Feeling guilty about tefillin

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amother

Jetblack

Wed, May 09 2018, 7:45 am

We had a flood and among other things, dh's tefillin got destroyed. When he showed them to the sofer, he was told they were really top of the line. They were assessed for $3000 for the insurance claim. Anyway, after loads of paperwork, hours of phone calls etc, we have the insurance money. Even after appeals and all, it's still significantly less than what we need to replace what needs replacing and repair what needs repairing. We can't buy a $3000 pair of tefillin (I will add, we have all boys, oldest will be bar mitzvah in a couple of year, so we are anticipating lots of tefillin expenses in the coming years). Right now, dh is using a loaner pair from the sofer and still hasn't made a decision about replacing his tefillin because he feels guilty about not being able to get comparable quality to what his old tefillin were. Should we maybe see about working out a payment plan with the sofer? Try to save up for it? Or does it not really matter past a certain price point? I'm so confused about all this.

amother

Wine

Wed, May 09 2018, 7:49 am

I think this is fantastic question for a Rav.

Shoshana37

Wed, May 09 2018, 7:59 am

We bought our son tefilin for $1,200 in mechor in Brooklyn. If you are in NY you can find very good deals on it.

greenfire

Wed, May 09 2018, 8:04 am

ouch ... can they be repaired vs new ? it might be significantly less $

lavenderchimes

Wed, May 09 2018, 8:05 am

My DH bought his via our Chabad Rabbi for less than $500. You want things to look nice for a mitzvah, but there is no reason to break the bank to buy The Nicest Thing. OP, you should ask your Rav to put your mind at ease. But if you can't afford it, there is nothing to feel guilty about.

shluchamom

Wed, May 09 2018, 8:37 am

Tefillin is something that's spiritually linked with the health and wellbeing of your family and many times when there are situations of health people are advised by Rebbes and other leaders to check their tefillin and mezuzahs. It seems your husband is feeling bad to "downgrade" his tefillin. I suggest talking to the sofer explaining the situation and asking for options he might have suggestions. A payment plan sound like a great idea and you can look at it as a spiritual investment. Speak to your rov maybe the surplus more than insurance money can come out of maaser or tzedaka as its hiddur mitzvah. Good luck.

Mommyg8

Wed, May 09 2018, 9:43 am

lavenderchimes wrote:

It's not so much about beauty, it's more about being more mehudar, which is a different thing entirely. IIRC, and it could be that we last bought tefillin a few years ago so prices have gone up, but I think you can get very good, mehudar tefillin for $1500.

I know very little about whether it's worth it to break the bank over this, so probably a Rav is the best person to ask this question to.

amother

Lavender

Wed, May 09 2018, 9:47 am

I would stay out of this decision. It's your dhs to make...does my dh understand the nuances of paying more or less for a wig? Just saying...

amother

Wine

Wed, May 09 2018, 9:51 am

amother wrote:

I would stay out of this decision. It's your dhs to make...does my dh understand the nuances of paying more or less for a wig? Just saying...

Its the family budget.

If I wanted to purchase a really expensive wig - dh and I would both need to be in agreement regarding the cost.

amother

Jetblack

Wed, May 09 2018, 10:02 am

Obviously the ultimate decision rests with him, but it's a lot of money, so I'm part of the conversation about how to handle that. Unfortunately there is no repairing, they were destroyed beyond repair. These were the tefillin he got for his bar mitzvah. I have no idea if his parents paid $3000 for them back then or if that's what they're worth currently, but it seems quite obvious his parents went for the most mehudar they could. The sofer almost cried when he saw what happened, he said it was such a gorgeous set. So we don't want to downgrade if at all possible, but it's a lot of money, especially considering the financial hit this flood has been. And while I know it's silly to think this far ahead, I'm thinking of my boys and feeling like, if DH got such beautiful tefillin, we should try to do the same for them. I had no idea how expensive they could be!

amother

Gold

Wed, May 09 2018, 10:13 am

Here's an uncomfortable thought: the sofer is nogea badavar - he has a vested interest here. Why not get a second opinion on how much it would cost to buy a set of tefillin just like this one? Don't explain that you need a replacement, just ask what the price is for a set like this. Then you'll know. $3000 sounds like a lot.

Metukah

Wed, May 09 2018, 10:22 am

Do you have a breakdown of how much the insurance gave you just for the tefillin?

amother

Jetblack

Wed, May 09 2018, 10:25 am

Gold- we did. The sofer has an insurance adjuster, but we also had someone independent assess, and it really is consistent.

