Itai grew up in a deeply religious family, but already in his youth he distanced himself from Torah and mitzvah observance. This was very painful for his whole family. Today he is married and has children. After the war broke out, he was drafted into the reserves and arrived at the Tze’elim base for training. There the desire arose in him to wear tefillin so he started using his friend’s. He then asked his sister to try to get him a pair, because he no longer had the old ones from his Bar Mitzvah… The family was very moved by Itai’s religious awakening and his desire to resume observing the mitzva of tefillin. His sister turned to me and B”H I was able to obtain a pair of tefillin mehudaros (high-quality), but I didn’t know how to get them over to Itai in the remote Tze’elim base. The next day, his sister found out that my neighbor, who is an army doctor, was going to the Tze’elim base, so I immediately gave him the tefillin plus a note with a personal blessing, which reached Itai that same day. Itai’s sister sent me a picture of him adorned with tefillin and wrote in the message: “Thank you so very much! There are just not enough words to thank you… my whole family was touched. You have an enormous zechus(merit). May you be blessed from Shamayim (Heaven).” A few days later, Itai sent me another picture of himself wearing the tefillin and wrote in the message: “To Rabbi Amichai, thank you very much. I appreciate what you’ve done. You thrilled me with your note. For a long time I hadn’t put on tefillin and thanks to your gift I am able to start again. May Hashem bless you with many more mitzvot.”