DIVINE DELIVERANCE

PART I

Wherever we go, when people hear our name, they immediately ask, “Are you the one with the accident?” And then they ask us to tell the story.

For a long time I’ve wanted to write out the story with all the details so everyone would know the great power of the Rebbe MH”M.  As the Rebbe said, publicizing miracles is something that pertains to bringing the Geula.  But each time I wanted to do it, it got postponed for various reasons.

Finally, eight years after the accident [at the time of this writing], I feel there is no better time to publicize the miracles we experienced, considering that eight represents the supernatural which so characterizes what happened to us.  When I researched some of the details, I discovered important points that were not known to me previously.

PART II

Tuesday, 8 Nissan 5757

There was a Kinus for Kabbalas P’nei Moshiach Tzidkeinu at the Binyanei HaUmah, in honor of the Rebbe’s birthday.  In our family, when it comes to gatherings like this, we all go, even though we live in Tzfas.

The time was 12:00 midnight.  The Kinus had been a success and everyone left encouraged and confident that the Rebbe’s hisgalus is imminent.  My father, mother, and four children, as well as someone who asked for a ride, drove in the family car.  The rest of the children and I (I was 11 at the time) went on the bus of Anash.

2:30

Darkness shrouded the winding roads that lead up to the holy city of Tzfas.  Utter silence.  On the side of the road is a deep abyss.  Every so often the shadow of a side of a mountain is seen from the highway which passes through it.  It seemed as though only our swiftly driving family car was on the road.  Occasionally, the car would accelerate and surge forward, only to quickly be swallowed up in the darkness.  All the passengers dozed off and unfortunately, in the calm and quiet, the driver began to join them. 

The vehicle continued to plow forward with only the headlights shining any light.  Boom!

The car veered from the road and crashed into a huge boulder.  It turned over twice and banged up against the electric pole and finally turned back onto the wheels.  Under the backseat a huge boulder poked through the floor of the vehicle.

Shock.  Nobody made a peep.  A long silence.

Then suddenly, screaming from all sides.  Nobody had any idea what happened.  The doors of the car popped open and the children were thrown out.  Some of them had their feet caught in the front seat.

The first to extricate himself was Daniel Cohen, the guest passenger.  He shouted, “We were miraculously saved.  Hashem saved us! Boruch Hashem, we are alive!”

The children, some of them with their upper bodies sprawled on the ground while their feet were caught in the vehicle, began to shout, “Ima, Ima! My foot! My hand! My shoulder!”

Ima (my mother), whom we later found out had injured her left hand, could not move her arm.  Her head was bleeding.  She had sustained a strong blow from the force of the vehicle against the rock and she was having difficulty breathing and saying anything.

Ima, who just a few minutes before was resting peacefully with the eight month old baby on her lap, Malki-Tzedek Yizrach, suddenly screamed, “Where’s the baby? Daniel, what are you shouting about – what miracle happened?”

The baby had disappeared.

Ima tried to locate him under the seats but was unsuccessful.  The blanket under which the baby had been napping was on the side, but the baby was gone!

Menachem Mendel, who had a head injury and had broken his shoulder, emotionally recounted what happened:

“I was in the middle of a dream and I woke in a fright and did not know where we were.  All around me were blood and glass.  We had all flown out of the car and I think only Ima remained inside.  The rear of the car was raised up high and the front twisted downward.  So the car was on a slant.  My head was on the ground and my feet were in the car, caught in the door.  I was full of blood.”

Noam, the oldest, whose foot was also caught in the door, kept screaming and pleading to be freed.

Ima somehow managed to get out of the left side while unceasingly screaming for the baby.  While trying to get the children out, she noticed something on the road in the dark about five meters away.  “I don’t even know why I was looking there,” she recalls.  She went over to look and her heart skipped a beat.  “Here he is!”

Ima found the baby sprawled on the road with blood dripping from his head.  Apparently, he had flown out of the window as the car turned over.  She was afraid to pick him up.  “He was like a rag doll with his head leaning back.  He looked … G-d forbid …” The baby wasn’t breathing!