I wonder where mha is. Don't know her personally, but she has posted here that her husband is a sofer. I guess if she sees this, I'd love to hear his perspective on this!

SixOfWands

Wed, May 09 2018, 11:03 am

amother wrote:

I honestly don't think it matters.

But I'm not your husband, and if it matters to HIM, I'd try to find a way to get him what he wants.

Can the sofer offer you a discount if you promise that you'll be purchasing however many more tefillin from him over the next few years, for your boys?

Could you purchase a set now, for your oldest son, which your DH could borrow while saving up to repair his?

Have you shopped around to see if you could get a new set that is acceptable to your DH for less than the repair cost, then repair his at a later date and pass the new set on?

(BTW, buy your boys much less expensive tefillin, given the risk of loss or damage from leaving them at school and at camp. They can upgrade later if they want.)

erm

Wed, May 09 2018, 11:12 am

I would have a hard time using money that I got with insurance to replace a tefillin for mundane things. If the tefillin wouldn't have gotten ruined, you would not have gotten the $3,000 in insurance money and you would have had to manage without it.

lavenderchimes

Wed, May 09 2018, 11:39 am

Based on the original post, many more things were damaged than tefillin that also need replacing -- correct me if I am wrong, OP. Assuming that I am right, you aren't using tefillin money to buy mundane things, you are using money for everything to replace everything. Unfortunately, the money you get from insurance is NEVER the amount you need to fully repair/replace everything.

Obviously, you have to take your DH's feelings into consideration, but if I were in your position, I would either take one of Six of Wands suggestions, or I would calculate the percentage of money you got vs full replacement value, and buy tefillin that are that much cheaper. For example, if you would need $100,000 to repair/replace everything, but only got $50,000, I would buy $1,500 tefillin rather than $3,000.

Additionally, people have their tefillin and mezuzah trolls checked for mistakes, not for value. It's nice to spend more if you have it, but I would think not at the expense of clothes, mattresses, etc that you need to replace. But ...

You should definitely speak to a Rav, since imamother's will always offer a plethora of opinions:)

Last edited by lavenderchimes on Wed, May 09 2018, 12:09 pm; edited 3 times in total

amother

Jetblack

Wed, May 09 2018, 12:07 pm

Right lavenderchimes, we didn't get $3000 for the tefillin. We submitted the assessment (for a bunch of things, including the tefillin), let's say, to keep it simple, $25K. Insurance offered 13. We fought it, they amended the offer to 18. Since it did not seem likely we'd get more, we took it. So there's still a significant gap between what we needed and what we got. Now, clothes are not that difficult or expensive to replace nor do we necessarily need to replace them item by item (ex. A suit would need to be replaced, but if 3 skirts were lost, no big deal to buy 2 instead of 3), so even though we lost, say, $2000 worth of clothes, we didn't really need to spend that much replacing them. A laptop was lost, and though it is a necessity for us (we both need laptops due to work), we were able to find something comparable for a few hundred less. Then there are bigger things. Like structural damage that had to be repaired. That's not exactly mundane. If that's not taken care of, we wouldn't have a safe place to live. So a lot of the money had to go towards that. So no, once you factor in everything that really needed to be taken care of, we don't have anywhere near $3000 of insurance money for the tefillin.

Metukah

Wed, May 09 2018, 12:18 pm

I agree with lavender chimes, if you got say 70% of what you asked for I would spend 70% of $3000 on tefillin. It wouldn't feel right to spend less. IMHO

naturalmom5

Wed, May 09 2018, 12:31 pm

I am not understanding the question . If insurance gave you 3000 , I would be interested to know the heter to spend the money on something else.

If they truthfully were worth 3000 but insurance didn't cover that much, maybe you shouldn't go down in mitzvos but always go up , and cut back elsewhere..
BUT ask a Rov...

amother

Burgundy

Wed, May 09 2018, 12:35 pm

I would buy the $3000 tefillin, unless your sofer can offer you an upgrade plan (I.e. buy the $1500 tefillin and you can trade them in for the $3000 pair if you pay the remaining $1500 + something).

This is your only chance probably to get DH mehudar tefillin again.

The money for the other repairs can come with time, but the tefillin are more or less now or never. And while you can get a cheap whitewash job and do a proper paint job later, you won't be able to upgrade the tefillin, just replace them.

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