Selichos in Sderot
Sderot 5785
Rav Michael Zada, active in Lev L'Achim in Sderot, delivers his shiur regularly, as he has done for the past sixteen years. Aside from this, his days are packed with a full, broad spectrum of activity for the sanctified goal which is above all — to draw more and more sons to their Heavenly Father.
"A Rosh Hashanah such as this one has never yet been experienced in the South, and probably not in the entire land." he says to us at the very beginning of the interview. "This is the first time that so many words and prayers in the 'Ovinu Malkeinu' touched us all so relevantly after the horrors which Klal Yisroel encountered this past year. Understandingly, the shrill outbursts of 'put an end to hostage-seizing' and memory of 'those murdered in sanctifying Your Name' were at unbelievable decibels."
That terrible massacre which took place there on Simchas Torah continued in further stages.
"First was the shock, which reverberated for a long time. The members of my shiur were directly affected by the jolt because the terrorists barged into the very yard of the family where it takes place, injuring several of the local Sderot residents: one was murdered while the daughter of another member was also killed, the deaths discovered only a month later.
"Amazing is the fact that the host family of the shiur, who are always home when it takes place, hid above the pergola on the roof of the building, settling themselves directly above the room, praying that the merit of the Torah lecture would protect them. And so it was: the terrorists did not discover them and thus, the entire family was saved."
After the initial shock, there was a mass exodus from the city to safer places in the center of the country. "But I did not allow the sound to Torah to wane. I kept up the shiur from a distance. Interestingly, one of the neighbors whom I had often begged to join us but had always demurred — after his brother was killed and his father died from cardiac arrest during the attacks due to trauma — decided to join us, bringing a brother along.
"It took about half a year for things to quiet down by us and for residents to return to their homes. The shiur then resumed, with a huge growth in attendance, including a new, parallel one for the youth. The very man who had lost his father and brother was transformed into a vital part of it, and was one of the chief organizers of a large Rosh Hashanah service. Preceding this was a massive attendance of a whole month of selichos, far greater than in any preceding year.
"Even more noteworthy was the fact that in previous years, several neighbors had complained about the noise of the selichos prayers and asked that they take place at a distant location, while this time the situation was reversed. The residents of Sderot actually begged that Selichos take place close to their homes. The atmosphere of the prayers was far more solemn and many worshipers shed heartfelt tears amidst their prayers."
Rabbi Zada culminates with a moving fact that there has been a request from Sderot residents for a kollel in the city, like the one he established in his own town of Netivot.
Ofakim - 5785
Rav Avraham Deutsch is a familiar approachable figure in Ofakim, partly because he serves as deputy mayor and also because he has headed the decades-old chareidi community. As such, he is privy to many happenings of the residents, including those who are not chareidi but feel a need to fortify themselves spiritually and uplift themselves during these days of judgment.
If thus in past years, so much more is their need in this time of war.
"In the morning of last Wednesday, the day preceding Rosh Hashanah," he tells in a talk with Yated Ne'eman, "I was hurrying to get certain food coupons for needy families when I met a Jew who said to me, 'Rabbi, I don't have a machzor for Rosh Hashanah. I won't be able to manage without one.'
"He didn't need one only for himself but also for another man who wished to accompany him to the services. When he mentioned the man's name, I was in shock. I knew this man as belonging heart and soul to the Labor Party, the legendary extreme Left."
Rav Deutsch praised him enthusiastically. "Why the sudden change of heart?" he could not help asking.
"Don't say that you cannot understand why," was the reply. "You cannot imagine what has been going on with us this past year, and with all Israelis, for that matter. Especially so, the residents of Ofakim." (Thirty of them fell in the clashes with the terrorists who stormed into the city on Simchas Torah.) A friend of his is presently in the interior of the Gaza Strip, in ongoing fighting.
"I hear what he is experiencing and have no explanation outside of the fact of a Heavenly power protecting him from the many dangers which confront him, one more difficult than the next. This grips me, leading me to decide to join the prayers."
To be sure, it was not long before Rav Deutsch provided him with the two machzorim.
