Tamar and Itzik Viflic don’t consider themselves heroes, and don’t even pretend to be brave. They are just being human, struggling to make sense of the tragic death of their only son, killed when terrorists fired an anti-tank missile at the school bus he was riding in. This week marks the shloshim of sixteen-year-old Daniel Viflic, the special, elevated soul who — in the ten days he clung to life — united the entire Jewish world in intense prayer.
What started as a visit to relatives during bein hazmanim turned into a nightmare for the Viflic family of Ramat Beit Shemesh. Yet sixteen-year-old Daniel Viflic who died of his wounds ten days after he was hit by an anti-tank missile did the impossible during those 240 hours that he held onto life: he united the entire Jewish world in nonstop prayer.
This week marks the shloshim of Daniel Aryeh ben Yitzchak (you might have been davening for Refael Daniel Aryeh ben Tamar) thirty days since Hamas terrorists took his life as they aimed their missile at a bus full of children in the Negev. But with just a few hours of shivah on Erev Pesach after a midnight burial his parents — Itzik and Tamar Viflic — consider any visitor who wants to talk about their special son as a shivah caller.
Daniel was a second-year talmid at Yeshivah Ketanah Heichal HaTorah (the yeshivah of the Toras Eliyahu network) in Moshav Machsiyah outside Beit Shemesh — and he was the Viflics’ only son. They have one remaining daughter Adina who is thirteen.
“I’m still in denial” says Tamar. “The pain of facing this thing is still too raw too massive. Sometimes I feel like he’s on vacation and will be home soon. When I go to sleep at night I think ‘This will be over in the morning ’ but then I wake up and go to his room and he hasn’t come back.”
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