What are those little boxes that Hasidic men wear on their heads during prayer?
This is one of those "Judaism 101" questions that is not specifically Hasidic, but I get asked it so often, I finally decided to put it here, because when you see film footage of Jews rocking back and forth at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, they are often wearing the boxes. (See Q-9 above on rocking back and forth.) The little boxes are called tefillin (teh-FILL-in) and are what some Bible translations call "phylacteries." (That’s a Greek word invented by Christians in the days of King James — no Jew ever calls them that. The first time somebody asked me about Phylacteries, I had no idea what he was talking about.) There are actually two boxes, one for the head and one for the arm. They are made of rawhide and tied on with leather from a kosher animal. The boxes contain hand-written parchments with specific verses from the Torah. Wearing tefillin is done in observance of the commandment in Deuteronomy: And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with
