A Sad Week
After a week like the one we have just endured, it is hard to know where to start this column. Perhaps I should begin with the major miracle that took place last Friday. Had our enemies succeeded in their plan, chas v’sholom, they might have massacred dozens of Jews, or maybe even hundreds, on the buses and trains in central Israel. Their scheme was thwarted by a miracle, which I will discuss in greater detail below.
Then again, perhaps the top story this week should be the burial of Ariel and Kfir Bibas. We all hoped for them to come home alive and well, although everyone certainly harbored the dreadful suspicion that they were no longer alive. Indeed, not only were they dead, but the pathological findings showed that they were murdered in cold blood. The forensic findings were relayed to America and reached Trump and his staff; who expressed horror at the tragic end of this story.
Then there was another unfathomable aspect of the story: The body that was returned together with Ariel and Kfir, purportedly the remains of their mother, was discovered to belong to an anonymous woman, seemingly a Palestinian. The Arab terrorists quickly surrendered the body of Shiri Bibas and took back the anonymous remains that had been substituted for her. This, too, was a source of great collective pain to the people of Israel on Friday.
The next major development was the return of six hostages on Shabbos—four who had been abducted on October 7, as well as Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, two men who have been held in Gaza for ten years. The country wept with joy when the four hostages were reunited with their families, and they wept even more upon seeing the other two captives return. Both men’s fathers related that their sons had been completely destroyed by the experience. Ten years in Hamas captivity had made them empty, hollow shells. It is an awful, horrific fate, and there is no telling if even the best rehabilitation in the world will be able to restore them.
Meanwhile, in another display of their unfathomable cruelty, Hamas released a video showing two other hostages, Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Evyatar David, who were abducted together and have been held in captivity together since October 7. The two men have been friends since the age of two. Hamas brought them both to watch the ceremony marking the release of the six hostages who returned to Israel that day, a ceremony that was cruel and depraved in its own right. The two men sat in a car and watched the proceedings, while the terrorists filmed them begging Netanyahu to have them freed as well, before they were brought back to their dungeons in Gaza. There is no doubt that their emotional pleas were dictated to them by their captors. The video was an appalling example of psychological warfare.
A National Day of Mourning for Kfir and Ariel Bibas
Thursday essentially became a national day of mourning in Israel. It was not officially declared as such, but that made no difference; the country shut down in any event, as everyone mourned the deaths of the two young children. The Knesset deliberations came to a halt, and events were canceled all around the country. No one had the strength or willpower to do anything other than mourn as the bodies of Kfir Bibas, who was nine months old at the time of his abduction; his brother Ariel, who was four; and their mother Shiri, who was abducted along with them, were returned to Israel. When the authorities announced that the body of the woman that had been brought back to Israel was not Shiri Bibas, the nationwide outrage pierced the heavens. On Friday evening, Shiri’s remains were returned. The shock and horror reached even greater heights when the staff of the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute reported their findings. I won’t go into the details, but I will say only that the pathologists in the institute, who have seen many horrific things in the course of their work, attested that they had never witnessed such evil.
The IDF spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, spoke publicly about the circumstances of the Bibas children’s deaths. He clarified that they were not killed by IDF airstrikes, contrary to Hamas’s claims, and described the horrifying findings: “Ariel and Kfir were brutally murdered in cold blood by the terrorists during the first weeks of the war. These conclusions are based on forensic findings collected during the process of identification. We have transferred the findings to our partners throughout the world so that everyone will know how Hamas behaves,” he added.
The body of Oded Lifschitz was returned along with the two boys, and Hagari apologized to the three victims. “Oded, Ariel, and Kfir,” he said, “we did not do our duty to protect you on October 7. You were taken to Gaza alive, and you returned for burial after you were brutally murdered in Hamas captivity. This is a repugnant crime that can never be accepted. The world needs to cry out. They were brutally murdered and were returned in a cynical ‘ceremony’ that is an affront to the dignity of the deceased.”
The IDF spokesman added, “Yarden Bibas, the father of the family, left his home on October 7 to defend his family and was abducted to Gaza. Yarden looked me in the eye yesterday and asked for the entire world to know about the way his children were murdered so that they, too, will be appalled. The murder of children is a violation of every moral, ethical, and religious value, even in Islam. The murderers have committed a despicable crime, behaving like ISIS with their helpless victims. Yarden, the entire nation shares your pain and joins you in waiting for Shiri to return. We owe it to you and to all the hostages’ families to do everything possible to bring Shiri and the other hostages home as quickly as possible.”
