20/20 Heartsight

Hevre/Friends,

I only lost him once when I failed to signal emphatically enough. And I only once caused him to crash into a barrier by skiing too close to it.

Overall, it was a great day!

For those of you who have been privileged to meet my step-son-in-law, Eitan, you know exactly who I mean. Legally blind following a devastating diagnosis of Retinitis Pigmentosa while serving as a lone soldier in the IDF more than ten years ago, Eitan is an accomplished, extreme athlete who would never let a wrong turn or a slight collision derail a perfectly wonderful family ski day.

Last Sunday, twenty-four of us gathered in the Community Room of Ivry-sur-le-Lac's City Hall to watch the award-winning documentary Looking Up, which tells the story of Eitan's vision loss through the prism of his unfathomable climb up El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. But more enthralling than the climb itself — daunting enough for someone with perfect eyesight, let alone someone with only 5% of their central vision remaining — is the portrait the film paints of the inspiring human Eitan has become.

Eitan offers some blockbuster life lessons in the film, the kind many of us take a lifetime to learn, which he has had to master at a tender age full of dreams and goals for himself:

• Learn to let go of what you cannot control, and lean into what you can.

• Waiting for your troubles to resolve implies that the life available to you right now is somehow less than worthy — and distracts you from building it.

• Being unhappy from time to time doesn't mean you don't have a happy life. Happiness is built, in part, by acknowledging what is hard and accepting your limitations.

It is one thing to read those words, or to hear them preached. It is another to watch them come alive in someone whose courage extends far beyond the rockface of El Capitan — to the quieter, if no less demanding, terrain of doing the dishes, navigating laptops, New York City, and airport terminals as a busy financial analyst; running a home with his beloved Tamar; and even skiing a few laps on the slopes of Mont Tremblant with his favourite (and only) step-mother-in-law.

You can read the many articles written about Eitan linked on the film's website. But what you cannot see are the thousands of young lives he has touched by sharing his story with students and athletic teams. What you cannot observe are the systems he and Tamar have built to move through restaurants, theatres, and grocery stores with ease. What you cannot fully appreciate is the way Eitan lives with confidence and purpose not in spite of his condition, but in deep, dignified relationship with it. This blind man has more vision than most people I know — showing us how to live fully, love bravely, surrender humbly, and fight nobly.

Having screened at film festivals across the continent — save for those that refused to show it on account of Eitan's service in the Israeli army — Looking Up is now in theatres across North America and streaming on Amazon Prime. Take the time to watch it, share it with others, and "like" it on IMDB. Your vision, too, will be sharpened. Your perspective, enlarged. And more importantly — so will your heart.

With prayers for the victims of the earthquakes in Venezuela and with blessings for a Shabbat Shalom,

Dini