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From the Hell of

the Yom Kippur War:

Rav Chanan Porat’s

Miraculous Survival

Haggai Huberman

he sirens of the alarm that broke the silence of of success – an eighty-two millimeter mortar shell fell
Yom Kippur 5734 throughout the country sym- on Chanan, hit his shoulder and exploded behind him.
bolized the beginning of a new era in the history A large amount of blood burst from his body. The medic
Tof the State of Israel, different from anything the tried to stop the bleeding with his standard bandages,
country had experienced during the first 25 years of its and when this didn’t work, he tore the heavy army
existence. In a complete surprise, at least to most of the uniform off Chanan and tried to stop the bleeding with
citizens of Israel, the armies of Egypt and Syria attacked their help.
the complacent State of Israel. Their forces broke
through Israel’s defensive lines in the Golan Heights Chanan’s friends dragged him, naked, to a dilapidated
and in Sinai, and rushed forward. In the Golan Heights, dugout. They cried desperately for a half-track to evac-
which had largely fallen into the hands of the Syrian uate him. Chanan felt that his time was running out.
army, the IDF managed after only five days to contain “Gasping for breath,” as he wrote in one of his letters,
the Syrians and push them back – and even penetrate he was sure that these were his final moments. “In my
deep into Syrian territory. On the Sinai front, where the mind I parted from all my relatives and friends, from
Egyptian army had no intention of advancing beyond a Abba, Ima, my wife and my children.”
range of ten kilometers anyway, the tide turned after Serving in the medical battalion that operated in the
ten days, when the IDF crossed the canal to the west battle area was Rav Shabtai Sabato, one of the top stu-
and advanced into the interior of Egypt. dents at Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav and later the Rosh
When the war broke out, Rav Chanan Porat put on his Yeshiva of Yeshivat Mitzpeh Yericho. He and Chanan
uniform and returned to the army. The brigade to which had gotten to know each other a few years before the
he belonged reached Tessa in northern Sinai. Uri Elitzur, war, in Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav, when Rav Sabato, then a
who knew Chanan since the days they had studied at young 18-year-old student, stood near the older students
Yeshivat Kerem B’Yavneh, was among the fighters who to listen to their Torah conversations. “There I met the
came to Sinai from the Golan. “We landed in helicopters, first rank of Torah scholars who later became rashei
and I was sure that we were beyond enemy lines,” he yeshiva, rabbis of communities, rabbis of cities. Among
recalled. “We started moving through the dunes, with them, Rav Chanan Porat, then only ‘Chanan,’ stood
our guns locked and loaded, not knowing who was out. He was a figure who could not be ignored, radiant
where, expecting a surprise attack by the enemy at any and radiating.”
moment. After a long walk, suddenly we see a group On that day, Rav Sabato and his friends were over-
sitting around a fire, and Chanan is giving them a shiur! whelmed by the large number of wounded soldiers.
This was the first ‘enemy’ we encountered.” They worked day and night. Suddenly Rav Sabato real-
On Shabbat morning, Parashat Bereishit, after the IDF ized that one of the seriously injured soldiers rushed
crossed the Suez Canal near Ismailia – the second wave to them was Chanan Porat. “I was shocked. He was

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