When Ze’ev was niftar a few years ago, his wife, three sons and daughter were discussing what to do with his tefillin. He had a new pair written not long before his petirah and the family were blessed with many grandchildren. His sons all had good quality tefillin and many grandsons were coming up to bar mitzvah – so who would be zoche to receive his tefillin.
There were no arguments just a genuine wish to decide what was the right thing to do with them.
This dilemma was solved when one of the sons, Shalom, who was a social worker, told them that he was working with a poor family who didn’t have the money for a pair of tefillin. Would all his siblings and mother be happy if the pair went to this family’s son who was coming up to his bar mitzvah?
The family happily agreed and the tefillin were given to the family.
Some time later Shalom was walking along the road when ‘something’ made him look inside one of the large garbage cans which scatter the roads and sidewalks in Israel.
He couldn’t believe his eyes when, right on the top, he saw his father’s tefillin bag and inside it were the tefillin which seemed miraculously completely unscathed and suspiciously as if they had never been touched.
Maybe the family had decided to obtain some other tefillin. He didn’t know. But he was sure that Hashem had guided his steps to just this spot to save his father’s tefillin which had obviously been discarded in error. Shalom took this hashgacha pratit as a sign that the tefillin were supposed to remain within the family and carefully took them home.
After another family discussion they decided that the tefillin would stay with the eldest son and be used as a gemach for anyone who temporarily needed a pair while theirs were being checked or if someone lost theirs and needed to wait for a replacement pair.
A year later, Avi, another brother, approached a sofer and ordered the tefillin for his son’s upcoming bar mitzvah. A few months before the date the sofer had an accident and was unable to continue writing for some time due to his injury.
While obviously davening for the refuah sheleima of the sofer, Avi was relieved to hear that he would eventually be able to resume writing and finish the parshios he had started for his son.
He told the sofer not to worry and there was no pressure because in the meantime, while waiting for his own pair, Avi’s son was able to use his grandfather’s tefillin which had by hashgacha pratit returned to the family to be used for just such a reason.