By divine providence, a few months before, in her work as a preschool teacher, she had taken a first aid course.  She explained with tears in her eyes, “My arm was injured and I couldn’t move it.  My palm was broken and I was having difficulty breathing.  A lot of blood was coming from my forehead and I could barely pick up the baby with one hand.  I felt as though I was in the middle of a war zone.”

Ima did mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on him with difficulty and the baby began to cry.  Then she realized he’d be okay, as far as she knew.

Daniel Cohen got the kids out and kept on saying, “Boruch Hashem, we were miraculously saved, we are fine.”

In the meantime, the family (those who were able) went to see how the driver, my father, was doing.  The roof of the car had split into two on his head.  Ima screamed, “Yaakov! Yaakov!” but he did not respond, only snoring sounds could be heard which we later found out was due to lack of oxygen.

“Let him sleep, he’s tired,” said Daniel in his confusion.

Two minutes later a semi-trailer came flying down the road and rode over the very spot where the eight month old baby had been lying.

“At that time, I did not make the connection and did not realize the miracle.  I only saw puddles of blood everywhere,” Ima recalls.

A few cars went by and Ima held out her hand and motioned for help.  Nobody stopped; they all drove by.

Ima relates:

“I called Leah Tzik, the wife of R’ Zimroni Tzik of Bat Yam and told her that everyone is alive.  I didn’t know how my husband was since he did not respond.”

After only a few minutes which seemed like forever, two cars stopped and they began helping out.  Ima, despite her serious injury and one shattered hand, was also involved in treating the wounded with superhuman strength.

A quarter of an hour later Meir’s car passed by.  He is a resident of Kiryat Chabad in Tzfas and he had my brother Levi Yitzchok with him.  They were both coming back from the same Kinus in Yerushalayim.  When they drove by and saw the accident, they had a strange feeling.  It seemed to Meir that he recognized the car.  He took a better look, trying to remember, and then, to his consternation, he saw a picture of the Rebbe on the front of the car, covered with blood.

Then he realized that the car belonged to the Eliass family and its condition did not bode well.  “It’s Yaakov!” he said in a fright.  “I can’t believe it … he couldn’t possibly have gotten out alive.”  Meir got out of his car and rushed to lend a hand.  He went over to where Abba was sitting and with great effort tried to lift the roof a little, which was pressing down on my father’s head.  He was not successful.

It took a long time until an ambulance finally arrived.  Just then, Ima collapsed.  “I fainted,” she recalled.  “I felt that now someone had come who would take over.”

They took them all in the ambulance to the hospital in Teveria with Meir driving behind them.  After removing shards of glass, putting in stitches and setting the many fractures, they were sent to different departments.

Levi Yitzchok relates:

“In the middle of a good sleep, Meir suddenly screamed, ‘Get up, get up, your father did a somersault!’ I woke up and thought he was kidding.  It took a minute until I was fully awake and could see where the accident took place and whose car it was.  Meir and I went to the hospital.  When we got there, the doctors asked me, ‘Are you the son of the critically wounded man?’ When I said I was, they shook their heads pityingly.

“That same night, they transferred Abba to Rambam Hospital in Haifa.  Meir took me there.  When we arrived at the emergency room, Meir asked one of the doctors how my father was doing.  ‘He still has a chance,’ said the doctor frankly.  I can’t begin to describe how I felt.”

PART III

We, the children and I who went by bus, arrived in Tzfas toward morning.  On the way home I had a premonition; something was bothering me and I did not know what.  I thought about the family members who had gone by car and hoped that all was well.  I reassured myself with the thought that emissaries to do a mitzva are not harmed, not when they go and not when they return, so there was nothing to fear.  I arrived home feeling confident.

We got ready to go to sleep and only a few minutes later the phone rang.  It was Noam, my brother.  “Abba was in an accident; say T’hillim,” he said tearfully.

My older sister, Bat-Or Chana got us all to sit down and we began saying T’hillim.  I was a young boy and I thought, accident? Probably a scratch on the car.  It can’t be serious.  I joined them for some chapters of T’hillim and then went to sleep.  I would probably see them the next day.