Netanyahu also expressed his outrage. “We will see to it that Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and wicked breach of the agreement,” he said. “The holy memories of Oded Lifschitz and Ariel and Kfir Bibas will remain in our nation’s hearts forever. May Hashem avenge their blood, and we will avenge it as well.”
President Trump spoke out strongly against Hamas as well.
Major Catastrophe Miraculously Averted
The events of this past Thursday night in Israel can be described only as an enormous miracle. The terrorists planed a massive attack for Friday morning, at a time when thousands of students would be making their way to school. B’chasdei Hashem, the incident ended without a single casualty. When two buses blew up at 9:00 p.m. in a parking lot in Bat Yam, we were alerted to the terrorists’ plot: Explosives had been set to detonate on five or six buses at 9:00 in the morning, while three suicide terrorists intended to carry out massive simultaneous bombings on trains. The multi-pronged mega-attack was thwarted when two of the timers were accidentally set by the terrorists for 9:00 in the evening rather than the morning, and two parked buses miraculously blew up in Bat Yam just a few minutes apart. Shortly thereafter, another bus exploded as well. Another explosive device was located on a bus and neutralized before it could detonate. All in all, four bombs were discovered on Thursday on buses in Cholon and Bat Yam, and despite the fact that three of the bombs exploded, there were no casualties. Security officials estimated that each bomb contained about five kilograms of explosive material. Following the explosions, the prime minister held a situation assessment together with the leading officials in the defense establishment and ordered them to ramp up counterterror operations in Yehuda and Shomron. Defense Minister Yisroel Katz visited the refugee camp of Tulkarm on Sunday morning and declared that Israel will not give in to barbaric terror.
The bus explosions were investigated promptly. Some claimed that the incident pointed to a failure on the part of the Shin Bet, whose apparent lack of alertness could have led to a tragedy on an unprecedented scale. Investigators from the Shin Bet and the police force arrested a resident of central Israel on the suspicion that he drove one of the members of the terror cell that had plotted the major attack. The suspect is an Israeli Jew and a resident of the Gush Dan region. He was taken into custody around 4:00 in the morning and appears to have provided additional critical information to the police. One of the terrorists was also caught on security footage placing a bag on a bus and then disembarking; in all likelihood, this provided more information as well. The IDF and Shin Bet are continuing the manhunt for the terrorists who planted the explosives in Bat Yam and Cholon.
A Rebuke to the Skeptics
The massive bombings that were miraculously thwarted were the talk of the day in Israel. It was impossible to deny that Hashem had intervened to save the country from a major disaster; there was no way to interpret the premature explosions as a matter of chance. Education Minister Yoav Kisch (an irreligious member of the Likud party and is a pilot in the reserves) wrote, “We were saved with Divine help from dreadful terror attacks. We witnessed a horrific failure on the part of the Shin Bet, following its major failure on October 7. The director of the Shin Bet must derive personal conclusions and resign.” Putting aside his personal attack on the head of the Shin Bet, this reaction is noteworthy because of his mention of the unmistakable siyata d’shmaya that thwarted the bombings. This reaction from a secular government minister cannot be taken for granted. And this was just one of many responses that acknowledged the overt Heavenly intervention.
In my mind, this incident should serve as a rebuttal to those who scoffed at the religious community’s claims of a miracle that saved the people of Netivot on October 7. When it was reported at the time that the terrorists were frightened off by the images of saintly rabbonim that appeared to them, one of which matched the description of the Baba Sali, those claims were met with skepticism. I recently quoted the reactions of several professors and anthropologists who dismissed the claims of Divine intervention and argued that there was a psychological basis for the tendency to search for miracles in ordinary events. What these academics failed to understand is that no one was searching for miracles or inventing them where they did not exist, and the stories of miracles were not fabricated to satisfy some deep-seated psychological need. On the contrary, miracles are real. These so-called scholars mocked the religious world at the time that a miracle saved the southern town of Netivot, which was protected by the tzaddikim who had made it their home. But the latest miracles, which cannot be written off or denied even by the most intransigent skeptics, should be evidence enough that supernatural events do occur.
