It started as a gadget for a low-vision relative. Now the elderly can finally read again

Photos: Avi Gass

Yisroel Wahl was a successful chinuch advisor and business coach when a relative with low-vision could no longer read. And so, Yisroel took a deep dive into the world of high tech and startups in order to help, developing an idea much more complicated than he’d naively imagined. He could have shut the lights, but instead he saw it through — and brought many out of the dark

Lots of people have great ideas for how to make life easier, but most of those brainstorms never see the light of day. That’s why Yisroel Wahl’s breakthrough creation for those with declining eyesight stands out: A flicker of inspiration for a loved one became a focused pursuit, and his innovation is already brightening the everyday for countless others trapped in their own dim corner.

You might be familiar with Yisroel Wahl — a Lakewood business coach, behavioral health specialist, and chinuch advisor — from his popular podcasts and interviews about such motivational topics as overcoming anxiety, dealing with paralyzing overwhelm, becoming more decisive, relating to oversensitive children, and many other educational and business tools.

Yisroel might have continued exclusively on that trajectory if not for some serious optical challenges faced by a close relative who’d practically been born with a sefer in his hand, but who had now found himself struggling to read.

Yisroel is the kind of guy who seems to be in perpetual motion, a real doer and macher who’s not afraid to solutionize when a challenge falls into his lap.

The simple but heartfelt desire to help someone he loved return to his cherished seforim would soon send Yisroel on an uncharted journey, taking the seed of an idea and transforming it into a full-fledged startup company now producing life-changing devices for the visually impaired.

“Sight is life,” Yisroel says. “The Gemara compares a blind person to a dead person, because for so many people, sight is crucial for their ability to work, daven, and participate in society.”

While Yisroel’s new device, called OrahVision, cannot restore sight, it restores the ability to read for people suffering from macular degeneration, glaucoma, and many other forms of visual impairment.

Perhaps what stands out most about the system is how easy it is to use, even for elderly and tech-challenged users. The device functions like a digital portable shtender: You simply place any sefer or book down, and with the click of a button, the pages are reproduced perfectly for those struggling to see. The device sits in the desk, and the pages appear on-screen in sharp, high-contrast clarity. Users can zoom in, flip pages, and read comfortably without straining their eyes.

“For people who have been struggling with vision issues and haven’t been able to learn in a long time, this is so simple,” Yisroel says. “The program automatically fixes the curvature of the page on the spine, and with just a touch, expands or shifts the text from side to side, allowing you to move in and out, move between pages, and have a full shtender-like experience, as if you’re holding the sefer.” And just like a regular desk shtender, the angle of the incline can be adjusted.

“This is essentially what we wanted to accomplish when we set out,” Yisroel says, “and this alone solves most reading struggles. But then we even took it further, adding other capabilities. Users can now speak to the machine, and through AI, can have the page explained or read to them as well.”

For the new, happy users, it makes the difference between being limited and being able to pay bills, opening a sefer and reading it with ease, or simply enjoying a magazine or novel. For Yisroel, it became a journey into the world of technology, AI, and creating a brand-new startup.

When Yisroel began looking into ways to help his relative read again, his first move was to reach out to Nachum Lehman of CSB Care, an organization that provides services for the visually impaired, including very sophisticated systems for ALS patients and others that catch eye movements and even talk in the voice of the patient. Lehman was able to suggest what was available at the time — some low-vision devices that were basically magnifiers — but that required the user to turn dials to zoom in and move the paper back and forth.

“My grandmother had something like that,” Yisroel says. “But by the time she managed to decipher a piece of mail she was worn out. I thought, ‘Is this really where we’re still holding in 2025? Why isn’t there a better way to capture an image and manipulate it by touch?’ I naively thought it would be an easy task, but I soon learned that the tech innovation required to do this was exhaustive. Besides, there was very little motivation for companies to produce something new, since the old devices were mostly paid for by grants.”