www.hidabroot.org/article/1194598
As he neatly loops the straps, he tells of how he worked at collecting pitas for the past 5 years since his army discharge (making him around 26-years-old now). Instead of allowing the disposal of all the extra pitas not sold in stores and bakeries, Yair instead passed them on to Yeshayahu, a charedi father of 12 children from Bnei Brak, who came to Yair to collect all the pitas and distribute them to yeshivahs.
These were good pitas, baked that day, and Yeshayahu would come even on fast days to collect the pitas for distribution.
Because young men tend to eat a lot and because nearly all yeshivahs are strapped for cash and very much wish to feed their students well, this daily supply of pitas helped a lot all around.
And Yeshayahu received no salary for his services — completely volunteer, complete chessed.
Two weeks before the Great Horror from Gaza, Yeshayahu called Yair for the first time — at 5 in the morning.
(Until then, they always met face to face, when Yeshayahu showed up to collect the pitas.)
"What are you doing, calling me at this hour?" said Yair. "I haven't even started my day yet."
"I dreamed about you last night," replied Yeshayahu.
"What did you dream?"
"I dreamed that 'they' were chasing after you with machine guns and the only thing protecting you was those pitas you give away," said Yeshayahu.
Yair went on to say, "Two weeks later, I see the terrorists with my own eyes three times. And every person who came with me was murdered."
What happened?
Yair arrived with 5 others at the infamous Nova party at 5:30 in the morning of Shabbat-Simchat Torah — exactly 1 hour before thousands of terrorists and rockets would bombard them.
They were a group of 6 — he mentions Mia Schem as one of them — and Yair was the only one to return alive without being taking hostage. The rest were murdered and Mia (a very special young lady in her own right, who later said she could feel the prayers of Am Yisrael on her behalf & received signs from God in captivity) was later freed after suffering terribly as a hostage.
(Mia's mother also performed the mitzvah of hafrashat challah for Mia's safe return while Mia was in captivity.)
"I can show you the videos on my cell phone, how they were shooting at us in the car," he continued. "You wouldn't believe how much of a miracle I experienced there."
Yair concluded by saying, "A neis, a miracle, my brother. That's gemilut chasadim — the performance of loving-kindness."
Hashem Shows How He Believes in Us & Our Ability to Improve
(Please also note how Yair's life-saving pitas went toward a form of supporting Torah, as Rav Schwartz emphasized in the above-linked Pirur Process.)
Mia Schem's own emuna during her own nightmare, plus the mitzvot and prayers of her family and all of Am Yisrael certainly worked toward her release.
(Mitzvot and prayers on behalf of other hostages have not yet secured their safe release. No, I do not understand why, but keep doing my part to make it happen. After all, we finally just received closure regarding the fate of Elyakim Shlomo Liebman due to all the prayers and mitzvot on his behalf.)
It all strongly reminds me of the quote from Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook featured on Shirat Devorah's blog:
"Before the world of truth can come,
the world of lies must disappear."
Also, as apparently with Nickson as described here, it very much seems like once again, Hashem saved a Jew on Shabbat so he could keep further Shabbats.
Again, I'm not saying this is always how things pan out. Needless to say, a person fully shomer Torah & mitzvot can and has also been taken out of This World early for other reasons.
Hashem has His cheshbonot, to which we are generally not privy.
It's my own extrapolation for these particular events based on the laws of pikuach nefesh, which state that we save a Jewish life on Shabbat to enable a Jew to keep further Shabbats and "live by them" as commanded in the Torah.
In the short clip described at the beginning of this post, Yair doesn't discuss Shabbat, only the miracle he experienced and the dream foretelling this miraculous salvation.
But seeing him standing in shul wearing a kippah and tzitzit, having clearly just davened Shacharit in a minyan while wearing tefillin, I'm assuming he has become shomer Shabbat too.
But his main point is this: Yeshayahu, the baal chessed from Bnei Brak, dreamed of Yair's rescue from men with machine guns solely in the merit of Yair being the catalyst for putting bread in the mouths of Jews learning Torah:
"...the only thing protecting you was those pitas..."
It sounds so insignificant — even silly.
Pitas?
A bunch of pitas are the key to salvation from gruesome death and torturous capture for a young Jew as he commits the grave sin of chilul Shabbos and chilul Simchas Torah?
Apparently so!
Amid all the carnage, we need to see Hashem's Great Rachamim — Hashem showed how much He's willing to give us the benefit of the doubt, to give us yet another chance.
God is literally the Eternal Optimist Who believes in us not only when we don't believe in ourselves, but even when we totally forget ourselves.
There are many, many stories like the above.
We need to seek them out and also understand what Hashem wants us to know:
Every little good deed we do matters.
Even amid all our sins, the good deeds stand out like diamonds.
And that should encourage us to create even more diamonds.
- how-a-commitment-to-shabbat-during-the-rave-party-saved-one-jew-from-terror-slaughter-during-the-horrific-invasion-from-gaza.html
- another-true-account-of-shabbat-saving-a-life-plus-a-message-from-the-next-world.html
- stories-of-how-any-mitzvah-or-even-just-the-mental-commitment-to-a-mitzvah-saved-lives.html
- dedication-to-the-spirit-of-shabbat-saves-yet-another-family.html
- update-on-rachel-friekers-unbelievable-story-with-new-shocking-details.html
- the-shocking-truth-about-what-really-earned-a-great-torah-influencer-entry-into-gan-eden.html
Posts related to why even a seemingly tiny good deed provides such a powerful impact:
- if-someone-is-eating-a-treif-salami-should-he-make-a-bracha.html
- the-creator-of-the-world-loves-that-process-why-the-process-of-sincere-teshuvah-works-wonders-why-the-seemingly-small-steps-contain-so-much-power.html
- encouraging-message-iniative-about-baby-steps-toward-the-geula.html
- feeling-battle-weary-overwhelmed-heres-why-that-means-you-are-so-amazing.html
- how-the-baby-steps-in-this-world-create-your-future-world-of-beautiful-pulsating-light.html
- mishleiproverbs-1723-amazing-encouragement-for-awful-people.html
- why-this-generation-is-so-astounding.html