On a recent Motzoei Shabbos, an English Jew, Dovid Glick, caught a bus from Northern Israel to Yerushalayim and left his tefillin on board. The tefillin resurfaced on Sunday in Haifa when the owner of a luggage store noticed an Arab with a suitcase stolen from his shop and a pair of tefillin.
“I left on motzoei Shabbos for Yerushalayim and forgot the tefillin on the bus,” Glick said. “Instead of the bus driver returning the tefillin to the lost and found department he gave them to a relative.”
When the shop owner demanded his suitcase back, the Arab, a known serial thief, offered him the tefillin in exchange.
Seizing the chance to return an aveidah, the store owner agreed. He then publicized a photo of the tefillin bag and the owner’s name on internet. Despite a tremendous response from Jews far and wide, Glick, who has no access to internet, was left in the dark. He had almost given up hope after phoning the Netiv Express Company he had traveled with and discovering that eighteen buses had left Meron that motzoei Shabbos, and all of them were driven by Arabs.
Finally, the shop owner searched the tefillin bag again and found Glick’s name and address inside.
Rav Yisroel Yud, director of a hashovas aveidah organization for lost tefillin, said that if a person fails to write his name and phone number inside his tefillin bag, he is in essence throwing it away. Of thousands of tefillin that have arrived at his organization over the years, 382 that have no name and telephone number are still unclaimed.
David Steger – Matzav.com Israel
