This story goes back 15 years. My parents took my siblings and me on a trip to South Africa for vacation.

It started out fun and enjoyable, but quickly turned into a nightmare.

We were traveling through a dense forest in the hopes of finding our next destiantion. All of a sudden and out of nowhere, a group of armed men jumped out at us.

The armed militia. We heard about them in stories, but didn’t dream they were real.

They motioned us to get out of our car. We all complied and just stood there, frozen. There was nowhere to run.

Then, the guy who seemed like the ringleader whipped out his gun. We all held each other and closed our eyes.

We were sure this was the end.

But in that moment of terror, my mother, who never acknowledged Hashem in her life, whispered a tefillah. At that same moment, without explanation, this commander gave an order and his men stepped aside. He waved his hand at us as if to say “Get out of here before we rethink this,” and my father shoved us all back into the car and sped off.

We. Walked. Away. Alive!

We were so shaken that we cancelled the rest of our trip and returned back to Israel the very next morning.

That experience shook our entire family, but for me, it became the beginning of something bigger. I couldn’t let the moment just go. That brush with death led me on a journey of faith until I eventually embraced a Torah life.

Today, I am a frum father with children learning in yeshivos in Bnei Brak.

But for years, one question haunted me: Why only me?

It was five of us siblings standing in that forest. All of us witnessed the same miracle. Why was I the only one who found my way back to teshuva?

The answer came to me one day, in a conversation with my mother. “Among all my children,” she confessed, “you were the only one born after mikvah.”

Today, I understand the impact of that single mitzvah. My mother’s one-time commitment to taharas hamishpacha planted a seed that would sprout decades later, bringing not just me, but generations of my family back to Torah.

The above story was shared in a letter to Merkaz L’Taharas Hamishpacha. “When the foundation is pure,” the letter concluded, “even a small spark is enough to bring everything back to good.”

This is the power of taharas hamishpacha. And this is what’s missing in too many places across Eretz Yisroel today.

Unbelievably, tens of thousands across Eretz Yisroel today don’t keep taharah because they lack access to a kosher, dignified mikvah. Sometimes the building is crumbling and neglected, other times it’s a long, impossible drive away. And sometimes—most tragically—it simply isn’t kosher. When there’s no proper mikvah, many (especially from secular communities) don’t go, a tragic loss for Klal Yisroel.

For the last 83 years, Merkaz L’Taharas Hamishpacha (MTH) has been working to change that. Guided by the Gedolei Hador, MTH has one mission: to ensure that wherever a Jew is in Eretz Yisroel, there’s taharah. To date, over 1,153 mikvaos have been built or renovated and over one million tevillos are made possible each year. Because when a mikvah is welcoming, they come. In community after community where a mikvah is built or restored, the difference is immediate. Within days, visits double and even triple, as one visit becomes many returns and one family becomes generations of taharah.

Right now, we’re in the midst of 30 mikva projects that could be completed this year. With your support. By giving whatever you can, you’re helping us complete these mikvaos and bring thousands back to taharah for generations to https://api.jewishadgroup.com/UiAYSy there be a greater mitzvah or a greater zechus?

Over decades, we continue to witness yeshuos for those who support mikvaos in ways that defy logic. Shidduchim, children, health, nachas after years of heartache and despair. Mikvah has the power to open doors that are sealed tight.

“The biggest mitzvah that I know about today is mikvah… If a person comes to Bais Din shel Ma’alah with a card that says, ‘I built a mikvah,’ nothing can harm him.”

The sefarim write the weeks of shovavim are the time to strengthen taharah. Could you think of a greater way to strengthen taharah of Klal Yisroel than building mikvaos in places that have none? Today, you have the opportunity to lay pure foundations that bring taharah to thousands of families and the generations they will build.

This is your chance to open the door of taharah and the door of bracha.

Bring taharah to Eretz Yisroel. Bring bracha into your life.

Give taharah = $219 or gather family and friends to dedicate a mikvah as a zechus for all of you.