Why Don’t We Wear Tefillin on Tisha B’Av?

On Tisha B’Av, many men do not wear tefillin at Shacharit and wait until Mincha. Yet this practice is not universal. The ancient custom of Jerusalem is specifically to wear them in the morning. To understand this apparent contradiction, we must return to the laws of mourning, to the word pe’er, meaning “glory” or “adornment,”…