Rebbetzen Tziporah

Dear friends,

It has been far far too long since I wrote to you. I miss you (or at least some of you…) and it is good to connect to those of you who I know like to hear more about what is happening here in EY, and also about what’s happening in the Parshah, which inevitably is connected to the times.  

ERETZ YISRAEL

It feels like the best of times and the worst of times. The daily tragedies are real. Instead of becoming deadened to the pain, each one adds to the already heavy burden of grief that is with us since Simchas Torah. 

Just yesterday I read about the death of a soldier who had been wounded a while back and recovered. He demanded to be allowed to return to Aza, where he was killed. He was an only son. 

There is a yeshiva in which 9 bachurim were killed. And more. The young widow whose husband was killed while she was pregnant. She shows her little girl her father’s picture so that she knows that he once was there. 

It is also a time when a soldier who needed a kidney transplant put out a call for volunteers to be tested and received 3,400 responses. There is also clip after clip of people who never heard the words of the Gemara that tells us what is needed to be “ready” for Moshiach. “We have no one to rely on except our Father in heaven”. These words come from lips that you would never have imagined being capable of mouthing anything remotely resembling bringing Hashem into the picture. 

There are people in the political establishment who have no way of valuing what Torah learning is about and the result is a new round of trying to draft yeshiva bachurim. The result is an affirmation of what torah means to us from those of us who are in a life situation in which torah is life itself. Both sides of the border separating us from us are tense. 

The best of the best is not only the outpouring of chessed, but the miracles that happen with such amazing frequency. I went with a group of women on a bus trip to the tomb of Baba Sali, the famous Moroccan Kabbalist who became something of a folk hero in his time by doing miracle healings and more. From there we went to Chevron, to the tombs of Ruth and Yishai, and from there to the tomb of the patriarchs and matriarchs. Each place told a story.

Near the tomb of Baba Sali in Netivot, is a small village called Ofakim. It was a target on Oct 7, and we were able to hear a first hand account of the miracles from a woman, Racheli Cohen-Arazi who was there on the day we can never forget. Ofakim (which is about the size of 2 Har Nof’s) has three major neighborhoods. One is the charedi one, the second is the traditional mostly Moroccan one, and the third is an area in which the government provides housing for retired army and families at very reasonable rates. 

The sirens began at 6:30. No one really knew how to respond, or what was actually happening. The Cohen Arazi family went to shul, and the sirens became more and more frequent. Other than closing the doors of the shul and singing songs of bitachon, no one had any sort of a plan or idea of what they were facing. They went home, and when they heard the unmistakable sound of machine gun fire in the street, they finally realized that the sirens weren’t for possible bombs in a nearby area. They were about terrorists rampaging in the streets. They took shelter. 

By 2:30 the army arrived, and in the course of the day they found out the nature of the miracle that they experienced. The soldiers searched to pockets of one of the terrorists. They found a map with the two shuls circled in red. The terrorists was found on the parallel street. He didn’t find the shul. No one in the shul was killed.

Another miracle happened in the traditional neighborhood. A woman named Rachel discovered (5!)Terrorists had broken into her home. Her Sephardi hospitality saved her. She offered the “boys” cold water, told them that they have to save their strength for the long negotiations that will have to take place when they win. She encouraged them to rest on her couch, and eat the food that she kept on cooking (at one point they even helped make cookies…). She somehow let her sister find out what was going on in her house. Her sister got the army involved. They entered the house by drilling a window (I actually saw the cut out “window” – it was large – about 3 feet by 4 feet) and the soldiers climbed in and killed all five terrorists.

Another miracle. In the soldier/policeman area there was a man who had come over Simchas Torah to visit his father who lived there. When he heard shots, he turned to his father, and said “You must still have your army ammo in the closet. He did. The young man went out with his father’s armaments and saved 51 people.

Were there people killed in Ofakim? Yes. For reasons known only to the Creator, some were miraculously saved, while others were killed by terrorists just because they are Jews. 

Even more miraculous is the fact that Tifrach was left alone….

You may not believe what I am writing now. This letter was written in bits and pieces over the course of the day. My husband just came in and told me that 220 rockets were fired in the north just now, including a hit in a shopping center in Akko. No one was killed. Not one person. 

My original intent in writing the letter was to write just a bit about what is happening here, and devote the rest to the parshah. When I started telling you the miracles stories, the letter became far longer than it should be, so I will sign off now. 

Love,

Tziporah

PS:  As I was about to press “send” my wonderful ozeret, Karmela, mentioned that the rockets missed a day camp….

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PLEASE DAVEN:  I’m adding this herewith, because this soldier lives in Ofakim:

The head of the Shomron Regional Council, Yossi Dagan, issued the request in the name of the family for their son, Sgt. Roi Sasson.

The doctors are fighting for his life and he needs much Rachamei Shamayim.

Dagan wrote: “On October 7th, Sgt. Roi Sasson, a talmid of the hesder yeshivah in Itamar, was at his home in Ofakim. When the shooting began on the streets, he immediately grabbed his gun and battled with terrorists for hours, saving lives, and rescuing dozens! of people under fire. Immediately afterward, he joined his unit, and has been fighting in Gaza since then.”

“This week, he was seriously injured by shrapnel and his life is in danger. At the request of his mother and the Rosh Yeshivah of Itamar, I am asking those in the Shomron and all of Am Yisrael to put aside several moments, give tzedaka and daven for the refuah of the hero Roi Chaim ben Meirav [רועי חיים בן מירב] b’toch shal’ar cholei Yisrael. He fought for us -now he needs us!”