What would Will Herberg say if he could know about this?
A religious Jew wearing a series of black boxes and leather straps called tefillin or phylacteries inadvertently set off a bomb scare on a US Airways flight to Kentucky.
The plane was diverted to Philadelphia.
A 17-year-old boy on Flight 3079 traveling from New York to Louisville was using tefillin boxes which are attached to the arm and forehead and contain prayer scrolls and have long leather straps which wrap around the arm, said Philadelphia police Lt. Frank Vanore.
“It’s something that the average person is not going to see very often, if ever,” FBI spokesman J.J. Klaver said.
Klaver, as the Forverts admits, is probably factually correct. But technically, it wasn’t the religious Jew who set off the bomb scare, it was the pants-wetting pearl-clutcher who thought he was a “security situation.”
The Edge of the American West 
41 comments
January 21, 2010 at 8:32 pm
NM
“Technically”? Got an account of causation in that little leather box?
It would be helpful if some wildly popular youtube video explained various groups’ everyday stuff (making wudu, announcing takbir, wearing tefillin– not scary) vs. things you should worry about on planes (lighting shoes on fire, developing settlements on your armrest).
January 21, 2010 at 9:47 pm
Ralph Luker
Oddly, I suppose, Ari’s post reminded of this story. There have been many Jews in the communities I’ve lived in, but I’ve rarely seen them wearing tefillin. Forty years after studying with Will Herberg, I still regard him as my rabbi. Although he was a devout conservative Jew in his later years, I don’t recall ever seeing him wear tefillin.
January 21, 2010 at 9:54 pm
Dave Z
Perhaps Mr. Luker should have spent more time in shul. I was raised conservative, and we wear tefillin every non-holiday weekday. Hell, even women wear them now.
January 21, 2010 at 11:13 pm
Barbar
I read some of the comments to the NYT article on the story… there were a decent number of them that decried the ignorance of the flight attendants, and made a big deal of how they need cultural sensitivity training so that they can get a clue and realize how different people live in America.
Maybe I am just an asshole atheist, but isn’t half the point of Orthodox Judaism to keep people separate from the rest of the population? It’s not supposed to be widely understood and “appreciated” by the rest of the population.
January 22, 2010 at 12:00 am
chingona
No one has to “appreciate” it. They just have to not divert the plane over it. I’m sure the other passengers would have “appreciated” getting to their destination.
January 22, 2010 at 3:29 am
dana
It’s not supposed to be widely understood and “appreciated” by the rest of the population.
What chingona said. No one’s expecting a social studies essay on the history of religious artifacts and practices, just the practical wisdom (and perhaps the needed training) to distinguish between “some religious practice foreign to me” and “a terrorist!”
January 22, 2010 at 3:58 am
Jason B.
Would it have been so hard for someone to say, “Hey, kid! What are those things?”
What’s the worst response you could get from that? “These are my secret bombs that I’m wearing in full view of everyone! Bwahahahaha!”
January 22, 2010 at 4:47 am
NM
Apparently his rabbi says next time, wait on the tefillin.
January 22, 2010 at 5:52 am
oudemia
What’s really shocking is that the kid was nice, cooperative, and happily explained the ritual to the flight crew, but the pilot decided he needed to land the plane anyway.
(Pretty much every flight I take has a large frum contingent on it, and certainly every long international flight I’ve ever taken has had large groups of guys davening by the emergency doors once or twice per flight, but I have never seen anyone lay tefillin on an airplane, even in the mornings on overnight flights.)
January 22, 2010 at 10:08 am
Jay C
“…just the practical wisdom (and perhaps the needed training) to distinguish between “some religious practice foreign to me” and “a terrorist!””
Unfortunately, in the USA of 2010, we have developed a national “news” media (and a nontrivial segment of our political class) which has spent nearly every day since Sept. 11, 2001 trying to squeeze viewers/ratings and or political influence out of a more-or-less deliberate conflation of those two concepts. The only difference is that THIS time, the “perp” is Jewish. Wonder if he’ll get an apology….
