I spoke recently about my “Miracle Week.” That is the week leading up to the 18th of Teves. Sixty years ago on 18 Teves, I was at the spiritual bottom. That was my personal mem-tes shaare tumah. At that desperate moment, a thought entered my mind which rescued me from Gehenom. It was a simple thought, but it saved my life and the life of my future family. It turned our lives around 180 degrees!
The simple thought was: maybe there is a G-d!
My friends, that simple thought is the beginning of everything. Perhaps Avraham Avinu had a similar thought in Ur Kasdim, and his thought revolutionized the entire world! This thought is the heritage of every Yid.
Recently, I said to an Israeli friend, “You know, you can talk to Hashem at any time, whenever you feel the need.” Amazingly, this had never occurred to him! He told me a few weeks later that he has started speaking to Hashem!
When seemingly bad things happen to us and we think we are plunging into the abyss, this can be a blessing from Hashem, because in order to live, we have to feel within ourselves at the deepest level that, “I cannot live without Hashem.”
This is what happened in Mitzraim.
“The Children of Israel groaned because of the work and they cried out. Their outcry … went up to G-d. G-d heard their moaning and G-d remembered His covenant with Avraham … Yitzchak and … Yaakov. G-d saw the children of Israel and G-d knew.” (Shemos 2:23ff)
What did G-d “know?”
Obviously, Hashem knows everything. He didn’t need help knowing our condition. But it would seem that Hashem was waiting to hear something in particular. He wanted to hear our moaning and our longing for Him. He wanted us to cry out to Him.
I want to quote a powerful passage from an amazing book, “I’m Not Alone” (Artscroll/Shaar Press 2025). “A test demands more from you than you think you have. It forces a person to draw from inner reservoirs of strength, strength he may never have even known he possessed until that moment…. When we pass formidable tests … we rise above our own powers and do the unthinkable [as if we are performing miracles, and when we do that] Hashem creates miracles on our behalf as well.”
At the end of Shabbos, during Shalosh Seudos, we sing “Yedid Nefesh.” As darkness approaches and the Shabbos Queen prepares to take her leave, our hearts erupt in an emotional outcry. “Beloved of the soul … may Your mercy be aroused. Please take pity on the son of Your beloved, because it is so very long that I have yearned intensely to see the splendor of Your strength. Only this my heart desired, so please take pity and do not conceal Yourself…. Hasten! Show love, for the time has come, and show us grace as in days of old.”
It is precisely the agony of golus which arouses in us the passionate desire to be reunited with our Father in Heaven. As I said last week, our ability to be united with Hashem is fulfilled only in direct correlation with our desire to be united with our fellow Jews. Hashem made a covenant with the entire Nation of Israel, not with individuals.
Remember that I told you several weeks ago about the miracles which occurred in our life during the week preceding the 18th of Teves? I told you about the catastrophic car crash from which my wife and I emerged without a scratch. And there were countless other miracles which occurred over the years during this amazing week, the week of our redemption sixty years ago.
We had a miracle this year also, several in fact, but I will tell you about one of them. My wife and I were walking in Yerushalayim. It was the 12th of Teves. Having been brought up in Manhattan, I am used to jaywalking – intelligent, “safe” jaywalking! -- but still jaywalking. That was the culture I come from. In Yerushalayim, however, most people wait for the light, and my wife is very insistent on this. So we were crossing a street, in the crosswalk with a green light. As we crossed, a driver – I will not describe him, but I could see him clearly through the windshield – rounded a corner at very high speed and was heading directly for us. He was not stopping! I yelled and waved my arm. At the last second he screeched to a halt. He stopped about five inches away from us. It was a huge miracle, and we are still shaking. It could have been the end, G-d forbid, but for some reason he stopped short, a millisecond before hitting us.
Ha malach ha goail! Hashem sends angels to protect us.
But we have to cry out to Hashem and tell Him that we know we cannot survive without Him. “With my voice I call out to Hashem and He answers me from His holy mountain! …. Rise up, Hashem, save me!” (Tehillim 3)
We are living in the contemporary equivalent of Mitzraim. Our enemies surround us on every side and they all want to kill us! We have to learn from these Parshios. If we don’t cry out to Hashem from the depth of our souls we are not going to make it! When the world turns against us and we realize that there is no place of safety and we cry out to Hashem, that is the moment that Hashem will “know” that we really want Him. He will rescue us and the Sun of Redemption will shine for us.
“In the evening one lies down weeping, but with dawn: a cry of joy!” (Tehillim 30)
May we merit to see the Great Sunrise soon in our days!
GLOSSARY
Gehenom: hell
Golus: Exile
Mem-tes shaare tumah: the 49th level of impurity, the bottom, depth of spiritual crisis
Mitzraim: Ancient Egypt
Parshios: Torah portions
Shalosh Seudos: the third Shabbos meal
Teves: the current month in the Jewish calendar
Ur Kasdim: the place where our Father Abraham was born
