Excerpt from Article in Yated Mei’afeilah L’orah – From Darkness to Light
And so it was that on the last day of Chanukah, a guard went to Shalom Mordechai’s cell and told him, “Pack up and leave. Get going.” “What’s the problem?” he asked, not daring to hope. Maybe they were going to transfer him somewhere. That would not be unusual. “You’ll find out. Just get going.”
He had just washed for hamotzie in his cell for a humble seudas Zos Chanukah. He grabbed his tallis and tefillin with a small Chovos Halevavos inside and went to the prison office. After a few minutes, the warden appeared. “Congratulations,” he said, holding out his hand. “President Trump has commuted your sentence. You are free to go, as soon as someone comes to pick you up.”
“My father was shocked,” a family member related. ‘It’s a Chanukah miracle!’ he blurted to the warden. “After a few seconds of deepest heartfelt thanks to the Ribono Shel Olam, he came back to earth. ‘Can I go back to the cell?’ he asked. “I have to say a prayer (bentch).’” “‘No, you can’t go back there,” the warden said. ‘You stay here.’
“So he sat down and bentched until my mother came to pick him up. And what a bentching that was.”
The Rebbe used to say at the end of farbrengens that we are davening that the geula should come before the brocho achrona, that the brocho achrona should be said in a situation of geula.
ReplyDeleteהרבי הבטיח, הרבי קיים
Like yetzias Mitzrayim bechipazon
ReplyDeleteOpening – positive mitzvos (9)
ReplyDeleteIf one speaks lashon hara about a kohen and denigrates him through this, one transgresses the positive mitzvah of (Vayikra 21:8), "You shall sanctify him," which commands us to treat kohens with much honor. By speaking lashon hara against him, one is certainly not honoring him.