A Life-Changing Moment in the Jewish Quarter of Paris

By COLlive reporter

Chabad bochurim Yisroel Andrusier and Zalmy Gurary, students of Yeshiva Tomchei Tmimim Lubavitch in the Brunoy village in France, were recently doing Mivtzoim in the Les Marais district of Paris, and experienced a special encounter.

Andrusier, who is from Pembroke Pines, Florida, and Gurary, from Montreal, Canada, were walking the streets trying to find Jewish men to put on Tefillin. The district is home to the Jewish quarter known as the Pletzl.

Doing their rounds, they met a man named Raphael Benguigui and his wife Lorena, residents of Paris and Lisbon, Portugal. The bochurim asked Raphael if he would put on Tefillin and he agreed.

Raphael, who does not have hands, was helped with wrapping them on his thin arm and on his head. For reciting the Shema, he put his arm in front of his eyes and then fluently said the Shema.

His wife later shared that Raphael would daven with Tefillin on a regular basis when he was younger. He had stopped when he was diagnosed with leukemia and later suffered from septic shock.

“My husband needed this,” she exclaimed, explaining that “after what we call ‘the life accident,’ he didn’t do it every day anymore. He had some anger to deal with. Raphael said that from today he will do it every day.”

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