A large class of young Haredi boys came to the Kotel to daven mincha. After mincha a bunch of them came running over to watch me put tefillin on someone. They were maybe 10 years old.

     I called out, "Tefillin? Tefillin?" to a Jew who walked in, to see if he had already put on tefillin that day. He said that he had.

     With a big smile, one of the boys asked me if he could put them on. He knew very well that he had to wait until he was thirteen years old.

     I said, "You can do the mitzvah of tefillin now if you want."

     With a huge smile the boy held out his arm for me to wrap the tefillin on him.

     A religious man standing there was really surprised at my answer. He looked at me as if to say, "What in the world are you doing?"

     I told the boy, "To put them on your arm you have to wait until your bar mitzvah, but you can go bring a Jew over to put tefillin on his arm, and you will share in the mitzvah of tefillin even before your bar mitzvah."

     The boy smiled and quickly looked around at all the Jews coming into the Kotel area to see if he could bring someone over to put on tefillin. He ran to a couple of guys but he wasn't that fortunate, at least not yet. But he learned an important lesson. Help someone else to do a mitzvah, and you will have a share that mitzvah, too.