THE ANGEL WHO SAVES US
“Chazak Chazak v’nischazaik!”
OY! Do we need chizzuk now! Now we are “going it alone!” Our fathers are gone, Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov! Our shevatim are gone and we are descending into the terrible Golus!
My friends, this is today! “Maase avos siman l’banim!” Just as our forefathers descended into Golus, so are we, deep within it! And we don’t even realize! It feels so natural! Aren’t we supposed to be in New York and London and … Sydney?
OY! No! This is an aberration. This is not where we are supposed to be. Things will not be normal until we are all gathered together in Eretz Hakodesh as one mishpacha, each man under his own vine and fig tree!
How will we survive until then? This week we hear from Yaakov Avinu those powerful words, “Ha malach ha goail ….” If it were not for the malachim which Hashem sends to protect us, we could not make it. We have been through every torture. Millions have been torn away from us. The fact that any of us remain is a miraculous occurrence because Hashem sends Heavenly protectors to guard us.
I was once criticized by a famous person because I said that I thought maybe I had seen an angel. Let me take you back sixty years, almost to the day. It was January 10, 1966, which, in the Jewish calendar, is 18 Teves. That was the turning point, the day on which I first admitted to myself that maybe there is a G-d in the world! On that day – together with my wife – my life was saved and we came back from the edge of the precipice. I found out on that day that – if one does not know Hashem – then it’s not just that one’s life is on a lower level, but one is dead. Life without Hashem is not life, not in this world and not in the Next World.
Sixty years ago, in the middle of the night, I glimpsed a holy light. I was liberated from my personal Auschwitz. I happened to look in a mirror and saw something which I cannot identify. I know that I may have been hallucinating, and I don’t know what it was, but I saw something. Or maybe I didn’t.
We all have to live in reality, but I say malachim are all around. On Friday night, when we sing “Shalom Aleichem,” I try to believe that I am speaking to the malachim. During Shemoneh Esreh, when we stand with our feet together, I try to attain the status of a malach, who serves Hashem with undivided heart. When I say at night, “B’Shaim Hashem … may Michoel be at my right and Gavriel be at my left ….” I try to believe that I am surrounded and protected on all sides.
In the year 2008, on Motzae Shabbos, my wife and I were returning from a simcha. It was close to midnight. My wife was sleeping in the passenger seat and we were in the middle lane on the Major Deegan Expressway, near Yankee Stadium, going south. Suddenly, a car passed on my left at a speed I estimate to be around 100 miles per hour. He then lost control, swerved across three lanes, hit the embankment and spun around. I slammed on the brake as he careened toward me at highway speed. My wife awoke to see a car hurtling towards us head on. When I braked suddenly, the car behind me slammed into our rear and we were pinned between the two cars with a tremendous crash! The next thing we knew, we were standing on the side of the highway next to our pulverized car, surrounded by dozens of police cars, fire engines and ambulances.
We did not h/ave a scratch. Neither of us. Nothing!
All the police could say was, “How come you guys are alive? Nobody ever gets out of this kind of thing alive. I don’t get it. How come you’re not dead?” This took place on the 14th of Teves.
Since 1966, we have seen miracles year after year in the week of the 18th of Teves.
We all live by miracles. They are mostly not as spectacular as that car crash, but they are all as significant. They happen every minute. Why, in fact, do we end what is probably the most-said bracha with the words, “rofe kol basar umafli la’asos…?” What is “mafli la’asos?” It means that Hashem is making miracles for us every minute we walk this earth. “V’atem had’vaikim … But you who cling to Hashem your G-d … You are all alive today.” (Dvarim 4:4)
When we look out at the world today and see the ferocious mouths on every side baring their fangs to eat us up, as the world of our “friends” comes crashing down on every side and we realize more and more that there is only One Place to turn, these ageless words of our Father Yaakov pierce through the ages and enter our hearts: “Ha malach ha goail!” The angel Hashem sends to save us will carry us onward against all odds. May he soon bring us to the Day on the which the Great Light will once again illuminate the world, visible to all. “Praise Hashem, all nations!
Praise Him all the States! For His kindness has overwhelmed us and the truth of Hashem is eternal!” (Tehillim 117)
Farewell, Beloved Father Yaakov, farewell until Techias Hamaisim, may we see it soon in our days! “Chazak, chazak, v’nis’chazaik!”
Car Crash
GLOSSARY
Bracha: a blessing
Chazak … chazak: “Give us strength!” Recited as we complete a book of the Torah.
Chizzuk: Strength, encouragement
Golus: Exile
Malach: an angel
Motzai Shabbos: Saturday night after Shabbos ends
Shevatim: the Tribes of Israel, and the original fathers of each tribe
Techias ha Maisim: resurrection of the dead
Teves: the current Jewish month
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