I couldn’t say my own name until I was 25

Every so often I sit down with someone and I simply cannot keep it together. This was one of those times.

Hillel Krief could not say his own name out loud. Not in a job interview, not on a date, not ordering a coffee.

I Could Not Say My Own Name Until I Was 25

A stutter took hold when he was ten, and it quietly closed the doors he wanted most. Leading the prayers at his synagogue. A future in the army. Interview after interview where, within two minutes, both sides already knew. For fifteen years, every single day, he prayed the same desperate prayer. “G-d, please help me not stutter. Please help me not stutter.”

And then one Shabbat morning, in the middle of the war, with nobody there to speak for him, he changed what he was asking for. I will not tell you what he prayed instead. You have to hear it from him, because that is the moment everything turned, and I promise you, I was a puddle.

This one hit home. I have a child who stutters a little too, so I did not sit across from Hillel only as an interviewer. I sat there as a mother, holding my breath, hoping.

Watch it and you will understand why

Scroll to continue

And then tell me in the comments what moved you most. You know there is nothing I love more than hearing from you.