Binding, bonding, blessing

(JNS) — Mark was preparing for his bar mitzvah. Besides the excitement of the Shul event, to be perfectly honest, he was also looking forward to receiving lots of gifts and money, as is the “tradition.” He was particularly anticipating a large monetary gift from his Uncle Abe, a very wealthy and generous man. How shattered and disappointed Mark was when Abe presented him with his bar mitzvah gift: It was … a pair of tefillin!

It was only many years later that Mark happened to check his tefillin and discovered that inside lay a check from Uncle Abe for $5,000 with a little note saying, “Mazel T...