A bitter disappointment awaited me the next day.  The house was silent.  They had not come.  Everyone was asleep, i.e. half the family.  The other beds were empty.  I felt that something terrible had happened.

The ringing of the phone broke the frightening silence and gave me no time to think. 

“Hello, this is Mendel Komer.  I’d like to know the names of the passengers.”

I told him the names and he said, “Your father and the baby are in Rambam, right?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Okay, thanks, besuros tovos and refua shleima.”

When I heard “Rambam” I realized something was amiss.  Why wasn’t Abba with the others? And where were the others anyway? What happened? Subconsciously I remembered that Rambam Hospital meant this was no simple matter.

The phone kept ringing.  Everyone was calling and offering their help.

I went to the hospital with the worker who worked in Abba’s store.  A bachur came toward us and led us to the ICU.  The room was closed.  I visited my eight month old brother, Malki-Tzedek.  He had gotten a concussion from the force of his head hitting the cement.  There was nothing I could do there.  I went back to Abba. 

“Abba had a seven hour operation to straighten out his jaw,” my uncle told me.

When nobody was paying attention, I opened the door and walked in.  I saw him … his face was swollen, his eyes closed, his body connected to many machines.  He looked awful.  I hadn’t dreamed of his being in such a terrible state.

I went outside and burst into tears.  I cried loudly, crying out to Hashem, “Why? You must save him!” My whole body shook.

It took a long time for me to calm down, though I felt that my tears had not been in vain.  You cannot always cry in sincerity, from the depths of your heart.  But when it happens, it rents the heavens.  As I know now.

PART IV

News about the accident shook up everyone in Kiryat Chabad in Tzfas.  Although Pesach was approaching, with all that entails, many people offered help and were there at our sides.

Many people visited the hospital in Teveria and brought treats, food, whatever was needed.

“This was a demonstration of true Ahavas Yisroel. A level of unity among Chassidim in a way we hadn’t seen before.  So much help, the main thing being to keep up our spirits in this difficult time,” says Ima.

Wherever people heard about the accident, they said T’hillim.  Many of Anash made good hachlatos and many added in Torah and mitzvos.  In Kiryat Chabad in Tzfas all the children of Anash gathered to say T’hillim, and also at the gravesite of Rabbi Shimon in Miron T’hillim was recited.

“One day,” remembered Ima, “one of Abba’s good friends, a shliach, said, ‘I give all my merits to him, he should just get better.’

“Another Chassid came to our house and said to me, ‘Over time, due to my being so busy, I stopped learning the daily Rambam.  I now commit myself to learning it every day as a z’chus for Yaakov’s recovery.’”

On Thursday, although the injured still needed medical treatment, they sent everyone (but Abba and the baby) home.  Ima could only move her hands and feet with difficulty.

On Sunday, my mother and I and Levi Yitzchok went to visit Abba in Rambam Hospital.  We heard they had removed him from the ICU and his condition had stabilized.  When we arrived at his room he was no longer connected to machines, he looked at us, but could not speak.  After what I had initially seen, I felt greatly relieved, as opposed to Ima and my brother who were horrified to see him looking so battered up. 

Ima said, “Before we went into the room, they prepared me.  They said he did not look that wonderful.  We walked in and I looked at him and didn’t recognize him.  I was shocked.  R’ Moshe Bognim was standing there.  I had brought water from the Rebbe with me and I asked him to put some drops in Abba’s mouth and to smear it on his body.”

We went home and there was nothing to do but say T’hillim.  We hoped his condition would improve and there would be good news soon.

One day, it was decided that a farbrengen would be held for a refua shleima.  The idea was proposed to call it a seudas hodaa, a thanksgiving meal, which is usually made after a full recovery.  (R’ Elimelech of Lizhensk is quoted as saying that by making the seuda before the salvation you cause the miracle to occur as the verse says, “s’adeini v’eevashei’a.”)

