He sat there in a black suit, white button-down shirt, and black kippah, but immediately acknowledged this was a totally new look for him.
Despite having led a footloose and carefree life raised by secular-traditional Moroccan parents in Afula, he decided to start keeping Shabbat around Rosh Hashanah of 5784/2023.
With his parents divorced, he kept the first Shabbat of the new year by one parent, the second Shabbat by the other parent, then found out about the plans for the now-infamous nature party near the southern Gazan border.
The propaganda in favor of the party exerted a magnetic pull on Nickson.
(I later discovered that this party was promoted so intensely and widely, Israelis even flew in from Europe to attend.)
Nickson decided to transgress Shabbat for this party "just this one time," resolving to keep every Shabbat thereafter for the rest of his life.
Ironically, his mostly secular mother begged him to stay home and continue keeping Shabbat.
Why? After all, she herself did not keep Shabbat (except for some traditions).
Nickson explained that he'd gotten up to so much mischief throughout his secular life, and the two Shabbats he kept also kept him at home and out of trouble, his mother preferred he continue to keep Shabbat for his own good (and her own peace of mind).
But Nickson couldn't resist.
Like many other survivors, Nickson said the atmosphere of the party had been the most amazing of all nature parties. He never experienced anything like it before.
Then early that Shabbat/Simchat Torah morning, the rockets started flying and exploding.
Then the terrorists showed up.
At first, Nickson wasn't sure if they were real or "just a bad high."
(He's one of the only interviews I heard in which he honestly described his drugged state and the state of many others. Other survivors also alluded to their hesitation at joining so many others to drive away when so many of the drivers were drunk, stoned, high, or hungover, or coming down from a high. This was one of the many things that went wrong that day.)
Then Nickson figured that even if these frightening images were mere hallucinations from a bad high, better safe than sorry, and he fled, ending up with two others in one of the outdoor restrooms.
(If you saw a video clip of a young man in an outdoor restroom wearing white sneakers and hot pink socks, that was Nickson.)
He explained everything he did to save their lives, from keeping the door ajar so the light indicated vacancy to maintaining themselves in a position so as not to be seen or shot — and bullets sliced through the container, missing their heads by inches.
While the interviews tried to praise Nickson for his cunning, Nickson just laughed good-naturedly at them and shook his head.
"It wasn't me at all," he more or less said. "It was only Hashem. I was in no state to think or make decisions." He was in a state of intoxication. Remember, he initially wasn't even sure if the terrorists were real. "Everything I did was automatic without any kind of thinking. Hashem guided me. Hashem popped those ideas into my head and controlled my movements."
He managed not be fooled by terrorists pretending to be IDF soldiers calling out for any survivors.
After 8 hours in the restroom, real IDF soldiers finally showed up and Nickson and the other 2 Jews (also from Afula) finally extracted themselves.
Grateful to Hashem for the miraculous salvation, Nickson happily kept Shabbat and started attending a yeshivah for baalei teshuvah. His rav found him a good shidduch and Nickson got engaged to a wonderful young woman.
They married after Purim.
But we know from Chazal that a major reason why we're allowed to transgress Shabbat to save the life of a fellow Jew is to enable that Jew to keep more Shabbats.
After all, we are commanded to keep Shabbat and to "live by them (the commandments)" and we must remain alive in order to uphold that.
I don't know about the other 2 people in the compartment with Nickson, but we know that, despite the profound wrongness of transgressing Shabbat for that awful tumah-laden party, Nickson fully intended to keep every Shabbat thereafter.
And I can't help wondering if Hashem, in His Great Compassion, Abundant Forgiveness and Forbearance, and desire to reward us, allowed Nickson to live for that very reason.
A lot of brutal things happened that day.
But a lot of fine-tuned miracles also occurred.
And shemirat Shabbat, while not applicable to all the survivors, definitely showed its protective power over a great many survivors.
And maybe Nickson's kabbalah to keep Shabbat protected him in that low, dark place (both spiritually and literally).