One day, Chief Rabbi Yehoshua Katz of the city of Maaleh Adumim, just outside Jerusalem, called me to ask if I have a pair of high-quality tefillin for a young man in his community named Moshiko (Moshe), who had begun to come closer to Torah and mitzvot. I wasted no time, and was able to both procure the tefillin and send them to Maaleh Adumim right away. A few days later, Moshiko and his mother called together to thank me, and they began telling me the following very emotional story. I asked Moshiko to write it in his own words, and here it is:
“My story is very special. I’m in my 20’s, an only child to my mother, who raised me herself. After I finished the army, I set off on the “customary” trip to the Far East – during which my mother was diagnosed with the dreaded sickness, cancer. She began receiving treatments, but she decided not to tell me about it until I returned from my trip. When I returned, and she shocked me with the bad news, my first decision was to take upon myself to resume putting on tefillin, after not having done so for a bunch of years. When Rabbi Katz heard about this, he contacted Rabbi Amichai from OHR CHADASH, who quickly found me a pair of beautiful tefillin and sent them to me.
“Just two days after I received them, and as I was taking them off in the morning, I received a phone call from the professor who was treating my mother. He tells me: “I’ve received the results of the tests we took following your mother’s last operation – and they all came out perfectly fine, your mother is clean, and she’s on her way to beating the cancer!” This was the best news of my life! I quickly ran over to my mother, with my tefillin in hand, and told her, “It’s because of the new tefillin!” I am convinced that getting the tefillin and wearing them was a great merit for me, and I appreciate all those who were involved in this holy work. Thank you!”