This week, the IDF released an investigative report titled, “Nukhba Terrorists Who Entered Israel Planned to Reach Netivot.” Remember, this was released by the IDF—not a famous mashpia such as Rav Elimelech Biderman. This specific report relates to the Nova festival in particular and is one of a number of investigative reports concerning the events of October 7. According to the report, the festival was attacked by a convoy of about 120 heavily armed terrorists who arrived in vans and on motorcycles; however, the festival wasn’t their original target. The IDF claims that the terrorists were headed toward the town of Netivot, but they became “confused” and stumbled upon the festival instead. This was a massive miracle, since the terrorists’ real objective was a town where they could have massacred thousands of people. In the army’s eyes, the terrorists simply lost their way; from a Jewish perspective, however, it was a miracle.
The Rosh Yeshiva’s Tears
One cannot help but be moved by the emunah displayed by returning hostages and their family members. Omer Shem-Tov, who returned to Israel last Shabbos, has already managed to share some of the details of his experiences in captivity. Among other things, he described the terrible distress that he experienced when his friend Itai Regev was released after spending 54 days in captivity with him. He also described his prolonged confinement in solitude in Hamas tunnels. We were moved by his description of his efforts to keep Shabbos in Gaza. On Sunday night, the families of the released hostages held a press conference, and Eliya Cohen’s mother publicly gave thanks to Hashem for answering her tefillos. The family members all spoke about davening, emunah, and gratitude to Hashem, and the people of Israel watched and learned from their examples.
Yelena Troupanov, the mother of Sasha (Alexander) Troupanov, stirred our emotions again this week when she related that the Hamas terrorists forced her son to choose an alias with which they would address him when he was transferred from one hiding place to another. He chose the Arab name Youssuf, and his mother explained the reason. “At first, they gave him a name that he couldn’t pronounce. Then they told him to choose a name that he would be able to repeat, and Sasha chose the name of Yosef, the son of Rochel Imeinu.
“I visited Kever Rochel on the yahrtzeit of Rochel Imeinu, which coincided with Sasha’s secular birthday, and I davened to see my son,” Yelena continued. “The next day, I received a video of him. I felt a connection to Rochel because she raised only one son; she passed away when her second son was born, and she never had a chance to raise him. The son she knew was named Yosef. And when Sasha returned, he told me that he chose the name Yosef when he was forced to pick an alias. This gave me the chills.”
Yelena Troupanov also related that while her son was in captivity, she, her daughter, and her mother decided to observe Shabbos and to commit to certain other mitzvos as a zechus for his liberation. She related that Sasha’s abduction had made him the fourth generation in her family to suffer imprisonment; Yelena herself, her mother, and her grandmother had been imprisoned in Russia at various times. She added, “Sasha went through extremely difficult experiences that I cannot repeat, but he told me one thing that I can share. He had always been accustomed to having control over his life. Like most people, he had his plans and his activities, and it seemed as if everything was up to him. But then he was abducted, and suddenly his life was no longer in his control. In fact, even his captors weren’t in control; it was entirely up to Hashem. He came to that realization while he was there. He had a few experiences when he was very close to being killed, and Hashem protected him.”
Galia David, the mother of Evyatar David, who is still being held, described her visit to the home of Rav Boruch Dov Povarsky. “Like many others in our nation, our family includes all types of Jews,” she said. “I have a brother who is chareidi, and I have relatives who are religious Zionists. Our home was always a place of open discourse, a place where everyone was welcome. We were invited to Rav Povarsky’s home last weekend, and I was very excited; I had never been at the home of a rov of such great stature. We were one of four families there, and we watched as he burst into tears upon hearing the name of each hostage. The visit gave us tremendous encouragement; it was deeply moving. And then, after that visit, the gates of Shomayim opened and we received a sign of life from my son.”
Agam Berger Speaks
The story of Eli Sharabi, who returned from captivity three weeks ago, is yet another element of the mosaic of stories that must be told. His brother Sharon related, “The merits of the rabbonim protected Eli; there wasn’t a single rov who did not add tefillos and Tehillim for his benefit. The encouragement that we received from rabbonim bolstered my faith and protected him as well.” He added, “Eli and his fellow captives preserved their Jewish identities under extremely harsh conditions. He said Shema Yisroel every day, and they recited Kiddush every Friday night and recited Eishes Chayil. That is what kept them going.”
One of Eli’s friends made sure to wear Eli’s tefillin every day throughout his captivity in Gaza, as a source of zechuyos for him, in response to a suggestion from the women of the organization Ayeles Hashachar. (One of those women is the mother of another hostage currently held in Gaza, Shuvu graduate Bar Kuperstein.) He wore the tefillin every day, never missing a day, even though his observance of the mitzvah had been sporadic in earlier times. At the family’s request, Eli’s friend has continued wearing tefillin even after his return from captivity. This is a testament to the Jewish people’s ability to turn even the most painful tragedy into an impetus to grow closer to Hashem.
