Tefillin on Death Row, Second Chances, and Seizing the Moment

What kind of scene does this picture describe?

This is a picture of Rabbi Dovid Goldstein, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of West Houston, Texas, and Jedidiah Murphy, a death-row inmate in a West Livingston, Texas prison.  (Guess which one is which. J) 

The story was covered in the Jewish press, and there is longer story about this subject on Chabad's website.  Rabbi Goldstein enabled Murphy, convicted for killing a 79-year-old woman, to lay tefillin for the first time.  It was not easy to arrange as state law prevents death row inmates from having direct contact with their visitors.  Goldstein provided the tefillin and a kippah for Murphy and instructed him through the glass.  Rabbi and prisoner celebrated the “Bar Mitzvah” with chips and soft drinks from the nearby vending machine.

(This was not Goldstein’s first time putting tefillin on a death-row inmate.  In 2013, he helped Douglas Feldman put on tefillin one week before being executed by lethal injection.  That time, he was allowed direct contact with the prisoner since the tefillin were considered part of his last rites.)

What can we take away from a story like this?

There are Jewish criminals…Chabad is dedicated to every single Jew…It’s never too late to perform a mitzvah…

I find myself thinking about how we approach second chances.  Murphy never had a Bar Mitzvah or a chance to act in a Jewish way.  It took a death-row encounter with a truly dedicated rabbi to create this mitzvah moment.  Often, we seek out second chances in moments of extremis.  We repent in time for Yom Kippur or we try to spend more time with someone after not spending time with them earlier.  As the saying goes, “Better late than never…”

Why can’t there be more opportunities to seize the moment?  How about more positively-induced second chances?  We could each benefit from proactively wanting to do all these good things because they are too good to miss out on, and we want to experience them again.

Do you remember the Life Saver commercial in which a father and his daughter are sitting watching a beautiful sunset.  As the last of the light disappears beneath the horizon, the dad says, “Going...going...going...gone!”  And then the girl says, “Do it again, Daddy!” 

There are so many things we should try to experience again because they are just so special and awesome that, heck, why not?  We don’t need to wait until the last minute – or when it is too late – to try and spend more time with our family or enjoy the beautiful weather or read that book or try that new experience.

We may not be able to make the sun set again, and we, most certainly, don’t want to need to be in an extreme situation to push us to perform a mitzvah.  For now, as we start a New Year, let’s think about all the positive experiences - for religious and personal growth or spending time with family or just doing wonderful things – we can grab.