A siren sounded and her Kibbutz Be'eri app announced the incoming terrorist invasion, urging everyone to get to their mamad (a specially-reinforced room meant to act as an in-home bomb shelter).
Perach grabbed her blanket and rushed barefoot to the mamad.
In earlier days, Perach expressed her desire for a special lock on the mamad door, preventing it from being opened from the outside.
Perach's daughter, who had married and become a fully religious Lubavitcher, provided her mother with the special lock, which Perach now utilized.
This daughter also provided her mother with a Chabad "kit" containing a photo of the last Rebbe and the traditional Lubavitcher book containing Chumash, Tehillim, and Tanya (which helps Lubavitcher chassidim maintain their daily study of those 3 books).
At that point, messages kept popping up on Perach's phone:
Shooting here.
Terrorists in this home.
Hurry to my mom's home — they're killing her.
Perach describes those initial moments: "I'm alone in the mamad in panic and under pressure, and thinking they're going to kill me."
The Power of Saying "Thank You" to Hashem
"I sat on the bed, took a deep breath, and I started to say a mantra to myself, which I repeated for forty-eight hours to myself — "Thank You, Holy One Blessed Be He. Thank You, Hashem. Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Creator of the World and Your angels. Thank you to the Rebbe of Lubavitch and to his chassidim all over the world who daven for me. Thank You very much."
Just then, she remembered the Lubavitcher "kit" — she kept it in this very mamad.
In the utter darkness, she felt her way through the room until the found the kit.
Holding it against her, she spoke to the Rebbe, "You are protecting me — don't move from me."
Note 1: With its rubber seals on the door and glass window, plus the iron window cover fully closed, a mamad room is DARK. Unless a sliver of light comes in between the iron cover and the iron frame, a closed mamad gets so dark, you cannot even see the outline of anything in that room.
Note 2: While Judaism permits prayers to God only, speaking to those now living in the Next World is allowed, as well as calling on their merit. When Jews say, "Such-and-such tzaddik is protecting me," it's a shortcut way of meaning the merit of the tzaddik is protecting them. As a religious Jew, this style of speaking is obvious to me. But for those less familiar, it's important to explain that Perach was not praying to the Rebbe nor was she relying on his protection rather than Hashem's. Instead, she meant the merit of a great tzaddik.
Perach also managed to find a package of petit-barre cookies (square vanilla cookies).
After making a call to her adult son who lived outside the kibbutz, he returned her call, informing her he was on his way with members of the elite Duvdevan (Cherry) unit of the paratroopers — with a tank.
They were coming to rescue her.
But they never made it.
Still On Her Own — With Hashem
For 40 of these 48 hours, terrorists battled to break in to Perach's mamad.
They tried smashing the window, but no success.
They repeatedly threw explosives at her mamad door, causing the entire room to shake — but could not break in.
As they battled against her mamad, Perach said, "Thank You I'm protected, Borei Olam. Thank You so much."
At one point, the noises stopped.
Unbeknownst to Perach, the IDF finally arrived and cleared out the terrorist, securing the kibbutz.
During the ordeal, her son, the elite unit, and the tank could not manage to make their way to her home.
And the soldiers who secured the kibbutz either were not told or did not remember about Perach.
Perach could no longer hold out, hungry and thirsty in the dark, airless mamad.
Somehow, she jumped out the window and still has no idea how.
All was quiet.
On the ground, she spied a bottle of mineral water — it felt like a gift from Hashem.
Barefoot, Perach headed in the direction of the kibbutz gate, she came across an electric mobility scooter, which also held another bottle of water.
Settling into the scooter, Perach drove all the way to the gate, where Israeli soldiers spotted her and helped her.
Lessons Learned
Even her mamad lock cannot explain her miraculous survival because other horror stories recall how terrorists breached locked mamads in devious ways.
The army completely failed her, both in their inability to save her in the midst of the attack and their negligence in extracting her once the attack ended.
(This is not a criticism of the soldiers themselves, who did everything they could to save whoever they could and also extract the survivors, but of the elites within the IDF and the reliance on IDF military prowess. And also an acknowledgment of Hashem's Mastery over all.)
From the beginning of the horrific attack until the serendipitous discovery of the scooter and its bottle of water, we see the clear Hand of Hashem in every moment of Perach's torturous 48 hours.
It's also worth noting how, despite Perach's lack of observance, her decision to turn to Hashem in praise and gratitude created a conduit for inexplicable salvation and protection.
Many stories are coming out of how miraculous survival came after a monumental step in the right direction.
We don't need to be perfect.
We just need to make a sincere effort in the right direction.
“Open up for Me an opening like the eye of a needle and in turn,
I will enlarge it to be an opening through which wagons can enter.”
Midrash Rabbah Shir HaShirim 5:2