Rav Avraham Meshulam, the Gabbai of the Rashbi shul in southern Tel Aviv, where a great neis occurred on Sunday evening when a suicide bomber’s powerful bomb prematurely exploded ten meters away from it, spoke to the media on Monday about the magnitude of the neis.
“The explosion was louder than I’ve ever heard before,” he said. “The whole shul shook like in a powerful earthquake. The electricity went out in part of the building and the glass of the windows shattered on people. Miraculously there were no people on the street at the time except for one passerby who was injured and we daven for his speedy recovery.”
“They saw on the security cameras that the terrorist had already approached the entrance of the shul, checked out the area and saw that there was a shul there full of people. Afterward, you see him going back ten meters and sitting on a bench and fiddling with the buttons inside his knapsack. Hakadosh Baruch Hu caused him to make a mistake and apparently he accidentally pressed the wrong button, activating the device at that moment and not several minutes afterward. It truly was a neis. The building next to the shul, a hardware store, was destroyed – the wall completely exploded. The glass that shattered on us was really marginal, nothing. None of us were hurt, not even a little. We believe that Hakadosh Baruch Hu protects us and saved us.”
Rav Meshulam told B’Chadrei Chareidim that the shul has a Yeshivas Bein Hazemanim every day, the largest one in the city, and the shul is especially crowded at night with mispallelim and lomdei Torah – exactly the time that the device exploded.
“Just last week, the Sephardi Rav of Bnei Brak, HaGaon HaRav Masoud Ben-Shimon, came to the opening ceremony for Yeshivas Bein HaZemanim, and said: ‘Know one thing – this Yeshivas Bein HaZemanim protects all of Tel Aviv.’
“At that time, people didn’t attribute much importance to his words and thought it was simply a statement of chizzuk. But Baruch Hashem, everyone understands the koach of Torah – that’s what protects Am Yisrael. It could have ended in a mass-casualty incident – the explosion was extremely powerful.”
“My father built this shul 75 years ago in the name of Rav Shimon Bar Yochai. The shteibelach have been here for 75 years and are full of tefillos, shiurei Torah all the time.”
See the shul in the videos below. The first video shows the limmud Torah continuing even after the attack – without lights or air conditioning.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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7 Responses
Well gosh if we knew it was all just this one shul in Bnei Brak then we didn’t have to take on all our kabbalos and given all our tzedakah and done all our learning, it was all taken care of already.
Or……………
To NaNach: What an absolutely idiotic and heretical comment to make. Shame on you.
BTW, the Shul in question is located in Tel Aviv, not Bnei Brak.
Those who believe they can explain the ways of God must not remember the passuk, ki lo machshevosai machshevosaichem.
DrYidd would be standing in the middle of krias yam suf blocking his ears, squeezing his eyes shut and shouting random mismatched pesukim at klal Yisroel. I doubt he’s a doctor, but he should aspire to be “a A Tel Aviv municipality worker” who told Ynet: “There was a Mincha and Maariv tefillah here in a building that holds 120 people. The explosion occurred in the middle of Maariv while there were at least 80 people in the shul on the first floor alone. If he would have entered the shul…a great neis happened here.”
Dryidd,
Oh so the beis hamikdash wasn’t destroyed because of שנאת חינם
The חכמים told us that
I guess they don’t know what they’re talking about
Rav’s words sound very profound and they might be true. This was discussed in the coffeeroom already – if we believe that limud Torah is a shmirah, this is _not_ a time for tiulim.
On the other hand, maybe this is a mistake like saying that mezuzas are for protection. They might be, but that is not why we are putting them (according to most, I think).
In this case, even if Yidden in the shul were protected by their learning, surely those who were on vacation were also protected with no need for a nes.
It’s too bad this Shul wasn’t in Eastern Europe from 1940-1945. Their zechusim could’ve protected & saved millions.