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- 'You’d Be Proud of Me' Ran Gvili’s Final Message Inspires a Tefillin Movement
'You’d Be Proud of Me' Ran Gvili’s Final Message Inspires a Tefillin Movement
Days before his heroic death, Ran began a spiritual streak that his friends and now a nation refuse to let end.
Two weeks before the horrors of Simchat Torah, Sgt. Ran Gvili sent a message that now echoes with haunting power.
“Roee, you’ll be proud of me,” he texted his friend on September 22, 2023. “I’ve been putting on tefillin for two weeks straight. It gives me such joy to wake up every morning and do this.”
He kept it up daily. Every morning, he rose, wrapped the sacred leather straps, and reconnected with his Creator. He didn’t miss a day… until the day he gave his life defending Israel from barbaric terror on October 7.
Today, as the nation mourns the young border police officer who rescued civilians under fire and stood his ground at Kibbutz Alumim, something deeper is unfolding at his funeral. Israeli leaders including the Prime Minister and the President came to honor his courage. But in the crowd, an even more personal tribute is taking shape.
Led by Rav Shneor Kurts of Chabad Meitar, Ran’s friends have gathered not just to grieve, but to act. With tears in their eyes and sleeves rolled up, they are wrapping tefillin continuing the streak that Ran began. “Ran can’t put on tefillin today,” Rav Shneor said. “We are continuing his streak for him.”
What began as a private act of devotion has become a national chain of mitzvot. In every tefillin wrapped, in every prayer said, Ran’s light is still shining.
His final message isn’t just remembered it’s being lived. In homes, synagogues, and army bases across the country, Jews are taking on tefillin and mitzvot in his name. They're not letting his spiritual journey end. They're walking it for him.
This is the soul of Israel: a people who turn grief into action, memory into mitzvah. Ran Gvili stood tall with both rifle and tefillin. Today, we honor him not only with tears, but by carrying forward the choices he made in life.
Do it for Ran. If you own tefillin, put them on today. If you don’t, do a mitzvah in his merit. Let’s make sure his streak never ends.
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