Mattisyahu, I appreciate your response. It is unfortunate that we keep debating the veacity of stories rather than learn a point.
Personally, when I hear a story such as this, I don’t get wowed by the “supernatural” aspect of it. If there was no lesson, in my opnion, the story would be pointless. The danger of repeating these types of stories is that some people base their entire belief on these stories (subconsiously, of course). That’s why i prefer stories that involve tikkun hamidos and such (see the story on shviras hamidos on a new blog)
I remember years ago, the story went around that remains of what appeared to be Noach’s ark were discovered in the area where Noach was aupposed to have landed….I remember some people were saying, “wow, that proves that the story of Noach was true…” A wise person taught me at the time that having that perspective is a mistake. We do not believe things based on stories. Because if we did, if the story were ever discounted, there would go our beliefs. We can repeat and enjoy such stories for interests sake, always keeping an open mind. Sure enough, that report about “Noah’s ark” was found to be fraudelent two years later.
In this particular story, the message I took out is that Hashem runs the world, and every “accident”, however unfortuante is by His design. It also teaches me the greatness of our Chachamim and Gedolim. Here is a leader who practically doesn’t step out of the daled amos of Torah, yet, he has far-reaching vision.
For those who don’t like the “it’s okay he died, he was an amaleiki” idea, just bear in mind that he killed the man by accident. It was only after the fact that he learned that he was from Amalek. He realized Hashem used him, though unwittingly, to carry out this mission. He was just a pawn. In this case, he had the gift of understanding as well, thanks to the letter of R’ Kanievski.