When He Learned the Truth About His Tefillin, He Danced

Rabbi Yitzchak Zilberstein shares a story that touches the soul—one that carries a deep and uplifting message for every Jew at every stage of life. It appears in the wonderful book Mitzvot with Joy, edited by Rabbi Moshe Michael Zoren.

“When a person regrets the wrong they’ve done and finds it hard to let go of the pain,” Rabbi Zilberstein explains, “the best thing they can do is to stop looking backward and simply decide: from this moment on, I’m starting again. I’m choosing to do Hashem’s will—right now.”

He illustrates this powerful idea with a story that’s hard to forget.

An elderly Jewish man—80 years old—brought his tefillin (phylacteries worn during weekday morning prayers) to be checked, as Jewish law encourages every few years. The process is meant to ensure that the sacred scrolls inside the black boxes are still kosher and complete.

But this time, the Torah scribes were stunned. Inside the tefillin shel rosh—the head tefillin—they discovered a missing word. It had somehow gone unnoticed for decades, through multiple inspections. In halachah (Jewish law), this meant the tefillin had never been kosher. In other words, this man had never actually fulfilled the mitzvah of wearing tefillin his entire life.

The proofreaders were heartbroken. How could they possibly share this news with a man who clearly cared so much about doing the mitzvot (commandments)? They worried he might faint from the pain of hearing it.

When the man came to pick up his tefillin, they gently told him that something was wrong. As the truth settled in, he turned pale and gripped the sides of his chair. The room was silent. And then—something no one expected happened.

The man stood up—and began to dance. Yes, dance. With energy and joy, he began moving around the room.

The staff watched in disbelief. Had the shock affected his mind?

But then the man explained, with tears in his eyes and joy in his voice: “Do you know why I’m dancing, even though this is such difficult news? Because now—now I know that from today on, I’ll be wearing kosher tefillin. If I hadn’t checked them, I could have lived my whole life and passed on without ever truly fulfilling this mitzvah. But now I have the chance to do it right! Isn’t that something to be happy about?”

Rabbi Zilberstein concludes with a powerful insight for all of us. Yes, this man had to do teshuvah—he had to repent and reconnect fully with Hashem. But look at how he reacted: not with despair, but with joy, hope, and gratitude.

“This,” Rabbi Zilberstein says, “is what we must learn: especially at that very moment when things feel broken—when the yetzer hara (negative inclination) tries to whisper, ‘You failed. Hashem is angry with you’—that’s the moment to break into dance. To remind yourself: from this day forward, everything can be different.”

Hashem doesn't want us stuck in the past. He wants us to choose the present moment and move forward with strength. That’s the path of a Jew. Not to be weighed down by regret, but to say, “I’m ready to begin again. Right now.”

That’s what it means to serve Hashem with joy.