Aharon* lost his eyesight and right arm during a recent skirmish in Gaza. When I visited him in the hospital, I asked if there was anything I could do for him.
“I do have one request,” he said, his eyes roaming sightlessly behind me. “During the war, I put tefillin on with other soldiers, but I’ve never owned my own pair. I think if I had a set of my own, I’d continue putting them on every day.”
I was touched by Aharon’s simple request. He’d lost so much, but all he wanted was a chance to do more mitzvos.
A few days later, I returned with a set of tefillin.
“These are a gift to you from Tzach,” I told him. Aharon was visibly moved as he put on his very own pair of tefillin for the first time.
“I’ve been undergoing eye treatment over the last few days,” he told me. “My left eye is hopeless, but I’ve started to see shadows with my right eye! It’s possible that I’ll regain full sight in that eye!”
I couldn’t help but think of the pasuk written in the tefillin he’d just removed - “and you shall bind them on your arm, and they shall be as a sign between your eyes.” Aharon, who’d lost his arm and eye, wanted to do this mitzvah so desperately.
May it be a zechus for his complete refuah, and an end to the suffering of all of Am Yisrael.
