Despite the darkness, nothing has prevented Reb Chaim and Oriah Jerbi from embracing the light of G-dly blessings
The savory aromas of traditional Moroccan Shabbos delicacies fill the air in the home of Reb Chaim and Oriah Jerbi. Soup is simmering on the stove, and a foil-covered pan of spicy fish is cooling on the counter. It’s Thursday evening, a hectic time in most Jewish homes, but in the Jerbis’ Kiryat Sefer apartment there is an air of organization, calm, and tranquility. A light knock at the door and Reb Chaim, who has just returned from Maariv, lets himself in as Oriah wipes her hands on a dishtowel and greets him in the living room. In this nearly perfect scene of hearth and home, who would believe that both Chaim and Oriah are completely blind?
Oriah’s life-altering ordeal began 15 years ago when she was in her first year of high school in Afula, where she grew up within a secular family. One day in ninth grade, she woke up with blurred vision that wouldn’t clear, and subsequent tests indicated the shocking news: She was suffering from a rare degenerative eye disease that would totally destroy her vision within three months.
“As far as the doctors were concerned, the only thing to do was sit and wait for it to happen,” she says.
Not knowing when that unimaginable moment would come, the school assigned Oriah a shadow. “It was vital for me because I had blackouts every so often — I would lose my vision for a few minutes, and then it would come back. But it could happen again an hour or two later. I could never know if it was the last time I would see anything. Every time my vision returned after a blackout, it felt like a gift.
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