[Avodah] tefillin in the right place

[Eli Turkel]

from Rav Aviner

It is related in the book "Uvdot Ve-Hanhagot Le-Beit Brisk" (vol. 3,
pp. 189-180) that Ha-Griz – Ha-Rav Velevele Soloveitchik – once
visited a city and used a mirror to make sure his Tefillin was in the
correct place, as was his custom. At his seat, someone placed a copy
of Shut Divrei Chaim opened to the Teshuvah which refers to looking in
a mirror to adjust one's Tefillin as a "custom of ignoramuses."
Ha-Griz said to the people there: "I will use a Chasidic story (since
the Divrei Chaim was Chasidic, while he was a Mitnaged). Reb Moshe
Leib Sasober once said about the Halachah that one who sits in a
Sukkah while it is raining is an idiot (Rama, Orach Chaim 639:7): 'It
is worthwhile for me to be called an idiot as long as I fulfill the
mitzvah of dwelling in the Sukkah.' I say the same thing: 'It is
worthwhile for me to be called an ignoramus as long as the Tefillin
sit in the precise spot on my head."

-- 
Eli Turkel