It was decided that we would spend Pesach with relatives in Bat Yam.  Boruch Hashem, my baby brother’s condition miraculously improved and by Erev Pesach (just six days later) he was released from the hospital.

Then we heard that Abba’s condition had worsened.  It was only then that we learned the true extent of his injuries.  Three fractures in the skull and another fracture in the base of the skull.  A severe case of pneumonia had developed and they discovered that the infection involved two dangerous strains.  He had a temperature of 105.  The doctors tried to stabilize him but were unsuccessful.

R’ Yaakov Naki, a neighborhood rav in Hertzliya, told me, “When I went to visit your father, I asked the doctor for his prognosis. He said, ‘I don’t think he will leave here alive, but if he does, he will be a vegetable.’  I said to him, ‘We’ll see …’”

R’ Boruch Zotovski also asked the doctor about Abba’s condition and was told, “There’s no chance he’ll get out of here alive.”

“He will leave!” he said firmly to the doctor.  “You’ll stay here.”

PART V

Ima related, “I spoke to Rebbetzin Sima Ashkenazi, who helped us a lot, and said, ‘These children need their father.  Write to the Rebbe and ask for a bracha for us.’

“In the answer she opened to, the Rebbe wrote, ‘Ask the advice of a doctor-friend and maven.’  When she asked me for our doctor-friend, I told her I had no one.

“Rebbetzin Ashkenazi spoke to the famous Elimelech Firer who is an expert on medicine and doctors and upon consulting with him it was decided to speak to Dr. Teitelman, director of the respiratory ICU at Rambam Hospital.  The next day a meeting was held between three directors of departments to discuss Abba’s condition.  Dr. Teitelman examined the medical file and said to his colleagues that he was prepared to take the case.

“He took Abba to his department and said that the treatment he had undergone until now was extremely flawed.  He started a different treatment until he managed to identify the type of infection that was attacking Abba’s lungs.

“That day, I told Rebbetzin Ashkenazi about Dr. Teitelman’s decision to move Abba to his department.  The Rebbetzin was taken aback.  ‘In the answer, the Rebbe wrote, “changing location, changing mazal for good and blessing.” I did not understand it, but now I do.’  They also added the name Chaim to his name.”

It was Motzaei Shvii shel Pesach at two in the morning.  I was sleeping at home in Tzfas, when I suddenly felt a powerful sense of unease.  I called Ima and she was crying.  I wanted to ask her what happened but she preempted me with, “Pray Shneur, say T’hillim, I don’t know what to tell you.” And she hung up without another word.

I shuddered.  I realized that the situation was critical and I burst into bitter sobs.  I said T’hillim with tears and demanded that Hashem heal my father.  I wrote to the Rebbe and opened the Igros Kodesh where it said, “It should be a mofeis choteich (a clear-cut demonstrative proof, but can also be translated as a clear-cut miracle) according to all opinions so that even the nations of the world concede.”

Mrs. Tzik from Bat Yam also asked the Rebbe for a bracha.  In the answer that she opened to, the Rebbe wrote, “A kosher and happy Pesach in good health … a time of distress for Yaakov from which he will be saved … may the tzara be transformed to tzohar.”  She encouraged my mother, “With Hashem’s help, you will see miracles and wonders.”

Ima told about that horrible night from her perspective:

“On Motzaei Shvii shel Pesach one of the doctors called me and said in a quiet tone that really cut deep, ‘I am sorry to tell you this but you and your children should come and see him; his hours are numbered.’

“It was horrific.  We all sobbed and said T’hillim.  We kept writing to the Rebbe and opening to answers which said all would be well, there was nothing to worry about.

“After such amazing answers from the Rebbe, we tried to be calm.”

PART VI

From that difficult point on, everything changed from one extreme to another.  Abba’s health had reached a nadir and then things began to turn.

“It all happened quickly,” said Ima.  “After a few days at his bedside, he opened his eyes.  He said, ‘What am I doing here? Where is Abba? (referring to his father who had died twelve years before).’  Those were his first words.  After a pause he said, ‘We were in the middle of taking a trip.  Where did everybody disappear to? Where are Dovid, Meir and Savta?’”

