The astonishing and moving story published this week in the ‘Yad HaShavu’ supplement of the ‘Yad Na’man’ newspaper, as published by Israel Rosner and Nathan Filmer, about this miraculous occurrence, in which is embodied the Sage’s article “Charity saves from death”, in its simplest sense.
So how did a sentence that came out of the mouth of a dear Jew from New York, lead to an unusual and surprising visit to a crowded apartment of a family, unknown to him, in the Mea Shearim neighborhood? And what about the commitment of after ‘Kiddush’ as usual – and the intensive care unit where the person injured in the shooting attack in the Holy City is hospitalized? In the following lines, three of Karta Diroshlim’s men lay out, each from his own point of view, the perfect chain of events, which answers all questions, in a story that has agitated the ultra-Orthodox street in recent days and created a wave of rumors.
Rabbi Israel Salomon from Jerusalem said: “Last Shabbat morning I left the synagogue of the Bohush Hasidim in Geula, in what is known as the ‘Romanishe Shul’, where a ‘Kiddush’ was held on the occasion of the birth of a daughter to the Barim family. And in front of me comes my friend Rabbi Mordechai Wallerstein, who is a driver of ‘Drivers’ engaged in collecting charity in the USA, and as such he also takes care of all the needs of the governors from Satmar who come to visit Israel. Next to him walks another man with his wife and son. When I asked him his name, he told me: Aresh Glick, from Williamsburg.”
“At this point, Wallerstein turns to me and says: ‘We need help.’ What happened? ‘We are looking for a family with 18 children, maybe you know one in the area?’ , I turned to a random passerby and asked: ‘Rabbi Yad, do you know a family here with 18 children?’ ‘No, only 18 souls’. I continue and ask another Jew, who directs us to a family with 16 children, and that was not good for Glick either. The scene seemed strange, he did not explain at first why he insisted on 18 children, he just went back and said that owes 8 souls. Then I met Rabbi Rothman.”
Rabbi Amram Rotman says: “At the end of the Kiddush for the birth of my granddaughter, the daughter of Rabbi Barim’s son-in-law, we were met by an entourage led by Rabbi Israel Salomon, in the center of which was a man who looked like an American Satmar Hasidic, and whose one wish was: to find a family blessed with children, whose number reaches For 18 actually. Upon hearing the request, my son, who was with me, remembered that not far from there, in the Mea Shearim neighborhood, such a family does live, the Freiman family. That man was very happy, we led him and his companions to the house there, a mourning notice was placed over him, and we went our separate ways, all the while hearing him repeat the words: 8 souls, 8 souls.”
“At a certain moment, I couldn’t hold back,” Salomon repeats and says, “and I asked Rabbi Glick: ‘Rabbi Hershel, what did you do for a family?’ (What will you give to that family), then he answers me: ‘A thousand dollars a head!’. When I heard this promise from him, I said to myself that we must make an effort to help such a family win the financial help that is now placed before them. I went up with him floor by floor, while we debated whether It’s appropriate to suddenly knock like that in the house of a family that supposedly sits ‘seven’. Finally, when we reached one of the upper floors, panting, and saw the name Freeman on the door, we knocked on it, when our heads were already spinning…”.
“The door opens, and the first thing I do is ask: ‘Does a family with 18 children live here?’ The death of his brother who lived in the city, the late Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Freiman (the son of a student of Maran HaZa Rabbi Shmuel David Freiman the late). His daughters allowed us to enter the house, Glick took a tour there with his son, who was a son-in-law, and then passed away: ‘You just said. It cannot be that 18 children grew up in these two and a half rooms.’ But I explained to him that it was the truth, people wouldn’t lie about something like that. It seemed that he was convinced, and from there he went to say ‘Got Shabes’ to Rabbi Gamaliel Rabinovitz of Lita. This. I thought that was the end of the matter for me.”
During the evening of Shabbat, Salomon receives the initial report about the shooting attack on Line 3 in the Western Wall area, near David’s Tomb, and after a few hours the names of the wounded also arrive, one of which stands out to him, Zvi (Harashi) Glick, who is in a very serious condition. “I wasn’t sure that this was the name of the person I accompanied on that strange tour on Saturday, so I called Lollerstein and I hear that it is indeed him. ‘He is sedated and ventilated,’ he adds to me – and I am shocked.”
“After a moment I jumped up like a snake bitten, and I told him: The Jew promised 18,000 dollars to that family, and it is precisely the fulfillment of his promise that he needs now in order to return to life! We agreed, I and Wallerstein, that the world should be turned upside down to take care of this, for the benefit of Rabbi Glick who is still fighting for his life in the intensive care unit at Shaare Zedek Hospital, and needs every right to survive. Indeed, I called the members of the extended Glick family, I told them, ‘Hear a story that will make your assumptions stand,’ and I explained in their ears what their loved one, Rabbi Arashi, had promised hours before he was injured, and what he was looking for. “I want 18 HI”.
“They of course got involved in the matter, but in order for the promised money, in the amount of 18 thousand dollars, to reach its destination, the Freiman family must of course be reached. It took some time for this to happen, and on Sunday night I called their home, the mother answered me and heard from me the details of the act – which may not have been enough To tell her until that moment – and when she realized that the unknown visitor was injured in the attack and his condition was so terrible, she burst into a long cry, upset to the depths of her soul. ‘Bring me his name and we will pray for him,’ she promised.”
One of the family’s 18 children said: “When my sisters opened the door that Shabbat, and brought Rabbi Glick into my parents’ house, he was very excited after he realized that all 18 of our brothers and sisters grew up there, he pointed to his son-in-law on the floor and told him, ‘Remember God.’ In these old songs’, and announced that he would give my parents a thousand dollars against each of us. Only the next day, on Sunday, we learned that he had been injured, and my family gathered especially and performed the segulot of Rabbi Matia ben Harash for him, which includes saying all the Psalms, lighting 18 candles And more and more, a complete ‘issue’. Another day passed, and then we received the phone call where we heard the dramatic news.”
“I called Rabbi Freiman,” Rabbi Salomon concludes, “on Monday at 6:50 p.m., to take his bank account details from him, for the transfer of the large amount (which will arrive soon), which Rabbi Glick promised. He gave me the relevant details , and during the conversation, at 6:58 p.m., I receive a message from my friend Wallerstein with the words ‘He woke up’ – in response to my question earlier, ‘How is Hareshi Glick?’. My breath was taken away. Amazing.”
The Freiman family, it is interesting to note, is now facing the marriage of one of its children, the 15th in number – which makes any financial assistance it is right and appropriate, as anyone knows on the eve of their children’s wedding. But such help, which involves saving the life of their benefactor, the man who chose to spread a somewhat puzzling promise, on a city street in the middle of the Sabbath, no one could have expected. “It was the soul of Rabbi Arashi that shouted ‘I’m looking for Hai’. Looking for live? Received life!” concludes Rabbi Salomon, the man who accompanied him on the way to achieving his goal, with the assistance of Rabbi Amram Rothman.
All those involved in the rare story, which is entirely a miraculous ‘private providence’, plead in closing their words, to you the readers: Continue to pray, together with the entire House of Israel, for the healing of Rabbi Yehoshua Zvi ben Sarah (Glick), until his full recovery from the wounds of the abominable terrorist.