Nissan Asher, whose daughter-in-law and granddaughters returned from captivity in Gaza last month, now puts on tefillin every day, Channel 14 News reported.
Nissan told Channel 14 that during his family’s efforts to free his daughter-in-law and grandchildren, he met many leading officials in Israel and Europe. At one point, he encountered the Chabad tefillin stand of Rav Yaakov Mazuz and decided to put on tefillin. He turned to Rav Mazuz and asked him to give him a bracha for his daughter-in-law and granddaughters.
Rav Mazuz was shocked by his request and asked to hear his story. From then on, Nissan would often come to the stand to put on tefillin.
Eventually, he said, he realized that “the way of the Creator is very important in life and I connected to it. I also wanted to note the Chabad shlichim who flew my son, daughter, and my mother to New York to the Rebbe’s kever. This moved us very much.”
“I admit that I’m not a religious man but this connection to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, to Chabad, to putting on tefillin – did good for me.”
Nissan’s son Yoni cried out Shema Yisrael at the European Parliament in Brussels during his fight for the release of his wife and children from Gaza.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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4 Responses
“I admit that I’m not a religious man but this connection to Hakadosh Baruch Hu . . . ”
Not even one single Jew is religious!
IF being religious means keeping ALL the mitzvos, then nobody is religious.
All nations have characteristics; physical and spiritual. The latter express themselves in midos (e.g. chesed and din).
Being JEWISH – a Yehudi – means having the ability to connect to HKB”H; to CREATE pathways for bringing His berachos to this world and for creating for us the ability to be the klei kibul of His goodness in the World to Come.
EACH and EVERY mitzvah we perform has this latter ability (see RaMBa”M, Peirush HaMishnayos, last mishnah in Makos).
HaRav Noach Weinberg z”l often related that Judaism is NOT an “all or nothing” religion.
Judaism is the “ism” of admitting. We admit, for we all inherently know, that have this ability to connect and create. Every admission strengthens, deepens and widens those connections.
This wonderful Jew discovered, and admits to, this ability. He most definitely IS religious.
What a kiddush Hashem!
מצוה לפרסם עושי מצוה, ממנו יראו וכן יעשו
Gemara tells us that Hashem didn’t make Chizkiyahu Moshiach because he didn’t thank Hashem for His miracles.
Hopefully, through this holy Jew publicly showing his gratitude to Hashem and adding in fulfilling His mitzvos – may we merit the Geula shleima with the coming of Moshiach!!!
Menachem, Chizkiyahu DID thank Hashem for His miracle. He even composed a shira for it. The problem was that he didn’t do so for the right miracle. Hashem did two miracles at that time; one for him personally and one for Klal Yisrael, and his shira was about his personal miracle. Had he said shira instead for the general miracle, the Beis Hamikdash would never have been destroyed, the ten tribes would have returned, and so he would have turned out to have been Moshiach (nothing else was missing at that time; there was no need for Moshiach to do anything else).
Milhouse, thanks for the correction.
What’s the source for this pshat?
(Doesn’t seem to be simple pshat in Gemara/Rashi Sanhedrin, “חזקי’ שעשית לו כל הנסים הללו – שניצל מסנחריב ונתרפא מחליו – ולא אמר שירה לפניך”).