Due to his head injury, and his being unconscious, Abba had no recollection of what had happened.  But one thing he didn’t forget: “We were in the middle of a trip.  We stopped for a short rest and then Abba z”l and all the uncles who are no longer alive said to me, ‘Come, let’s go on.’  When I woke up, I had no idea where they had all gone.  It seems I made a ‘detour’ up above,” he concluded in jolly spirits.

When I heard the positive developments, every prayer became that much more meaningful and real.  Every Modim was full of tremendous thanks.  I had gotten my father back.

Ima adds this amazing story:

“Erev Shvii shel Pesach, the night before the crisis, my father-in-law came to me in a dream and said, ‘1000 wafers and another 1000 wafers and everything will be fine!’ I had no idea what this meant until a friend said it referred to children’s rallies.  We made some children’s rallies until we had given out the first 1000 wafers.  After that, my husband was released from Rambam Hospital and was sent for rehab to Beit Levinstein.  We continued with the rallies and gave out another 1000 wafers and he was then released from Levinstein.  And although when he left the hospital we were told he would need at least one full year of rehab at Levinstein, he came home in the middle of S’firas HaOmer!”

PART VII

“At Poriya Hospital I had plenty of time to think,” said Ima.  “I began to discern all the miracles Hashem had showered us with.  I remembered that before we left Yerushalayim, someone asked me for the Chitas which was always in our car, but since we did not have another Chitas, we denied his request.  I had no idea that our car did not have a Chitas at all, since one of the children who went on the bus had taken it from our car.

“It was only later that we had the time to think through all the many miracles that we had experienced: A big truck passed by where the baby had been sprawled two minutes earlier, and how was it that I had seen the baby? Noam yelled that his foot was stuck which seemed bad at first, but it’s what got me to try and go to him and that’s when I noticed the baby.  Till today, I don’t understand how I saw the baby when he was at a distance and it was pitch black!

“The miracles began from the first moment, when the car turned over twice and ended up back on its wheels.  What would have happened if it had remained upside-down? Everyone would have been stuck and unable to get out, not to mention the possibility of a fire in the gas tank which happens often.”

Abba also pointed out that it was divine providence that he drove while wearing a hat.  The doctor said the hat is what saved him when the roof of the car pressed on his head.

Abba said that at the time, for some reason, we had no medical insurance.  Two days before the accident he arranged for insurance, so that the medical expenses which amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars were covered.

Previously, we lived in Kiryat Bobov in Bat Yam where they also said T’hillim.  When Abba went there after his accident, one of the people there, who was so moved to see him, said that now he believes in T’chiyas HaMeisim (resurrection of the dead).

On Shabbos, 12 Tammuz, a huge seudas hodaa took place in Tzfas which was attended by everybody in Kiryat Chabad.  With hearts full of joy and thanks to Hashem, the story with all the miracles and chassadim was recounted.

In conclusion, Ima says, “Everything in the world teaches us a lesson in avodas Hashem.  This story illustrates how the supernatural prevails over nature.  Emuna, as it is in its source, is implanted in a person’s heart and must remain above the limits of intellect and govern the feelings of the heart.  The superficiality which is always present does not express the truth as it is; it conceals the dimension of truth from us.

“We do not always understand G-d’s actions.  They often arouse complaints from us humans.  The situation sometimes looks hopeless, but Chazal say, ‘Even if a sharp sword lies on a person’s neck, he should not give up hope of mercy.’ Only after a crisis has passed do you understand or at least try to understand the magnitude of the miracle.

“Those hours, days and weeks that we went through, have not left us.  They are embedded deeply in our souls.  The past is an inseparable part of the present and the future.  Wherever I turn, without my digging into the past, it will be with me and provide me with a nonstop reminder of the power of the omnipotent G-d, which is not conditional and before which all limitations are as nothing.  And its revelation in this world is through true faith which comes from deep in the heart, even if sometimes it calls forth from us tears and suffering.  However, in the end, it is worth it.

“Nevertheless, may we never experience such things again!”