Let me add another word on that subject: Many of us spent a long time decrying the discord in our nation and calling for unity and harmony. As religious Jews, we have all been taught the value of unity; we know that when Klal Yisroel is united, no other nation can defeat us. Of course, the inverse is also true: When we are not united … well, may Hashem protect us. Many of us also sensed viscerally that the protests on Rechov Kaplan in Tel Aviv were weakening us and giving strength to our enemies. We felt that the fierce anti-government demonstrations were not helping the hostages at all; in fact, they were only causing harm. For a long time, however, although we knew this instinctively, we had no way of proving it.
This week, Agam Berger spoke up. Berger, of course, is the IDF lookout who was released from captivity a couple of weeks ago and whose proclamation of emunah took the world by storm. She was the hostage who found a siddur in Gaza and whose mother became a baalas teshuvah. This week, she called on the Israeli public to remain united and cohesive, preserving their strength as the Jewish people. Referencing her experiences in captivity, she attested, “When the terrorists saw the divisions among us, they were pleased. They said that when we are united, we are strong.” She also called on the people of Israel to undertake kabbolos as a zechus for the hostages who are still in captivity. “I am certain that it will bring them back sooner,” she said.
There are many things to learn from this young lady, but her call for unity is perhaps the most critical of all. I remembered Agam Berger’s words this Shabbos, when I recited the birkas hachodesh: “He Who performed miracles for our forefathers and redeemed them from slavery to freedom—may He redeem us soon and gather all of our exiles from the four corners of the earth. All of Israel is bound together in friendship, and let us say Amein.” I was often perplexed by the sequence of ideas in this tefillah: What does the ingathering of the exiles have to do with the fact that all Jews are bound together in friendship? Perhaps Agam Berger has given us a possible answer: In order for our brethren to return to Eretz Yisroel from the faraway lands of exile, we must live in harmony, with bonds of friendship uniting us.
Murdered Hostage Oded Lifschitz Was a Peace Activist
I would also like to add a few words about Oded Lifschitz, the fourth murdered hostage whose body was returned by Hamas last week. I have met his son and his grandson, who visited us in the Knesset. “Saba Oded,” as they called him, was a peace activist and one of the founders of Kibbutz Nir Oz. A champion of the cause of compromise with the Palestinians, he was ardently opposed to conquest and occupation. His wife, who was abducted along with him but released shortly thereafter, said that the Arabs had betrayed him. The Lifschitz family released a statement after the return of his body: “With heavy hearts, we received the official notification that our beloved Oded’s body has been identified. This brings 503 days of agonizing uncertainty to an end. We had hoped and prayed so much that the end would be different. Now we can mourn a husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather who has been absent from our lives since October 7. Our rehabilitation as a family will begin now, and it will not end until the final hostage is returned.”
This is an especially tragic story considering Lifschitz’s quest for peace. At 85 years old, Oded had ten grandchildren and one great-granddaughter. He was abducted from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz along with his wife, Yocheved, who was freed in November 2023. Yocheved related that Oded tried to close the door of their safe room on the morning of Hamas’s assault, but the terrorists shot him in the hand. She was taken to Gaza by the terrorists on a motorbike while Oded lay in the entrance to their home, bleeding and losing consciousness. She later found out that the terrorists dressed her husband in a jalabiya and that he was held for twenty days together with Chana Katzir, another resident of the kibbutz who was abducted and later released.
As a peace activist, Oded used to drive Palestinian cancer patients from Gaza to Israeli hospitals for medical treatments. His son Yizhar said, “My father ended his life in a tragic and degrading way. It was unworthy and disgraceful. And the same happened to many others from the community of Nir Oz. His house was torched and his wife was abducted and beaten, and he certainly witnessed it. It is terrible.” Yizhar Lifschitz added that many families are haunted by similar ordeals. “There are other hostages who have been through a lifetime of horrors there. The void in our lives will never be filled.”
I have dedicated quite a lot of space this week to the hostages, and I could easily write much more about it, but there are other subjects that need to be addressed. Before I change topics, however, let me make two more comments on this subject.
