Worldwide Wrap Binds Ties to Judaism
Jim Lando knew about wrapping tefillin. Jim didn’t know about the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs’ Worldwide Wrap, the event that brings Conservative/Masorti Jews together every Super Bowl Sunday to learn about and perform the mitzvah of tefillin.
Jim, who lives in Atlanta, was in a Detroit hotel with his cousin Harold Blumenthal, president of the Men’s Club at Beth Shalom Congregation in Pittsburgh. Rooting the Steelers to victory in Super Bowl XL was paramount on both their minds, but the Wrap, as it’s known in Men’s Club circles, was high on Harold’s mind as well.
Harold mentioned that it was the Worldwide Wrap. When he suggested that the two cousins participate, Jim, who had his tefillin with him, was more than glad to put them on as part of the Worldwide Wrap.
Jim believes that wrapping tefillin that morning helped the Steelers to victory, but he knows it gave him the impetus to find out more about Men’s Clubs. He got in touch with the FJMC’s Anshei Darom region and went on to form a Men’s Club in his synagogue, the newly established Congregation Or Hadash in Atlanta.
Jim’s story is one of many about how the Worldwide Wrap brings Conservative/Masorti Jews together, educating adults and children about tefillin in new and exciting ways.
When the sun rises every Super Bowl Sunday in Melbourne, Australia, men and women from the eight-year-old congregation Kehilat Nitzan gather at the home of Beverley and John Rosenberg to wrap tefillin and daven shaharit (the morning service). Before they remove their tefillin, they always pose for a picture around the pool.
Kehilat Nitzan, the only Conservative synagogue in Melbourne, has taken part in the World Wide Wrap every year. With 32 men, women and recent b’nai mitzvah, 2007 was the best year ever, according to John, who chairs the event. “We really value the Worldwide Wrap,” he says. “Although we have a strong and vibrant Jewish community in Melbourne, it is dominated by Orthodox congregations, and our members sought an alternative in the Masorti movement. We saw the Wrap as an opportunity to provide a learning experience, particularly for the women. This is an occasion when we feel a part of a worldwide movement.”
Some 16 hours later, as the sun rises in North America’s Eastern Standard time zone, members of the Temple Beth Sholom Men’s Club in Melbourne, Florida, also gather to wrap tefillin and daven. The Wrap rolls across North America as the sun comes up and bagels are cut. And somewhere in between, Conservative/Masorti Jews gather in Israel, Europe and India to be part of the experience.
A sign of the commitment to the Wrap is the date change in Latin America, where the first Sunday in February is the heart of summer vacation. The FJMC has given its blessing to a second Wrap for the first Sunday in July. An FJMC mission to the Latin American Jewish community will coincide with this Wrap, which is during the North American vacation season.
In all seasons, religious school students participate in the FJMC Build A Pair Program, which supplies kits for older elementary and middle school students to build their own model tefillin.
“We began the program with three synagogues in the Pittsburgh area two years ago,” said Ira Ungar of Beth El, president of the Tri-State region. “This year, we went international, distributing more than a thousand sets to synagogues in North America at a cost of five dollars each. The program gets bigger every year.” The children daven with the adults and then participate in a program to explain how their model tefillin were assembled.
“We hope it will encourage the children to wrap tefillin on a regular basis once they become b’nai and b’not mitzvah,” said Matt Gottlieb, president of the Men Clubs’ Anshei Darom region and co-president of Congregation Beth Shalom Men’s Club in Atlanta, Georgia. That club gives each bar and bat mitzvah child a $90 certificate to buy tefillin.
Other clubs bring in scribes to explain how tefillin are prepared or experts to speak on various aspects of Jewish life. Some clubs twin with Masorti congregations in Israel, India and Latin America, and others pledge money for the Tefillin Fund, which provides tefillin to Jews in Latin America. Many clubs show a Men’s Club video, The Ties That Bind, in which laypeople of all ages explain what wrapping tefillin means to them. The video dovetails with classes run before the Worldwide Wrap to teach people how to put on tefillin and say the appropriate brakhot. According to Stephen A. Neustein of the Beth Shalom Congregation Men’s Club in Pittsburgh, a past chair of the Worldwide Wrap, “The growth of this program has been amazing. We are encouraging people to come out in a very helpful and nurturing environment to find satisfying ways to become more passionate about their religious observance.”
For more information about the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs, go to its website, www.fjmc.org. To learn about the World Wide Wrap go to www.worldwidewrap.org.
Stanley Schnitzer is a member of the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs’ executive committee.
