Our grandson Naveh lost his tefillin two years ago. They were a prized possession, ordered from a scribe whom he had met early in his bar mitzvah preparation process and had given them to Naveh with a blessing before his bar mitzvah.
A religious boy, Naveh prayed with them every weekday morning and packed them in hand luggage whenever he went on a trip. Since seventh grade, he has studied in a yeshiva high school in Zichron Ya’acov, a 15-minute public bus ride from his home in Binyamina.
After school, he was the captain of the Binyamina youth soccer team, a mix of Jewish players from all the schools in Binyamina and Arab youth from nearby villages.
Three years later, when he was 16, Naveh was rushing to get ready for school when he realized that his tefillin bag wasn’t in its usual pl