What would normally be a heartrending story is made a bit easier to bear by the phenomenal chessed and mesirus nefesh of a 16-year-old girl.

Parents of nine children in Tel Tzion, a community on the yishuv of Kochav Yaakov in Binyamin, are laid up with the coronavirus. The young father is in the hospital in serious condition, sedated and on a ventilator. The mother just gave birth a few days ago and then was diagnosed with the virus as well. Three of the children, including the oldest daughter, 13, and the newborn infant, were also diagnosed with the virus.

Who will take care of the other six children in the house? Anyone entering the house will most likely become infected with the virus and even if not, will have to self-quarantine for two weeks after leaving the house,  meaning that he or she will miss out on spending Pesach with their own family.

Those difficulties did nothing to stop Tamar Hyman, a 16-year-old Chareidi girl, who dropped everything, including her chance to spend Pesach with her own family, to take care of children she didn’t even know beforehand.

Tamar stepped in and is taking total care of the children for as long as necessary, feeding them, bathing them and entertaining them. She knows she’ll have to spend Seder night with the children as well but has placed the needs of the children before her own needs.

In the zechus of her selfless act, the father should have a refuah sheleimah b’toch sh’ar cholei Yisrael.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)