After her son was critically wounded in Gaza, Dina and her family were surrounded by support — and miracles
A few days after Aryeh was injured, one of Aryeh’s commanders came to visit him in the hospital and brought what remained of Aryeh’s uniform. “The only things that had remained intact were his siddur, yarmulke, and wallet, which was in his pocket under his siddur,” Dina recalls. The commander handed Aryeh those items and looked him in the eye. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘it was the siddur that carried you through this.’
“There were other incredibly moving moments, too,” Dina says. “When Aryeh recited the brachah asher yatzar for the first time after surgery — the words had so much meaning after we saw the gaping hole the shrapnel created. My husband kept telling our friends and relatives about the nekavim nekavim in Aryeh’s chalulim chalulim. I shared that with one of the chayalot who was supporting us. She’d never heard of the brachah before and couldn’t get over how applicable its words were to our situation. ‘Wow, it’s amazing,’ she told me. It was incredible to feel Hashem’s chesed in the miracle of the functioning of Aryeh’s body. Ein anu maspikim l’hodos lecha, Hashem.”
Dina is poised throughout most of our interview, but there are a few moments when her eyes redden. Now is one of them.
“Through this whole war, I’ve seen how tefillah really moves worlds. When Aryeh was fighting for his life on Friday night after he was injured, the rav of our shul got up in front of the kehillah, and screamed at the top of his voice, ‘I’m forming a Beis Din Shel Matah and I’m asking the Beis Din shel Maalah to save the life of Aryeh Menachem Moshe ben Dina Tova!’ I really believe this played a huge role in helping Aryeh pull through.”
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