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MY MIRACLE

Coming Back from the Dead Adding Meaning to My Singing One Never Knows G-d Trusted Me Fear No Evil

Rabbi Yehuda Glick Yaak hwekey Miriam Peretz Rabbi Yi ael Meir Lau Natan haransky
Member of Knesset International Singing Star Mother of Two Fallen Soldiers Former Chief Rabbi of Israel Past Chairman of the Jewish Agency
and Israel Prize Laureate

On Wednesday evening, October 29, 2014, I gave a I’m about eight years old, on a summer vacation Operation Defensive Shield (2002). My son, Eliraz, is When I was seven, I was separated from my mother In 1977, I was arrested for my Zionist activities in
Pers al
speech entitled “Israel Returns to the Temple with my family in France. Deputy Commander of Battalion 51 of the Golani as she thrust me over to the men’s side during the former Soviet Union, accused of treason and
Mount” at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Brigade, ghting in Jenin. Narrow alleyways, deportation. “Tulek, take Lulek,” she said, sentenced to 13 years imprisonment. I spent nine of
Jerusalem. Palestinian terrorist attacks had been on A group of us are playing outside on our bikes. I'm booby-trapped houses, Arab snipers on the roofs. entrusting me (Lulek) to my brother Naftali (Tulek) those in the Gulag, including 405 consecutive days
the rise and the US and UN were siding with the sitting on mine, minding my own business, when Eliraz’s team advances deep into Islamic Jihad in the knowledge that the men were more likely to in solitary con nement.
Palestinians. another boy rides into me and pushes me into a territory. survive. Naftali smuggled me into the Buchenwald
dark alleyway under the building. labor camp since a child my age would have been The day before I went to Siberia, I received a small
After the speech, I left the building accompanied by Another o cer joins him. The terrorists start ring exterminated on the spot if discovered. I became book of Tehillim (Psalms) from my wife Avital, who
two friends. Suddenly, a man wearing a motorcycle Suddenly, I’m rushing downhill and the brakes at the house they're hiding in. Eliraz and his men the youngest and smallest inmate in the camp and was already in Israel. She’d added a note: “This is
helmet approached and said to me, “Are you don't work. rush outside. A sniper shoots. The o cer falls. Eliraz my survival over the next year was largely due to the book that has accompanied me over the last
Yehuda Glick? I'm sorry, but you’re an enemy of I don’t know where I am. It’s pitch black, and I can't drags him to safety and calls for help. Sergeant Gad Naftali’s constant self-sacri ce and protection. year and I sense it's now time to pass it on to you.”
Al-Aqsa, I have to.” stop... Ezra arrives. While they’re lifting the o cer on the
stretcher, the sniper shoots again, this time killing One day, a Gestapo o cer rounded us children up, I only knew about 1,000 words in Hebrew then, and
Before I could ask “Have to what?,” the man shot me My mind is racing with the bike... “Hashem! Please Gad. Eliraz has no time as he sees the sniper aim saying we were super uous to the German war very few Biblical ones! It didn’t matter anyway.
four times in the chest at point-blank range, before save me! I’ll try to be a good boy, do my best. I again. He tries to return re but his gun jams. e ort. Realizing that the end was approaching, I They con scated my Tehillim along with all my
speeding away on his motorbike. The security forces promise. I want to live...” Instinctively, he bends over Gad’s body, grabs Gad’s stood up tall and made the rst speech in my life. other possessions.
gave chase and he was eventually killed in a gun and kills the attacker. “It’s a mistake to think we're useless,” I said in
shootout with police. Meanwhile, Palestinians in David HaMelech says: ר ֵּ פ ַ ס ֲ א ַ ו הֶי ְ ח ֶ א י ִּ כ תּומ ָ א אלֹ Polish. After three years of not giving up, I got my book
the Old City set o reworks in celebration and ּ ה־ָי יׂ ֵ ש ֲ ע ַ מ. I don’t want to die. I want to live Had Gad not been killed right next to him, Eliraz back. And I decided to read it until I understood.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas because I want to glorify Your Name. Of course as a would have died there on the spot. I went on to describe how I had worked 12-hour I sat in my cell and tried to decipher the words.
sent a letter of condolence to my assailant’s family. kid you don’t know what that means so you say I’ll shifts delivering water to the glass factory workers Words without form, sentences I couldn't make out
be a good boy. ןִי ַ ע ף ֶ ר ֶ ה ְּ כ 'ה ת ַ עּו ׁשְי – “G-d’s salvation is like the when I was only six years old. “Therefore, you
I was rushed to hospital. After several surgeries and blink of an eye.” cannot say that we lack working potential,” I from the sea of letters. I looked for words I knew
heavy sedation, I fought for my life for almost a And then I crash. Head rst into a brick wall. concluded. Together with a bribe, that speech saved and slowly put things together.
month, with my late and beloved wife, Ya , always Later, Eliraz goes to visit Gad Ezra’s family. He tells my life and the lives of the other children, at least After a lot of e ort, the rst sentence I managed to
by my side. The next thing I know I'm in the hospital. My sister Gad’s mother, Roslyn, it was her son's gun that
told me I’d split my head open. When the saved his life. He shows her the weapon, she strokes for the moment. fully understand – a chain of 11 consecutive words!
ְ
My chances of survival – and living a normal life – ambulance arrived they’d said it was an extreme the gun strap and asks Eliraz if she can have it. I was surrounded by corpses for three years. Every – was: י ִּ כ ע ָ ר א ָ רי ִ א אלֹ ת ֶ ו ָ מ ְ ל ַ צ אי ֵ ג ְּ ב ך ֵ ל ֵ א י ִּ כ םַּ ג
were minimal. emergency because I was losing a lot of blood. morning many people did not wake up. I pushed י ִ ד ָּ מ ִ ע ה ָּ ת ַ א, “Even though I walk in the valley of
Thank G-d, after surgeries and stitches I was okay. “Do you know whose gun this is?” She asks him. death I will fear no evil because You are with me.”
But G-d had greater plans. the wagon of dead to the crematorium each day.
Shortly after that I decided to start singing. I had a “Gad’s,” said Eliraz, surprised by the question. Even after liberation, 60% of Buchenwald survivors Who was “with me” in that accursed cell? Avital?
I’m still here. gift and wanted to share it with Am Yisrael and do it died of typhus and other diseases before they could King David? The Jewish people? G-d?
in a way that made G-d proud. He'd restored my life “Yes. But it actually belonged to your brother Uriel!” even begin to start their lives again.
In 2015, I was placed 33rd on the list of Likud All of them. All of them were with me in my cell. I
candidates. It seemed highly improbable I would be and I wanted to make Him proud of me. This was the gun my other son, Uriel, had fought I was in the valley of dry bones. So when I say wouldn't have held out so long without them.
called upon to serve. But in a landslide victory, You don’t realize that as a kid but that’s what it was. with when he was killed in Lebanon in 1998. It had “Thank You,” I really mean it. G-d performed
Likud won 30 seats. I was still on the outside but That was the message. G-d wants you to have fun, later been assigned to Gad. countless miracles for me. This gives me extra And that little book of Tehillim is still with me
three Likud MKs resigned over the next year and I have a good time but at the same time he wants In their deaths, Uriel and Gad had saved Eliraz’s life. motivation not to waste my life and to do today. All the time.
became a Member of the Knesset, the parliament of you to realize that life is short. To appreciate that One never knows how G-d’s miracles enlighten our something to justify all the miracles that happened
the State of Israel. every day is a miracle. Every second. Every breath. world. to me. G-d trusted me. I am forbidden to disappoint
Him. 17