Written by Rabbi Daniel Yaakov Travis
As a Rosh Kollel I have the opportunity to meet many people. Sometimes they have stories of hasgacha to tell, and I am always interested to have a new glimpse on how Hash-m is running the world. The following stories were told to me in Borough Park by Yaakov F., a Holocaust survivor.
A Fallen Wall
In 1944 on the third of Sivan the Nazis ym"s took Yaakov from Hungary to Auschwitz, together with his whole family. When they arrived, the Nazi's called out that all metal workers like blacksmiths and jewelers should step out. Yaakov's brother pushed Yaakov, who was a watchmaker, out of the line.
On Issru Chag Shavuos, the eighth of Sivan, the Nazi's transported Yaakov to the train station. Together with five hundred other people they were taken to a concentration camp at Funfteichen, where the Nazi's ran a large manufacturing plant, which produced ammunition to help run the Nazi machine. Each day they were rationed only two slices of bread to eat, and after an exhausting day of slave labor sometimes Yaakov was so hungry and tired he felt he was about to die.
Yaakov heard what had happened to the other Jews of his town and the rest of Klal Yisrael. On leil Shabbos the 26th of Sivan his emotions erupted and he cried all night about what was happening to the Jewish people. The next morning, the Nazis summoned him to the daily six-kilometer walk to the manufacturing plant, where Yaakov worked wiring bunkers for early warning attacks.
While he was working, Yaakov was davening the Shabbos morning tefillah. During his prayers he remembered how but a few weeks ago how he was davening in his shul in Hungry. In his heart, he felt a great yearning for his kehila, and his prayers were filled with passion.
Suddenly in the middle of birkas krias shema a wagon crashed into the wall near where he was working. Yaakov was buried underneath the wall. Fellow Jewish workers dragged him out from under the rubble.
Someone near Yaakov whispered to him that "zechus avos" saved him. He was immediately taken to a hospital on a stretcher, and diagnosed with numerous fractures. After four or five weeks, he returned to work.
After a week back, Yaakov realized he was not healthy enough to work, and they admitted him to the hospital. While he was their in the hospital, on Tisha B'Av a Chasidhe Yid from Poland in the bed next to him was fasting. He saw that Yaakov was not eating, but he forbid him from fasting.
While Yaakov was in the hospital, the concentration camp where he was went through a cleaning process. Whoever they considered unhealthy, the Nazis sent for transport to be killed. Although Yaakov was not well and should have been placed on that transport, a Jewish doctor vouched that he was healthy, saving Yaakov.
That winter Yaakov was liberated from the concentration camp.
A Falling Ceiling
Eight years after Yaakov gained his freedom from the concentration camp, he was renting a room in Williamsburg. That day he had an extremely pressing matter to take care of and had to daven at home. He put on his tallis and tefillin and started Shachris in the living room.
During Pesukei D'Zimra, for no reason, he got up and walked into a room into the apartment that he had never entered before. He noticed something interesting nearby, and went to look at it. After half a minute started to go back to the place where he was davening.
A few seconds latter, the entire ceiling collapsed in the place where he had been davening previously. Had Yaakov been standing in the place he was before, he would surely have been seriously injured or killed. Furthermore, since the other occupant was out of the apartment for an extended period there would have been no one to pull him out from the rubble.
Yaakov realized that a great miracle had taken place. For absolutely no reason he had moved away from the place he was standing a few seconds ago. Yaakov continued his davening with a tremendous joy that once again he had merited to been saved.
When the construction workers came to fix the ceiling they noted that rain had been seeping in to the ceiling for years, and this had weakened the structure of the roof. After years of seeping in the structure were weakened to the point where it could no longer could hold up and just collapsed. Yaakov related to many people the story of Hash-m had miraculously saved him.
Yaakov told me these two stories and asked me what I thought about them. I replied that I am not a Navi, but I think that it is significant that both times he was saved while he was engaged in tefilah. Chazal tell us that whenever a person mentions Hash-m's name He is their to help us, and to me it seemed that these two incidents brought out this quite clearly.
Walls and ceilings are man made, and at any moment, they could fall and kill us. Who holds them up and saves us from harm – only Hash-m who created the heaven and earth. May we always be able to recognize His involvement with our lives, even without walls or ceiling collapsing on us.
