Meir Schneider was born blind to deaf parents because of congenital cataracts. After five unsuccessful surgeries on the lenses of his eyes, which left him with massive scar tissue, glaucoma, cataracts, cross-sightedness and nystagmus (involuntary rapid eye movement), his doctors pronounced his condition hopeless and he was certified permanently legally blind. He performed his reading and schoolwork in Braille. Inside, he never relinquished his dream of gaining sight.

 

Just months before his seventeenth birthday, Meir met a teenage boy who gave him hope that his dream of seeing could be realized. The boy taught him the Bates Method of eye exercises. Undeterred by the opposition and skepticism of family and physicians, Meir practiced these exercises with extreme diligence – up to 13 hours per day. Using the Bates Method as his foundation, he developed many more eye exercises of his own and created his own regimen of self-massage and movement.