over the years there were some other “regards” from this soon-after disbanded commune.
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And it was only the hand-Tefillin, without the head-Tefillin, only half-a-Mitzvah, an incomplete Mitzvah*. Yet!
Who knows the many factors and variables that go into tremendous life transformations… but we shouldn’t underestimate the power of even half-a-Mitzvah!
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* There’s complex Halachic debate whether the hand and head Tefillin are two separate Mitzvot or two parts of one Mitzvah, but that Talmudic discussion aside, it is obvious they’re intended to be worn together and one is incomplete without the other.