First, due to Hamas’s recent behavior, the prime minister gave an order on motzoei Shabbos for the bus carrying 600 Palestinian prisoners slated for release to turn around, and the prisoners were brought back to Ofer Prison. Netanyahu doesn’t yet know what he would do with them, but he decided that a punitive measure was in order. There is much uncertainty as to whether Netanyahu will actually move on to the second phase of the hostage deal, since the first phase is due to end this coming Shabbos. This is a source of great tension not only for the families of the hostages who are still in Gaza but for the rest of the country as well.
Netanyahu explained his decision in a public announcement: “In light of Hamas’s repeated violations of the deal, including the degrading ceremonies that demean our hostages and the cynical use of hostages for propaganda purposes, we decided to halt the release of the terrorists that was planned for yesterday until we are guaranteed that the next hostages will be released without these ceremonies.”
Hamas responded with a furious message of their own: “We strongly condemn Israel’s decision to delay the release of Palestinian prisoners. This shows once again that Israel is shirking its commitments to the deal. Israel’s claims of a ‘degrading hostage handover ceremony’ are false. Netanyahu’s decision reveals an attempt to delay the deal and is a gross violation on his part. We call on the intermediaries and the international community to exert pressure on Israel to implement the agreement and to release the prisoners without delay.”
President Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff expressed support for Netanyahu: “I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu is fully motivated to see the hostages freed, but he also has a red line: Hamas cannot govern Gaza when this war ends. It is hard to square that circle. Ron [Dermer] and I have been busy trying to bring more people home.” Witkoff repeated the Trump administration’s position that Hamas cannot be allowed to govern Gaza after the war. “I will tell you that as of this point in time, Hamas can never be part of the government of the Gaza Strip in the future. As for the debate over whether Hamas can survive at all, I will leave that to the prime minister.” Witkoff also mentioned Eden Alexander, an American citizen still being held captive by Hamas. “He is very important to us,” he said. “The president places great importance on Americans who are in captivity. I believe that we will get him back.”
Just to sum up the current situation, six hostages were returned on Shabbos: Tal Shoham, Omer Shem-Tov, Omer Wenkert, Eliyah Cohen, Avera Mengistu, and Hisham al-Sayed. Eliyah Cohen said after his release, “I felt every one of your tefillos in my heart, and it gave me strength.” On motzoei Shabbos, Eliyah’s grandfather recited Havdolah in the hospital together with three of the released hostages; it was an extremely moving sight. But with all the euphoria over the hostages’ return, let us not forget that the first phase of the deal is scheduled to end this week with the return of four bodies on Shabbos. Out of the 33 hostages included in the first phase of the deal, it appears that only three are still alive in captivity: Ehud Yahalomi, Tzachi Idan, and Itzik Elgarat. It is already known that Shlomo Mantzur was murdered. There is great fear not only that the second phase might not take place, but that the remaining three living hostages and Mantzur’s body will not actually be returned this Shabbos. And then there are 63 other hostages still in Gaza, and no one knows for certain which of them is still alive. There is only one thing to do now: We must daven!
Revelation: Hamas Almost Called Off the Massacre
Ronen Bergman, an investigative journalist in Israel, exposed a piece of information this week that was included in the IDF’s findings in one of its investigations. Bergman has repeatedly been revealing the army’s failures during the period leading up to the massacre. (Incidentally, Bergman also writes for a newspaper in New York.) This week, he wrote that at 5:00 in the morning on October 7, “Brother Haj-Ali,” the code name used for arch terrorist Mohammed Deif in Hamas’s internal communications, considered putting the brakes on the terror attack before it could begin. Deif gave an order for the feverish preparations, which were already in their final hour, to be halted and for the assault to be suspended until further notice.
According to sources within Hamas in Gaza who spoke with senior Hamas officials in the days after the assault—officials who, in turn, shared information with a high-ranking source in one of the countries involved in the hostage talks—Deif asked his subordinates to find out what was taking place on the Israeli side of the border. In his paranoia and obsession with secrecy, he feared that the complete lack of activity in Israel was a sign that the IDF and Shin Bet were preparing an ambush for him. This revelation is one of the most dramatic insights that have been exposed into the massive failure leading up to October 7. Deif was well aware of the capabilities of Israeli intelligence; he understood the depths of Israel’s infiltration of Hamas. With the help of Iranian intelligence, Hamas had carefully inspected all the Israeli equipment left behind in Gaza after Operation Guardian of the Walls and succeeded in drawing critical conclusions as to Israel’s capabilities.
