In a hotel in Tiveria
With tens of thousands of people and families evacuated from the south near Gaza from the north of Israel, in a severe dislocation, many people are interested to hear about traditional Judaism.
The direct meeting with the relocated families, a large number of them being far from Torah and mitzvos, shows them as feeling that the firm ground of their lives has become like a rug pulled out from under their feet. This situation has produced many moving stories and a tremendous return to roots. Now, they too realize "that we have no one upon whom to lean except for our Father in Heaven."
The awakening in the populace is an undeniable fact. This can verily be testified by the range of outreach people working in this field of drawing in those Jewish souls to their Heavenly Father. These thousands of activists surely testify that the people out there are seeking to know, learn and find out firsthand what it is all about. These are like thorns in the eyes of the anti-forces which touted the ideal that "Israel is like all the nations."
"The ongoing activities in which we are involved throughout the year, such as parlor meetings, study sessions and public addresses, have doubled themselves these past few weeks, and are still waxing strong," says Rav Yehoshua Mann, the Jerusalem director of the academic department of Arachim. "We reach out, visiting hotels where the evacuated families are housed and encounter a public thirsting to hear the word of Hashem.
"Our workers have visited over thirty hotels, held series of lectures and Torah-related activities, as well as one-to-one talks with the people there. In the beginning of the war, we encountered mourners and gloomy, depressed spirits. Almost each of them was personally acquainted with the murdered victims and the hostage victims. Then there were families from the North who were similarly ousted from their homes, plucked from their daily schedules, occupations and homes, bearing the exile very harshly."
How are the activists received by the people?
"At first, very circumspectly and suspiciously. It took quite a while for the families to realize that it was these selfsame askonim who really cared and wished to help, coming expressly to be with them. When the barrier was breached, they began to welcome this moral support wholeheartedly.
"We are exposed to amazing stories. We see their thirst and their stamina, be it through Shabbos observance, tefillin, family purity and other mitzvos. People so distant from Torah and mitzvos truly wish to approach and be strengthened. Many tell us of the changes they hope to make in their lives. We see the buds of a renaissance, similar to the awakening that took place after the Yom Kippur War. We pray that this will not be nullified by hostile factors."
The stories to which the askonim are exposed are hair-raising. "We meet up with Jews who can literally be termed 'fire brands rescued from fire,' relates Rav Yaakov Heber, director of the academic department of Arachim in the South, who is concentrating his efforts on the Dead Sea hotels.
One such man in whose home Hamas established headquarters during the massacre, tells that very miraculously, the terrorists overlooked the need to check the safe room where he was hiding with his family,. They hid there for many hours, statue-like, afraid to make a sound.
Last week, tells an outreach person from Arachim, he met this man in a Dead Sea hotel. "He told about hours of extreme terror. Of the 800 terrorists who circulated in the kibbutz, at least tens of them were in his house at any given time. RPG launchers were stationed on his roof, ready for action. If any one of the terrorists would have tried the door to the room, no one inside could have stopped them from entering. But no one touched to door handle.
"Later, when the enemy decided to set the house on fire, only half of it burned, not even touching their room. When we asked this man, who is very far from religion, who watched over him during those harrowing hours, he said: 'We sat and said Tehillim for hours. That's what saved us.'
"All of this talk is a powerful boost to us," he says to Yated Ne'eman interviewer. "We meet these survivors face to face and hear their stories of Hashgochoh Protis. It strengthens them and us, also. Actually, everyone around us as well."
The tragic sights they saw, all the personal accounts, add up to a significant process of acknowledging Hashem's presence and a route to a return to Jewish tradition.
"We see very substantial steps, and even in those places where an outreach person did not dare step foot, doors are suddenly opened wide through which we can pass and begin talking to them and making inroads in their hearts," says Rav Heber. "During this period when there are so many exiled families, kibbutzim and settlements are opening their doors and hosting families, and seeking to hold events and cultural activities to keep them occupied. In this way, we were also allowed to reach a kibbutz near Yerushalayim which had been closed to outreach people for years and yet now, they welcomed us and our activities."
"At first, they greeting us with suspicion and circumspection," relates Rav Yishai Wallis, accompanied by a musician and another person. "We had planned a speech together with singing. Within minutes, all of the barriers fell. The kibbutz members themselves began flocking, seeking to join the audience. One such kibbutznik, someone notoriously distant from Torah, found himself fascinated, and his very presence caused others to join as well. If he could participate then so could they. Why not?"
One woman said that she would only go back home if Lev L'Achim will set up Torah study. They really feel that the Torah will protect them.
One time they had planned a public challah-taking in one hotel. when they got there the guard would not let them in. So they decided to hold it outside of the hotel with four women who were there. In a few minutes there were forty!
