The 17th of Tammuz they will say that you don't fast

From the writings of Rav Yisroel Odesser ('the Sabba'):

In the year 5682 (1922), on the Seventeenth of Tammuz, I felt a terrible weakness. The evil urge overcame me in the morning and said, "Behold, you are very weak! You need to eat!" And I had not drinken or eaten from midnight until that morning. But I ate, cautiously, as though eating damaging substances, but without hands and without feet [i.e., without any enthusiasm]. After eating I recited the Grace after Meals and walked to the Mikveh. You can imagine how my prayers went and how I felt after such a thing. For when I was with Rabbi Yisroel Karduner, he had been careful about every fast in the Shulchan Aruch, especially the Seventeeth of Tammuz, the most serious of the four major fast days. Already as a child, from the age of six, I had been accustomed to fasting every Monday and Thursday; yet now, today, I stumbled and ate before praying. I didn't want to live, and I fell into such dejection that I couldn't speak or be seen with people.

I walked to the Yeshiva and lay down in the synagogue in the Yeshiva, like a dead man. I didn't speak and didn't eat for the next six days. Whoever entered the synagogue, including the Yeshiva students, and saw Reb Yisroel Ber lying in such dejection, was afraid. For they were used to my always being happy and dancing and were amazed at how Yisroel Ber could be happy. "Why is he happy? He has no livelihood or bread for his children." They said that this Yisroel Ber was not the Yisroel Ber they knew. "This Reb Yisroel Ber had gone out of his mind, and such is the fate of all the Breslovers, that in the end they go out of their minds. For they walk at midnight to the fields and forests, and sometimes they are frightened by a dog or wild animal or a gentile, and therefore in the end they go crazy". I felt terribly dejected, and what they were saying now caused me even greater dejection. For I felt that I was the cause of everything they were saying.

In any event, I felt great pain and distress and didn't want to live. I saw that my great sadness was causing a desecration of G*d's Name and a disgrace to Breslov Chassidus. Then I did hisbodedus and prayed to the Blessed G*d: "Master of the Universe. Look at my situation. It's true that I ate and did what I did. But I want to return to You. Heal me and remove me from this situation, this sadness, for I am causing a desecration of Your Name and blemishing Breslov Chassidus". Then I cried before the Blessed G*d and said in the synagogue: "Master of the Universe. Heal me so that I can escape from this sadness."A powerful thought came to me, as though someone had entered my head and my mind. The thought said to me: "Go into your room!" (I was in the synagogue and my room was next to the synagogue.) "Go into your room, and open the bookcase, and put your hand on any book, and remove it and open it, and there you will find a cure for your soul." I wanted a cure, and I had prayed. So I said in my heart, "This thought of mine, is it a serious thing?" Then I said, "I'll try and see what happens."So I did this: I went from the synagogue into my room, and opened the bookcase, as the thought had said to me, and put my hand on a certain book, and removed it and opened it. And there was this letter.

It was very difficult for me to come down to you

my precious student to tell you that I had pleasure

very much from your devotion and upon you I said

My fire will burn until

Messiah is coming be strong and courageous

in your devotion

Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman

And with this I will reveal to you a secret and it is:

Full and heaped up from one extreme to another extreme פצפציה

And with the strengthening of your devotion you will understand it and a sign

The 17th of Tammuz they will say that you don't fast

At first I saw just a piece of paper and I didn't know what it was doing in the book. Possibly it was a bookmark to indicate where I was learning. I didn't pay attention to this piece of paper. In any event, afterwards I noticed that there were lines of writing on it. I started to read and I saw what was written: "My precious student…I benefited greatly from your service." This sadness, this broken heart that I had because of my sin of not fasting on the Seventeenth of Tammuz-"I benefited greatly from your service." "And the sign," at the end of the whole letter: "On the Seventeenth of Tammuz they will say that you are not fasting." "On the Seventeenth of Tammuz they will say." This implied that the letter was written before the Seventeenth of Tammuz. It was telling me a sign: "On the Seventeenth of Tammuz they will say that you are not fasting."

In any event I read this, and just as before I had been so sad, now I received so much joy from this letter, joy not of this world, that the sadness had no value compared to the joy. Amidst such joy I started to dance in my room in the Yeshiva. The Yeshiva students said: "The crazy man is happy now. He's dancing!" They all came into my room and watched me dancing. But I paid no attention to them. I danced and rejoiced until they gave in and took me outside. They stood in a circle with me in the middle. I danced for many hours that night, until they became tired. They stood for a long time and said: "He won't tire out. He will tire us out. We have no more strength." They left and I danced alone the whole night. Anyway it is impossible to describe and to relate adequately what had happened to me: such sadness, such healing, such joy that I experienced.

Fast times (dawn-nightfall):

Jerusalem: 4:22-8:12
New York: 3:58-8:55
Los Angeles: 4:28-8:31

See here for other locations

Plane on fire makes emergency miracle landing

An engine on a Cathay Pacific flight from Singapore to Jakarta caught fire early Tuesday morning, forcing an emergency landing in Singapore.  The plane and all 136 passengers landed safely, but not before praying together for their lives.

...Pradipta, 15, said he saw nothing as he peered out the window.

"But I asked him to cup his hands to get a better view," [his father] Beawiharta said. "He shouted: 'I see fire! I see fire!'

"Panicked, he then asked: 'Will we die? Will we die?' I took his hand and told him firmly: 'No, we are going to live.'

"Behind us, passengers were praying: 'God, save our flight! Give us your protection!'"

The prayers got louder and louder, pierced by only the occasional cry of panic.

