I caught this article on INN the other day.
Israeli comedian Eli Yatzpan has decided that Torah observance is not a joke. Since the recent brutal murder of renowned kabbalistic Rabbi Elazar Abuhatzeira, Baba Elazar, grandson of the famed Baba Sali, Yitzpan says he has begun to observe the Sabbath.
Read full article: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/146519
How Mr. Yatzpan internalized a message in the Rabbi's murder, while others did not, reminded me of a story I heard during a rabbi's lecture about Rav Yechetzkel Levenstein. I found the story on shortvort.com and am posting the pertinent excerpt.
He was in a taxi in Israel and the secular taxi driver turned to him and said,
"You know, I have a very religious best friend. He wasn’t always religious, in fact we were army buddies and he was as irreligious as me. After the army as most of us did then, we went off to India to have some fun and we went camping in the jungle there. In the middle of the night we all woke up to hear muffled screams and we saw our friend with a huge boa constrictor around his neck squeezing tighter and tighter. Of course we screamed at the snake and hit it with sticks but it was just going tighter around his neck. Nothing we were doing was helping and our friend was quickly losing consciousness. With nothing else we could do one of us shouted to him "say shema yisrael" – so with his last ounce of strength our friend said shema yisrael and all of a sudden the snake unloosened his grip and crawled away. It was a miracle!! - So now our friend wears a hat with a religious wife and kids in yeshivas."
"That's a great story" the Rav exclaimed "but why are you not more religious after witnessing all this?"
"Well" said the taxi driver " the miracle didn’t happen to me!"
Read full article: http://www.shortvort.com/component/content/article/114-rotator/11516-my-miracle-in-the-skies
Many of us heard about the brutal murder of Rabbi Elazar Abuhatzeira, but how many of us heard the message?
Thanks to anonymous.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post but I am puzzled by what message Mr. Yatzpan took away from this brutal murder that inspired him to greater religious observance. What is the message you refer to?
ReplyDeleteTo Shalom,
ReplyDeleteIf you had read the INN article, you would have seen the following.
“There is a major significance to these days; people much bigger than I say that when a tzaddik (righteous man) departs this world in such a manner, it is apparent that there must have been a terrible judgment that was hanging over the People of Israel,” he adds.
The tzaddik's unusual departure should inspire us to do some soul searching.