Baltimore, this refers to someone who puts on tefillin and believes in the mitzvah – if someone doesn’t believe – and isn’t even aware – of the mitzvah, it’s a maysoh kof b’alma, a meaningless act. It’s true that if a renegade Jew puts on tefillin once, while shirking his obligation every other day, he has a zchus, but that’s only if he did it with a minimum awareness – I’m not referring to the machlokes if mitzvos require kavanah or not; everyone agrees that you need to accept the reality of a mitzvah for it to count, because if there’s no metzaveh, commander, how can there be a commandment?
