AN ESPECIALLY JOYOUS PURIM

Tuesday, 12 Adar II 5752 (March 17, 1992), Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Rabbi Isser Kirshberg, a Lubavitcher Chassid, was sitting in his office in the Israeli embassy on the second floor. He was busy with his work in the press department. He was peacefully going through various documents strewn about on his table. He had no inkling of the drama that was about to play out.

A deafening explosion interrupted his concentration. R’ Isser got up in a fright. He instinctively ran to the photocopying machine. No, it wasn’t the machine that had exploded, nor the air conditioning unit over his head. The choking smoke and smell that filled the room left no room for doubt. A terrorist attack had taken place!

Later on, they learned that a vehicle laden with explosives was blown up next to the embassy by an Iranian terrorist. It was a powerful blast that shook the entire area. The iron gate of the embassy building exploded into smithereens and remnants of the vehicle were found some time later on the roofs of high buildings far from the scene of the attack.

R’ Isser, who was alone at the time, recovered somewhat and tried to open the door to his office. All he wanted to do was flee. Somehow, he managed to get out of the room and locate the staircase that led to the outside of the building. Like him, many of his colleagues in the building tried to get themselves out and run for safety. The scene was terrible with hundreds of dead and wounded all about. (29 civilians were killed in the attack and 242 additional civilians were injured.)

Along with rescue forces that came quickly, he began to help extricate the wounded that lay under the collapsed building.

R’ Isser felt himself all over. Amazingly, he had not even a scratch! One of the walls of his office had collapsed but it did so when R’ Isser was no longer there.

A few days after the terrifying attack, R’ Isser returned to the scene to assess the damages. He went to his office to see whether anything remained.

Upon entering the room, he immediately noticed the steady gaze and smile of the Rebbe from a picture that had hung on the wall. The explosion had not affected it.

He also noticed two other things that remained whole, a Chitas and a pushka. These items, that the Rebbe said to have, serve to protect their owners and had demonstrated who was in charge here. Other than these items, nothing else remained!

R’ Isser immediately realized who had protected and saved him while many others had been killed or injured. The Rebbe’s picture. The Chitas. The pushka.

That wasn’t all. His mind went back to a month before the attack. Something unusual had taken place. An innocent line. At the time, he hadn’t understood its significance. Now, it was all clear. There was a prophet in Israel.

Shevat 5752.

R’ Isser boarded the plane that took him from Argentina to the United States. He was going to visit his son, Rabbi Yosef Kirshberg, who lived in Crown Heights. R’ Kirshberg was a teacher in Oholei Torah and he hadn’t seen him in a long time.

On Sunday, when the Rebbe gave out dollars for tzedaka, R’ Isser stood on line. Many people were on line ahead of him and many were behind him.

After a few hours of waiting, in which he recited Tehillim and prepared to see the Rebbe, he faced the Rebbe. The Rebbe handed him three dollars for tzedaka and said that one of them was “for length of days.” R’ Isser was very surprised. He was young and healthy; why did the Rebbe bless him with long life? He wondered but knew that time would tell why the Rebbe had chosen this blessing.

Now, as he stood in the shambles of his former office, he understood the blessing quite well. The Rebbe’s blessing preceded the attack and had saved him. He glanced from the picture of the Rebbe to the pushka and Chitas. He picked them up, dumbstruck by the open prophecy of the Rebbe.

R’ Isser hurried to send the Rebbe a long letter in which he told of the attack and what happened to him. He thanked the Rebbe and asked him to pray for the well-being of his injured colleagues.

He took the picture of the Rebbe, Chitas and pushka home and later on, to the new embassy building that they moved to. Whenever he looks at them, he remembers the miracle that occurred to him.

You can imagine how R’ Isser celebrated Purim that took place two days later. The Purim seuda was also a thanksgiving meal in which he publicized to all about the prophet in our generation who brought about his personal miracle long before he knew he would need a blessing.■