My oldest son put on Tefillin for the first time today.

And no, this isn’t a kiruv article. He’s becoming bar mitzvah!

And no, you’re not invited. Just because you find out everything that happens in my life the same way my parents do doesn’t mean that I know you. (I don’t read your articles.) And anyway, I timed this article to run after the bar mitzvah, just in case.

The invitations might also be ready after the bar mitzvah. Everyone we actually know is asking us why they haven’t received an invitation yet. Which is a very presumptuous question to ask someone.

But they’re asking me this more now that my son put on Tefillin today. Which means, in our circles, that there’s a month until his bar mitzvah. Our minhag—which I did when I was his age too—is to put on Tefillin one month before, and then to buy doughnuts for the class.

Is he ready? I don’t feel like he is. The halacha is that if a kid can be mature while wearing Tefillin, he should start wearing them. But how do I know if he can be mature while wearing Tefillin if he can’t be mature when he’s not? This is a little kid! He’s not responsible enough for Tefillin! He’s never had a pair of shoes that have lasted him more than a month!

He didn’t want to put them on in school. He said it’s embarrassing. I don’t know if he meant putting on Tefillin like you’ve never done it before, or having your father there standing over you and silently helping you and taking pictures of you davening. Maybe I was the embarrassing part. So now we know he’s a teenager. He said his friends all davened with their fathers somewhere else and then showed up to school with doughnuts.

“Why are you giving me a doughnut?”

“I put on Tefillin today.”

“Where?”

“My arm and my head.”

“No, in which location?”

“Oh. Lower muscle.”

So I took him to a closer, quieter minyan that was also earlier in the morning than I’m used to getting up. And I had to actually get up in time for the beginning of davening, because it takes bar mitzvah boys 20 minutes to put on their Tefillin.

“Nuh uh,” my son is telling me. “I got it down to like 10.”

I guess the goal is to shave the routine down enough that you can go back to coming late to davening.

It’s not his fault. He has to keep adjusting the arm straps, for example, because his arm is technically too short to fit seven widths of strap between his elbow and his wrist without them touching. Thankfully, he pulls the straps really tight, so his lines are still there from the previous morning.

Or maybe the logic is that if he wraps them really tight, his arms will eventually get longer. Like dough.

He hasn’t had a ton of practice yet. I started learning Hilchot Tefillin with him last summer, and he kept asking if he could try on my Tefillin, and I kept telling him that there was no point, because I’m a lefty. Nor can I remember how he’s supposed to wrap the straps around his fingers unless I’m wrapping mine at the same time. Also, due to a lack of foresight and weekly forgetfulness, we kept learning these halachot on Shabbos.

And yes, I wear Tefillin on my right arm. You’re supposed to put Tefillin on whichever hand is not your stronger hand, except that technically, neither of my hands is my stronger hand. So then the question is, “Well, what hand do you write with?” And I’m a writer, right? Except that I mostly type. I write all day, but it’s with both hands.

My other job was to take pictures. My wife requested pictures, and my sisters insisted on them. I’m like, “We have pictures of him practicing at home.”

But one of my sisters said, “No, we want the real thing. In shul.” Like she needs at least one other mispallel in the background. So we got one. He’s bending down with his back to us, looking for a sefer.

In truth, I didn’t even end up taking the pictures when he was putting on his Tefillin, because I was busy putting mine on at the same time so he could follow me. But because everyone wanted pictures, I took pictures of him taking off his Tefillin, though if you don’t know, it looks like he’s putting them on. No one has to know. You can keep a secret, right?

I don’t know you.

I also got one of my son pretending to daven. He also really davened, but I didn’t want to interrupt that, or interrupt anyone else’s davening with that old-timey camera noise that my small electronic device feels the need to make even when I have the sound off, and I don’t need people wondering who’s taking pictures of them davening Shemoneh Esrei. So I had him pretend after davening.

In other words, all the photos are staged. I hope my sisters are happy.

And my wife posted the pictures, so now people are constantly asking where the invitations are. They’re also commenting on how cute he looks in his hat and jacket. And I know I should enjoy it, because bar mitzvah boys are cute for like two seconds, before they hit that growth spurt. He’s already telling me to stop calling him cute.

I’m so embarrassing.

Mordechai Schmutter is a freelance writer and a humor columnist for Hamodia and other magazines. He also has six books out and does stand-up comedy. You can contact him at [email protected].

By Mordechai Schmutter