Monday, May 14, 2012

Baruch Hashem! (Tzfat Miracle)



After living in Tzfat for 11 years, one never grows old of hearing Tzfat Stories. From the Miracles in the Lebanon War, to the Tzaddikim, Learning Kabbalah, Meron, etc...Tzfat is, was, and will always be a special place..no matter how crazy our reputation is here! Here is another story that warms the heart from a local family that the community knows well: way to go Erdsteins!

IsraelNationalNews.com:


Three grade school boys accidentally found six stolen Torah scrolls in an abandoned building where they wanted to establish a clubhouse. The incredible story unfolded Sunday afternoon when nine-year-old Ariel Chaim Erdstein and three friends entered the ruins of a building and were shocked to discover the Torah scrolls, worth more than $250,000. Thieves stole them after breaking into the Chabad Tzemach Tzedek synagogue during the Sabbath a week ago. “They ran out afraid that the thieves may have been hiding there also," Ariel’s mother Batya told Arutz Sheva. However, the first time she found out about the discovery was not from her son – but from the police. “The boys went straight to the synagogue to tell the rabbi,” Batya said. The rabbis and members of the synagogue have been crying since the heart-breaking discovery of the theft on the morning of the Sabbath. When the excited boys interrupted a session of Torah learning, the rabbi anticipated what the youngsters were about to say and asked, “You found the Torah scrolls?” The three boys immediately led the rabbis to the abandoned house and showed them the Torah scrolls, and the police were contacted. Officers took Ariel and his friends to the police station. When Batya received a phone call from a police officer telling her that her child was at the station, she recalled, “My heart sank to my toes.” Her fears immediately turned to joy when the police officer told her, “Don’t worry. This is good news.” “I almost ran out the door without my shoes on,” she added. “This is a great miracle.” A joyous procession to return the Torahs scrolls to the synagogue was held Monday. Police still are looking for the thieves. One theory is that they were afraid to try to move the Torch scrolls from the abandoned building and sell them or simply wanted to wait longer before doing so. They also may have felt remorse and decided not to proceed with their plan to sell them. The children are back in school Monday, the Torah scrolls are back in the synagogue, and Ariel’s father Baruch Emanuel, a native of Detroit, has an intriguing story to add to his repertoire as a professional story-teller and entertainer. "As a family we are always telling the holy stories of the tzaddikim and miracles of simple Jews just trying to be close to HaShem," Batya told Arutz Sheva. "It seems that we have to go back into Jewish history to connect to what was so holy and worth telling, but I tell my children that in coming to israel and trying to be holy in our own simple ways by doing mitzvoth and loving each other, we too continue to make the stories of the Jewish people" Batya, originally from San Diego, California, teaches ceramics and runs family clay activities from her Tzfat Pottery Experience studio. The Erdsteins moved to Israel in 1996 and lived in Jerusalem and Herzliya before settling in Tzfat, one of Israel’s four holy cities. The other holy cites are Jerusalem, Tiberias and Hevron.



Tzfat: the coolest place on Earth - it just is.

12 comments :

Anonymous said...

Is it difficult for olim to find a place to live? Is it expensive?

rabbi david katz said...

very very easy, and you can get a good flat for about 200-300 dollars

Jesterhead45 said...

Rabbi David Katz

I recently read from another blog that Arabs who moved to Tzfat are causing trouble for Jews and was wondering if you could confirm it?

Klishlishi said...

Tzfat is renowned as a "no-hope town with no-hope inhabitants" - which is just as the inhabitants like it, and is precisely why the Zohar predicted that Moshiach has to be revealed first in Tzfat!

Tzfat indigens are claimed in the local press to be the most simplistic, not just in Israel, but in the ENTIRE world!

The thieves have set a new low in being simple if they thought they could steal from a Lubavitch shul & get away with selling them on the international market, let alone in Israel. Every Lubavitcher worldwide, from Chabad House Timbuktu to Chabad House Patagonia was on alert for Sefer Torahs being offered, including to Reform and Masorti 'synagogues'.

Anonymous said...

We should just pray that this incident would stand as a prescident... and ALL the Holy Torah Scrolls that have been stolen away and hidden away would return to their Rightful Owner!! Baruch HaShem!!! Wonderful Story!!!

rabbi david katz said...

in my opinion, they arent a problem in tzfat....but i think the reason for this, is that they revere tzfat ( for the same reasons jews do to some extent) and i believe tzfat is holy to them for messianic reasons - i think their messiah is to witness the kinneret drying out which is a major simon of the geulah for them. i have a website i found, called remembering palestine. on that site they show old israeli cities that the arabs lived in in 1948. when you look at tzfat on that list, and you see the pictures and read the comments - it is obvious that tzfat was and is highly revered in their circles. i think that is why they are apprehensive to cause troubles here. but rav eliyahu sees them as an existential threat, as all tzfatnics seek and desire the sheket here that is unprecedented in the entire world. hence: the city of kabalah

Anonymous said...

A flat in Tzfat for 200-300 dollars....a week --$1,200 a month?

rabbi david katz said...

thats per month, not per week

Anonymous said...

Wow... I'm packing my bags! ;-)

Anonymous said...

What is the condition of these flats..are they in good condition?

rabbi david katz said...

its luck of the draw, but i have been rather fortunate, i have liked everywhere i have lived. even living in the cave of the yeshiva (dorm/cave) was a positive experience!
some are newer from the 80's others are restored from 1800's. some are arabic from where they lived in expulsion in 1948. not much for new stuff, but it does exist for a little more money. most people live to the same standard for the most part, only some places are more meshupatz than others.

Christopher Darren Horn said...

Tzfat looks like a cool place. I like to watch video's and this one shows a cute baby and a cool perspective of Tzfat http://youtu.be/jESBrn6bkmE
Is the whole city like this? It seems that you can't see what's around the corner, LOL! I love those small, tight walkways seems to make it safe and enclosed around you.

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