The Tarfon Shtiebel Miracle

The Gemara in Tractate Ketubot calls the Land of Israel, “The Land of Emuna.” Emuna is above the limitations of nature. Miracles are too. In that respect, you could nickname Israel, “The Land of Miracles. Those of us in the south of Israel know how very true that is. In our land of emuna and miracles, you see Hashem’s fingerprints all over the place.
 
In the aftermath of the recent terrorist attacks north of Eilat on Thursday, August 18, 2011, Israel retaliated by bombing the Palestinian Resistance Committee (PRC) headquarters in Rafah and by targeting the perpetrators of the attacks which left 8 Israelis dead and over 40 wounded. The terrorists countered with missile barrages against Israel’s main southern cities – Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Beer Sheva – as well as mortar and Kassam rocket attacks against the kibbutzim and moshavim in the vicinity of Gaza.

 Aftermath of a GRAD missile that didn’t even explode – Rebbe Tarfon Shtiebel, Ashdod, 2011 – image courtesy of Emuna Outreach

 
The residents of Ashdod received a wake-up call, courtesy of the Gazan terrorists – Hamas, PRC, and the Jihad Islami – the next morning, Friday, August 19, 2011, at 5:45 AM. A pair of GRAD missiles exploded in an open area right outside the city.  At 7:45 AM, the Red Alert siren again went off, followed by 2 thundering crashes forty seconds later. One missile crashed and exploded right outside the “Lev Simcha” Gur Yeshiva in Rova Zayin (seventh canton), Ashdod’s largest religious neighborhood. Miraculously, no one was hurt. But, when the young men of the Yeshiva thought that all was clear, they went outside. A second missile struck then and there. Cars parked nearby were totally destroyed. Ten people suffered shrapnel wounds, but amazingly, no one was killed.
 
Then the big miracle happened. On the other end of Rova Zayin, on Rebbe Tarfon Street near Jerusalem Avenue, is a big sandlot that looks like a mobile home neighborhood. But, the pre-fab structures are not mobile homes; they’re all synagogues and study halls, one of which is the local Gerrer “shtiebel”, the synagogue and study hall of the neighborhood’s Gerrer (Gur) Chassidim. This Shtiebel is known as the Tarphon Shtiebel, and it has an interesting background story, as follows:
 
Fifty local Gerrer families bought a second hand “caravan,” Israeli slang for a pre-fab dwelling. They paid a contractor to add another room to it, prepare a foundation, erect the structure, and hook it up to utilities. The contractor apparently cut a few corners. Rather than laying a complete concrete foundation, he simply laid a ceramic tile floor right on top of Ashdod’s plentiful sandy-soft earth, typical of Israel’s southern coastal area. The young men of the shtiebel were furious at the contractor, threatening to sue him in a local religious court.
 
The contractor might have thought that he was cutting corners, but he wasn’t really the one who decided to erect the additional prefab room  directly on the sand. He wasn’t the one who purposely avoided to make a concrete-slab foundation before laying the floor tiles. Hashem did, and for a phenomenally good reason…
 
At 8:15 AM on the same morning of Friday, August 19, 2011, the Red Alert siren again went off again. Most of the congregants ran for cover as soon as the alarm sound – a prefab structure, with its tin roof and fiberboard walls – is no place to be. But three of the congregants, including Rabbi Pinchas Krispin, figured that it would take them more than 40 seconds to reach the nearest bomb shelter, so they remained inside the Shtiebel.
 
38 seconds later, we heard a tremendous crash. Only about 700 meters from my home, we could feel the thud as the GRAD missile hit. It crashed through the roof of the Rebbe Tarfon Shtiebel in Rova Zayin at an angle, and rather than hitting the main sanctuary floor with its concrete foundation, it landed on the floor of the additional room and failed to explode! Since there’s nothing under the thin ceramic floor tiles except Ashdod’s golden yellow sand, the missile failed to detonate. Instead, it buried itself a full 3.5 meters (about 11 feet) in the ground, and then exploded, muffled by all the sand. As it was, the impact of its high velocity fifty pound warhead destroyed the roof and rendered the entire prefab building as dangerous, but had that missile exploded, it would have maimed anyone within a twenty-five meter radius. Instead – because of Hashem’s foresight – no one was hurt! Quite a few people said the Gomel prayer the following Shabbat morning, the prayer one says after having been saved from a dangerous situation.
 
Now, let’s look at the Tarfon Shtiebel Miracle through eyes of emuna. The Garden of Emuna teaches us that everything comes from Hashem, that everything is for the very best, and that everything is for a purpose. We clearly see that Hashem decreed that there shouldn’t be a concrete floor in the Tarfon Shtiebel, and that was clearly for the best in order to prevent a GRAD missile from exploding. Hashem is teaching us that everything is for the best, not just a few things. And, if we can’t understand how at the moment, we merely need to strengthen our emuna and believe that everything is for the best, for it surely is.
 
Let’s pray that we’ll all learn to live our emuna soon. It’s not good enough to be “frum” anymore. The Borselino on one’s head doesn’t make a person upright; it’s the emuna in one’s heart that does. Let’s not force Hashem to send us more harsh wake-up calls, so let’s wake up on our own. May everyone enjoy a healthy and prosperous New Year 5772, amen.