Do women go on tefillin dates?

I’m sitting in my car and an idea for a post comes into my head just as the Beastie Boys Sabatoge goes into its chorus, you are all lucky you weren’t there, because I start singing really loudly along with the chorus – “I wonder if girls go on tefillin dates?” I kept going, because as any Beastie Boys fan knows, the chorus climaxes and then goes back to it again. It was strange and made me laugh, but I did begin to wonder about girls going on tefillin dates.

By asking if girls go on tefillin dates, I don’t mean that girls, sensing there will be action that evening warn the man to bring his tefillin so as not to miss tefillin in the morning when they wake up. The whole concept of this is a bit absurd if you think about it. Most of the time, the woman is invited back to the mans house, so why would a man bring his tefillin on a date? If the date involved no car, it seems the man would look pretty dumb carrying his tefillin around an art museum at 8 in the evening. People might think he was on a deranged post shkiya mivtzoyom (when chabad buchrim put tefillin on random Jews) mission. The whole concept of tefillin dates seems a bit out of whack to me, but if it weren’t that out of whack, do women go on tefillin dates?

It’s a good question considering the fact that the Beastie Boys sang about it. They know their shit. I’m sure they got a pretty good yeshiva education before getting caught at White Castle eating sliders. They were obviously ahead of their time, because the 80’s wasn’t a time when women who actually cared about z’man tefillah were putting on tefillin. The 80’s was a time when women who cared about being men and doing things that men were doing were doing those things that men were supposed to do.

Fast forward 20 years and women are actually putting on tefillin for the right reasons, because it says to bind strange leather straps with boxes to your eyes every morning. The women say it too, at least I hope they do – I don’t think they are on such high madreigas where they can avoid their daily affirmations of God’s oneness. Are they? Do they have to say shema? Or can they sleep late and avoid it all together? I never thought about, but many women do say shema and if they say shema, they probably should put on tefillin and tzitzis if they want to be hiddur mitzvah.

So if you happen to be one of those ladies that wants to fulfill the mitzvah of shema and tefillin you may want to bring your tefillin on a date with you. Can you imagine how weird it must be to go on a date and not bring your tefillin? Men’s shell rosh’s are usually too big for a woman’s head anyway — what’s a recently sexed up girl to do? It’s not easy to find frum women who put on tefillin and the chances are that the guy by whom you slept doesn’t really want you doing the tefillin walk of shame around the neighborhood.