If you climb down a flight of dusty stairs on 29 Shaul HaMelech Street in Jerusalem’s Sanhedria neighborhood and knock at the nondescript door of a large one-room shed you’ve arrived at “Chosem Hahidur ” the hectic humming workshop where former refusenik Rabbi Chanoch Lerner has turned his rocket science skills to tefillin production. This factory basement is a lot more than miles away from the sophisticated government laboratories of Moscow where he learned to craft the perfect rocket to pulverize American tanks. Following a long journey of his own rediscovery Rabbi Lerner has created a shop that not only produces some of the finest most mehudar tefillin in Eretz Yisrael but also provides Russian immigrant yungeleit with the skills to build their own independent businesses.

Rabbi Lerner had learned from his own painful experience in Russia how vital it is to have expertise and reliability all down the line when it comes to tefillin.

“It was extremely difficult to put on tefillin every day in Russia” he recalls of the years as a baal teshuvah in the Soviet Union before being allowed to emigrate. “On one occasion I had to travel several days by train to a distant city and it was dangerous to be spotted putting them on. Every day I broke my head figuring out how to do so without anyone noticing. In the end I went into the gap between coaches locked the doors on each side and straddling the crossbars rapidly put on my tefillin recited Shema and davened.”

Yet when the tefillin that he had donned daily with such mesirus nefesh were checked in Israel he was told that they were probably invalid perhaps minimally kosher by some halachic leniency.

“I have noticed that many tefillin distributed to baalei teshuvah are of inferior standard because the distributors try to buy in bulk for cheaper” he notes. “In Israel too where over twenty thousand pairs are sold a month most are made in giant factories where five to ten people produce up to a thousand pairs a month. What are the quality and kashrus of these tefillin?”

In contrast Rabbi Lerner’s goal has been to build a company that makes the finest tefillin employing Russian immigrant yungeleit and others who will eventually be skilled enough at this exclusive craft to open their own businesses. Amid the rattle and hum of drills presses and the air conditioner Rabbi Lerner talks about his product and how he sees the blessings of parnassah from it.

“A bayit of our standard costs $650 nowadays” said Rabbi Lerner. “If a yungerman who learns one or two sedarim works in the evening and produces five batim he will have enough income for the month.

“My concern was this: The Torah stands on three pillars — Torah avodah and gemilus chasadim. Nowadays people call livelihood a parnassah whereas I feel that should be part of the avodah — the spiritual service — that extends to every arena of one’s life. Do I work for parnassah or is my livelihood a mitzvah? In regular matters this distinction is not the end of the world but when it comes to something like tefillin it makes a drastic difference.

“My idea for setting up this factory is for a person to come here and learn to produce tefillin of the highest standard and continue working here until he can stand on his own two feet. Originally I made the program for Russian immigrants but they are not the only ones in distress. I also have a yungerman from Switzerland and another from England who came to me seeking to get started here. I took two hefty loans to get started one for the materials and another for equipment and we still owe a lot of money. Now that we’re in full production we hope to turn a profit.”