Armed with this information, Deif understood that to maintain the element of surprise, he needed to follow a policy of complete compartmentalization. The details of the preparations for the attack were to be shared with as few individuals as possible. He and Yahya Sinwar therefore established a limited war council, which planned the details of the “great project,” the code name that they gave to the planned assault on the vicinity of Gaza. The war council’s meetings were conducted in absolute secrecy, although the protocols of ten meetings were discovered on a computer found in a tunnel from which Sinwar managed to flee mere hours before the IDF forces arrived. IDF investigators discovered that in a document from June 12, 2022, Deif had laid down a precise schedule for the massacre, with the goal of maintaining absolute secrecy.
Netanyahu: Budget First, Draft Law Second
The attempt to pass a draft law is still a burning issue within the coalition. Netanyahu announced to the chareidi parties at the beginning of the week that the coalition must pass the state budget before legislating the draft law; he claimed that it is impossible to advance the law at this time. This is in spite of his past promise that he would promote the draft law before the budget. The year 2025 began without a budget, and the government has been operating based on the previous year’s budget, despite the major modifications necessitated by the war. If a new budget isn’t approved by March 31, the government will automatically dissolve and the country will go to elections.
Some of the chareidi party leaders were irate over the government’s failure to pass the draft law. “What is there for me to do here? Why are we in the government?” fumed Housing Minister Yitzchok Goldknopf, chairman of United Torah Judaism, who insisted that he could not guarantee his support for the budget if Netanyahu did not make good on his promise. Uri Maklev, the deputy minister of transportation, announced that he would present the developing draft bill to the party’s rabbinic authorities, but he would tell them that the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee has made no progress in its deliberations over the bill.
This week, the committee is scheduled to meet four times to discuss the principles for the law laid down by Defense Minister Yisroel Katz. Yuli Edelstein, the chairman of the committee, is opposed to any bill that will grant a broad exemption for bnei yeshivos and insists that the bill must meet the demands of the IDF brass, who claim that the army needs an immediate infusion of 10,000 soldiers and that they will be capable of drafting an unlimited number of chareidim beginning in July 2026. The government’s legal department believes that Katz’s principles for the law will not be accepted by the Supreme Court. The coalition projects that the chareidi parties will ultimately accept Netanyahu’s demand to delay the draft law until after the budget has passed, and that the main question is how Goldknopf, representative of the Gerrer chassidus, will react to the situation.
Rav Ovadiah’s Response to Itzik’s Father
Reb Avrohom Mimran, the father of Itzik, typically needs no introduction, although his heroic work on behalf of children with autism is perhaps less well-known than his other endeavors, thanks to his innate modesty. Mimran, as the father of an autustic child, has never hidden his son or sought to hide himself; instead, he founded Mesugalim, an organization whose purpose is to assist such children and their families. Only someone who has lived through such a situation can understand the impact of a child with special needs on the other children in a family, and sometimes on a broader circle of relatives as well.
This week, Mimran earned widespread admiration after he was interviewed by Yisroel Meir of Hidabroot. He revealed that the Israeli establishment barely even scratches the surface of affected families’ struggles, and that the average social worker lacks any understanding of the scope of the challenges facing the parents and siblings of such children. Mimran advised anyone dealing with the autistic population to try hosting such a child in their home—a child such as his own son, Itzik—to get a better idea of the impact of such a child on his family.
My attention was captured by one segment of the interview in particular. Mimran was sharing his recollections of his close connection with Rav Ovadiah Yosef, which spanned the course of many years. “It was during the period when Itzik was very challenging,” he recalled. “It was like having a fighter jet in our house. One day, I went to the rov and said to him, ‘Rebbi, I can’t do this anymore.’ I think that I even began to cry. Rav Ovadiah placed his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Hashem has a vault, like in the bank, where He preserves the neshamos of the Tannaim, Amoraim, and other tzaddikim who never tasted sin but still need a tiny amount of polishing in this world. Hashem places these souls in bodies where they will not commit aveiros, where they will not speak loshon hora or harbor forbidden thoughts, and where they will be completely pure! And there is a long line of parents before Him, like in the bank—parents who are waiting to receive children. One couple after another comes before Him, but He knows that He cannot give the neshomah to them because it will shatter them. Finally, a couple shows up and Hashem declares that these are the parents who will receive a special soul! If you give up,’ Rav Ovadiah said, ‘then you are essentially telling Hashem that He has made a mistake. But Hashem does not make mistakes. He knew that you would feel this way, and this is exactly the way you should feel. It is completely fine.’”