January 22, 2010 at 11:09 am
drip
Way to go, Dude. If you will it, it is no dream. T Herzel as interpreted by John Goodman and the Coen Brothers. It took a whole lot of bad judgment to turn that plane around, none of it by the boy.
January 22, 2010 at 11:21 am
Ben Alpers
Semi-OT, but “phylacteries” has always seemed to me to be one of the most useless words in the English language. When I first heard it as a kid, I assumed that it must be a broader category of objects of which tefillin was a member. But no. It’s just a goyish word for tefillin. And my guess is there’s not a single person in the world who knows what the word “phylacteries” refers to but who doesn’t know the word “tefillin.” About the only thing worthwhile about “phylacteries” is that it suggests the pun “prophylacteries”….but unfortunately there’s virtually no occasion in which this pun is actually usable.
January 22, 2010 at 11:37 am
eric
there’s virtually no occasion in which this pun is actually usable
That “virtually” is doing a lot of work, there.
January 22, 2010 at 11:54 am
Ralph Hitchens
Actually, Ben Alpers, I was quite vague about tefillin but assumed it probably meant phylacteries, which I have seen (OK, mainly in Israel) and read about often enough. I think it’s surprising that no one was able to persuade any of the flight attendants or cockpit crew that these were religious objects.
January 22, 2010 at 12:28 pm
ben
I take Alpers’ comment as a challenge.
January 22, 2010 at 12:37 pm
chingona
I, too, thought that phylacteries was one of the most useless words in English, and it always takes me a second or two to remember that phylacteries are tefillin.
But I learned on another blog where folks were discussing this same topic that magical phylacteries played a role in Dungeons and Dragons, and there is some segment of the population that has a notion of what phylacteries are while having no idea what tefillin are.
Said the commenter:
Alright, here goes: since I’m now in a room where my copy of the AD&D;Dungeon Masters Guide is handy, here are the 3 magical items in question (pp 151-2):
Phylactery of Faithfulness: the cleric wearing the phylactery will “be aware of any action or item which will adversely affect his alignment or his standing with his deity prior to performing the action or becoming associated with the item.” Sounds like the kind of thing we might want a few Dems in Washington to wear 24/7 if you ask me…
Phylactery of Long Years: slows the aging process.
Phylactery of Monstrous Attention: “draws the attention of supernatural creatures of exactly the opposite alignment of the cleric wearing it. This results in the cleric being plagued by powerful and hostile creatures whenever he or she is in an area where such creatures are or can appear.”
Someone more clever than I could use at least one of these to pun off prophylacteries.
January 22, 2010 at 12:39 pm
ben
Well, Long Years is obviously a prophylactery against aging. I mean what could be more obvious. Nothing.
January 22, 2010 at 12:45 pm
chingona
I was hoping somebody could do something with “monstrous attention.”
January 22, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Walt
I’m a little sad that someone beat me to the D&D reference. This is probably a sign of misplaced priorities.
January 22, 2010 at 1:34 pm
AaLD
and there is some segment of the population that has a notion of what phylacteries are while having no idea what tefillin are.
That segment would probably also include many of those who grew up with the King James Bible, or heard it read from the pulpit, and have had little or no first-hand experience with Orthodox or Conservative Jews. I’d wager that’s a fair-sized segment of the population.
January 22, 2010 at 2:01 pm
Punning Pundit
Yeah, in the D&E campaign I run, my players ran into a lich who keeps his heart in a phylactery well away from his body, for the purpose of revivification if he’s killed.
None of these players would associate the word “phylactery” with anything a real person might wear…
January 22, 2010 at 2:03 pm
grackle
My Shorter but very stout Oxford dictionary informs me that a phylactery may refer to any small container holding a charm or an amulet. Also such a container holding a relic.
