Precious Tefillin Found After Four Long Years

by M.C. Millman

Four years ago, during the height of the pandemic, the Kozlov Rebbe zt"l fell ill from COVID a few weeks before Pesach and was taken to the hospital after collapsing.

Unable to visit due to COVID restrictions, the family sent a bag of critical items to the Rebbe by the next morning, including his precious tefillin he had worn for the last 64 years. Realizing that the Rebbe's name was not on the tallis bag, the family wrote out the Rebbezin's name and number and attached it inside the bag with a safety pin.

The Rebbe's condition went from bad to worse, and a few days later, he was taken into the ICU and was unfortunately niftar three days before Pesach.

When the family was called to pick up the Rebbe's personal effects, the tefillin was missing. The ICU nursing station was sure that the tefillin had never even arrived with the patient to that department, and so the family hit a dead end.

Any Askanim, who might have helped under normal circumstances, were inundated with dealing with COVID, and so the family had to let it go until Lag B'Omer when they were allowed to search the Maimonides Medical Center's lost and found storage facility.

"It was not a pleasant task," one family member shared with BoroPark24. "We searched for hours in a room with many very old items forgotten and lost without names or numbers, but no tefillin."

And then, this past Monday, four years after the tefillin went missing, the rebbetzin's phone rang. The person on the other end asked if anyone was missing a bag with some religious articles inside.

The sticky note with the name and number had paid off after all!

The precious tefillin were turned over to the Rebbe's oldest son, the Kariv Rav Shlit"a who was thrilled to bring home the tefillin that the Kozlov Rebbe had worn for 64 years.

The obvious conclusion here brings home the importance of labeling anything of value that gets sent to the hospital with both a name and a number.