"A stewardess told us an engine had caught fire and we were on our way back to Singapore. Glued to the window, my son said he could see lights, the sea and ships and then lights on the ground. We all grabbed life jackets from beneath our seats, but the plane landed smoothly.

"Within five minutes, as firefighters doused the damaged engine, we walked off the plane into the terminal." (MSNBC)

Last week, the U.S. experienced three separate security scares on domestic flights.  The week before, Israel grounded all flights after jet fuel was found to be contaminated. Something is going on with fuel and air travel worldwide. One thing is for sure: nothing is to be taken for granted; in the air or by sea, we are utterly and completely in Hashem's hands.


They went up to the heavens, they came down to the depths; their soul melted with trouble.

They were frightened and staggered like a drunkard, and all their wisdom was destroyed.

They cried out to the Lord from their distress, that He take them out of their straits.

The tempest He had set up [settled] into a calm, and their waves were stilled.

They rejoiced that they were stilled, and He led them to the region of their desire.

They shall thank the Lord for His kindness, and for His wonders to the children of men.

And they shall exalt Him in an assembly of people, and in a sitting of elders, praise Him.

Psalm 107

Gilui Eliyahu on 9/11

In honor of the (alleged) killing of Bin Laden, we bring here an amazing story about the way in which nine New York Jews were saved on the morning of 9/11. This story appeared on Belief.net and was reprinted from the book Small Miracles for the Jewish Heart by Yitta Halberstam & Judith Leventhal:

In a small, makeshift synagogue not far from the Twin Towers, Orthodox Jewish professionals regularly meet early each morning for daily prayer services. Usually there is no problem rounding up a minyan (quorum of ten men required to pray) and the cramped quarters often overflow with worshipers. But on the morning of September 11th, there was an uncommon dearth of available men. Perhaps they had decided to remain that morning at their resident shuls for the important selichos services that precede the High Holidays. Or, perhaps, they were participating in the shloshim (one month anniversary) memorial services for the Jews who had been killed in the Grand Canyon helicopter crash. Two hundred men who worked in the World Trade Center, were, in fact, late to work that morning because of their participation in the shloshim service. But whatever the reason, the congregants were faced with a problem: only nine men were present, and time was marching on. These were serious men, professionals, and all had to be at their desks at the World Trade Center well before 9:00 a.m.

“What should we do?” they asked each other, impatiently tapping their wrist watches, as they paced the floors. “This situation hasn’t happened in ages! Where is everybody?”

“I’m sure a tenth man will come along soon,” someone else soothed. “We have to be patient.”

The men waited, restless and tense. Some of them were already running late. Finally, when they had all but given up and were going to resort to individual prayer (instead of the preferred communal one), an old man whom nobody had ever seen before shuffled in the door.

“Did you daven (pray) yet?” he asked, looking at he group.

“No, sir!” one shouted jubilantly. “We’ve been waiting for you!”

“Wonderful,” the elderly man responded. “I have to say kaddish (a special prayer recited on the yahrzeit, the anniversary of a close family member’s death) for my father and I have to daven before the omed (lead the prayer services). I’m so glad that you didn’t start yet.”

Under normal circumstances, the men would have asked the gentleman polite questions: what was his name, where was he from, how did he come to their obscure shul? By now, however, they were frantic to start and decided to bypass protocol. They hastily handed the man a siddur (prayer book), hoping he would prove himself to be the Speedy Gonzales of daveners (prayers).

The old man proved to be anything but. He seemed to rifle the pages of the siddur in agonizingly slow motion. Indeed, every gesture and movement that the man made seemed deliberately unhurried, protracted, and prolonged. The worshipers were respectful but definitely on shpilkes (pins and needles) to get to work.

“Oy!” someone smacked his forehead in frustration. “Are we going to be late!”

That’s when they heard the first explosion: the horrible blast that would forever shake their souls.

They ran outside and saw the smoke, the chaos, the screaming crowds, the apocalypse that lay before them.

It should have been us. After the initial shock and horror, consciousness dawned on them quickly. They realized they had been rescued from the jaws of death. Each and every one of them worked in the Twin Towers. Each and every one of them was supposed to be there before nine. Had it not been for the elderly man and his slow-motion schacharis (morning services), they probably would have been killed.

They turned to thank him, this mystery man who had saved their lives. They wanted to hug him in effusive gratitude and find out his name and where he had come from on that fateful morning.

But they’ll never know the answers to these questions that nag at them to this day-when they turned around to embrace him, the man was gone, his identity forever a mystery.

במהרה יבוא אלינו עם משיח בן דוד

weather and miracles

Despite the severe weather in Israel, there have been countless miracles:

A minibus carrying a group of mentally challenged adults was stuck in a flooded area in Tel Aviv. Fireman unloaded all 13 passengers unharmed.

A commercial vehicle flipped over and went up in flames. All 13 passengers of the vehicle successfully removed themselves. There were 2 injuries but no fatalities.

The number of saved passengers in both cases is 13, which is equal to Hashem's 13 qualities of compassion.

In another incident, a tree fell and severely damaged a school building in Yizhar at night, when no students were present. According to INN, "The fact that the trees collapsed into the empty buildings at night and not during school hours is a miracle," said Yitzhar's residents.

May Hashem have rachamim on all of am yisrael and keep us one and safe in these times.

The Power of Tehillim

From Israel National News, Rabbi Moshe Moreno speaks about his miraculous survival of the most recent terror attack:

“I am not sure in what merit G-d chose to save my life. I have a few ideas: It could be some form of merits of my forefathers, or perhaps because at that very minute, my mother was reciting Psalms for two hours straight… Or it could be because of a special kindness that I did for someone in our town just the day before… I’m not sure, but the bottom line is that I have received my life anew, as a gift.”