“Don’t leave home without it!” is a credo of American Express that’s been adopted by Chabad rabbis, who make sure to have tefillin on hand wherever they go.
So when Rabbi Yosef Shmuel Moscowitz of Chabad of Bucktown and Wicker Park in Chicago, also executive director of Lubavitch Chabad of Illinois, hosted a community golf outing on Wednesday, his tefillin were beside him.
Noticing a fellow golfer’s car with the Illinois license plate “ATHEIST” on it, the rabbi couldn’t help but reach out. Sure enough, the driver was Jewish, and after a bit of encouragement, he said he would be happy to put on tefillin—something he had not done since his bar mitzvah.
“A Jew is a Jew is a Jew,” the rabbi concluded. “Hashem is in the driver’s seat, and He always has you covered.”
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