A great and useful word in some situations obviously.
January 22, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Hob
Punning Pundit: How’d you get permission to use Dick Cheney in your game?
January 22, 2010 at 4:46 pm
silbey
Punning Pundit: How’d you get permission to use Dick Cheney in your game?
His dungeon is in an undisclosed location.
January 22, 2010 at 5:22 pm
Vance
To be pedantic (as if I am ever not), the idea of the heart or soul kept in a container outside the body is hardly new — see for example Kastchei in Firebird. The influence must have run the other way; perhaps Cheney got the idea one night at the ballet.
January 22, 2010 at 5:46 pm
ben
The heart or soul being kept outside the body features prominently in Norse myth.
January 22, 2010 at 7:59 pm
Western Dave
The plane takes off in NY and nobody recognizes tefellin? What is NY coming to? Nobody in the cockpit says, “excuse me, are there any Jews on the plane?” or even “is there a doctor or a lawyer on the plane” because even if they weren’t Jewish they would know… Oh hell, I’ll just stop now.
January 22, 2010 at 8:01 pm
Jason B.
“Phylactery” appears frequently in The Order of the Stick — but that’s closely related to chingona’s example.
January 22, 2010 at 9:52 pm
Mr. Sidetable
there is some segment of the population that has a notion of what phylacteries are while having no idea what tefillin are
Yes, as AaLD notes, it’s that segment of the population known as most Gentiles. I knew what phylacteries were when I was ten (thanks to Sunday school), but had never heard of tefillin until I moved to New York after college.
January 23, 2010 at 8:49 am
dave
*cough*horcrux*cough*
January 23, 2010 at 10:55 am
Western Dave
*cough*the music box that holds Davy Jones’ heart*cough
January 23, 2010 at 11:17 am
Walt
I call bullshit. I’m a Gentile, and I went to Sunday school, Bible school, etc., and I never heard of phylacteries until D&D.
January 23, 2010 at 11:28 am
Jackmormon
I’m neither Jew nor Gentile, but I knew the word phylactery, vaguely, but didn’t associate it in any way with Judaism. When I worked in a Judaica store one summer, I learned the word tefillim. In fact, I didn’t *really* put the two together until this post.
So, thanks, Eric!
January 23, 2010 at 11:33 am
ben
Crazy Mormon use of “gentile” doesn’t count, Jack.
January 23, 2010 at 1:11 pm
Jackmormon
That was a joke, Wolfson.
January 23, 2010 at 1:12 pm
grackle
Crazy Mormon use of “gentile” doesn’t count, Jack.
Gentile is to goy as phylactery is to tefillim; i.e. in both cases the former is a broader term. Most dictionaries recognize JackM’s usage. (How’s that for pedantry?)
January 23, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Ahistoricality
I’m neither Jew nor Gentile
Nice work, if you can get it.
January 23, 2010 at 1:53 pm
chingona
Thanks, Walt. I was about to apologize to all the gentiles I accidentally insulted, but instead I’ll just apologize for stealing your D&D thunder.
January 23, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Jackmormon
Nice work, if you can get it.
In this case, you can get it if you try!
January 24, 2010 at 7:36 am
Western Dave
Q. Why did the Jews vacation in Utah?
A. Because they wanted to see what it was like to be gentiles
January 24, 2010 at 8:38 pm
rowmyboat
You know, I’ve never seen tefillin before. And I’m a Long island goy, and spent a couple years cataloging for a Jewish book dealer. So, for the most part, for a goy, I know from Jewish.
But I’m also not an idiot, or a trouble-maker out to get people who are different from me. If I saw an observant Jewish kid doing something with little boxes with Hebrew letters on them and doing whatever went along with them, I’d be able to figure out that it was something religious that I’d just never heard of before.
It’s the stupid or evil question, a little bit. And it’s not like a Christian has never holy watered up a plane before. Cause I’ve sure seen that.