A Stabbing on the Jordan Valley Road

This week began on a distressing note: with a stabbing attack on the Jordan Valley Road, near the village of al-Auja. The victim, a chareidi man in his twenties, was moderately wounded in the attack, and IDF and police forces were rushed to the scene and launched a manhunt for the terrorist. The stabbing took place near a store where the victim had stopped to make a purchase—a place, as a Magen Dovid Adom spokesman stressed, where many Israeli motorists stop to shop. In other words, there was no reason to presume that the victim had knowingly risked his life by entering a hostile area.

“The report about the stabbing was received at 9:18 a.m. on the Magen Dovid Adom hotline in the area of Gilboa,” the spokesman added. “EMTs and paramedics evacuated the victim to Shaare Zedek Hospital in Yerushalayim.”

A paramedic picked up the story: “We received a report about a man who was wounded in a stabbing. We found him fully conscious and suffering from stab wounds in his upper body; we provided medical treatment and transported him to the hospital in a mobile intensive care unit, while he remained conscious and in moderate condition.”

Let me make a personal comment about this story. The incident took place on Route 90, which runs from Yerushalayim to Teveria and is also known as the Jordan Valley Road. Somewhere around the midpoint of this highway, there is an assortment of stores on the right side of the road where one can buy all sorts of items. Everything sold in those stores is cheaper, for multiple reasons. For one thing, the stores belong to Arabs. In addition, they are legally considered to be located in Jordanian territory and are therefore exempt from Israeli taxes. A few years ago, I bought a can of soda in one of the stores for a very low price; when I received my credit card statement, I was surprised to discover that I had been shopping in a foreign country.

I recently drove to Tzefas (and I will soon write more about that trip) via the Jordan Valley Road. This time, for some reason, I decided not to stop at this collection of stores; I saw no reason to patronize the businesses owned by Arabs. But I can tell you from my own personal experience that no one can accuse the young man of having placed himself in a position of danger, since he was attacked in a place that is frequented by Israelis. Shopping in these stores is a completely normal activity; no one would ever have thought to suspect that a terrorist might be lurking there.

Is Kite Terror Making a Comeback?

The stabbing on Route 90 came after a period of relative quiet, as several weeks passed without a significant act of terror, Boruch Hashem. One month ago, there was a series of incidents, which began when a Jewish man was severely injured in a stabbing attack near Elon Moreh; hours later, another Jew was moderately injured in a stabbing attack near the settlement of Ganim. On the following day, there was a terror attack in the village of Tel that took the lives of two IDF officers, one of whom was a member of the security squad of Chavat Gilad. One day later, a soldier was injured by a rock and his weapon was snatched. Before this brief wave of incidents, however, there was a significant decrease in terror. According to the Shin Bet, four people have been killed in terror attacks in Yehuda and Shomron since the beginning of the year, in contrast to the total of 20 such fatalities in the year 2025 and 35 in the year 2024.

Another comment: On the one hand, one might suggest that the young stabbing victim should be thankful that he survived the attack. On the other hand, it is important to understand what it means to experience a stabbing. You will probably not remember an article that I wrote for Yated Neeman exactly ten years ago, on September 1, 2016, about a yungerman named Moshe Menachem Limui, who was stabbed in the Old City of Yerushalayim. I interviewed him in his home several years after the attack, and I discovered that he was still suffering physically and psychologically from his ordeal. And that is to say nothing of the many long months that he spent in the hospital and in rehabilitation. At the same time, he was thankful to Hashem that he was spared from death. “When I was discharged, the doctor told me that it was a miracle that the knife merely grazed my lung and didn’t perforate it,” he said. “It was also miraculous that the knife didn’t enter my heart. It hit my wallet, which tilted it downward. Without that wallet—in other words, without Hashem’s chessed—the knife would have penetrated my heart.”

This is what happens when someone is “only” wounded in a stabbing attack.

Here is another security-related item: I have written in the past about the Hezbollah drones that are a threat to the lives of IDF soldiers. The drones are Hezbollah’s newest weapon, and the Israeli army hasn’t yet come up with an appropriate solution for this problem. Last weekend, the residents of the south were frightened by a similar sight: kites flying across the border from Gaza. This is not a joke by any means; on the contrary, it is quite frightening. In the past, kites entering Israel from Gaza have led to tragedies. This Shabbos, four kites flew across the border and sparked panic among the residents of the Gaza envelope, who have been living in a state of extreme tension since October 7. One of the kites bore an inscription in Arabic: “We will never let up.” The army announced that they are monitoring the situation closely and are aware of the public’s sensitivities and the detrimental effects of these events on the residents’ sense of security. At the same time, the security establishment is seeking to lower the tension by putting the situation in perspective. Initial probes indicate that the kites were launched by children and youths, who were obviously operating under orders from Hamas. Nevertheless, at this time they have not been found to be carrying explosives or any other potentially harmful substances.

Airport Strike Sparks Chaos

As usual, I have much to report to you. We have agreed in the past that this country creates headline news at a dizzying pace, and there are many recent events that deserve to be covered in this space. For instance, several roshei yeshivos traveled from Eretz Yisroel this week to Mexico and Panama to raise funds for Keren HaTorah. Another major story was the workers’ strike that shut down Ben Gurion Airport last week. Just imagine the scene: Hundreds of thousands of people were scheduled to fly out of the country or to arrive that day, and the workers’ union suddenly decided to suspend their services as part of their battle against the Airports Authority. Suddenly, the workers refused to load baggage onto departing planes or to retrieve baggage from arriving planes, which quickly resulted in a shutdown of the airport, with no flights landing or taking off. A plane operated by Air France, which had only recently resumed its flights to Israel, circled above the airport for a short time and then returned to France without landing in Israel. Aside from the terrible damage to the economy that resulted from the strike, it caused terrible suffering and hardship for tens of thousands of people. This story generated such a fierce backlash that the prime minister decided to expel the chairman of the workers’ union from the Likud party, which is no small matter, given that he has been a member of the Likud for 40 years.

In other news, the Supreme Court decided this week to overturn the government’s decision to shut down the Galei Tzahal radio station. I am not an admirer of Galei Tzahal, to say the least; it sometimes sounds like an anti-Israeli radio station, and perhaps even an anti-Semitic one. But I am equally opposed to the judges of the Supreme Court, who have demonstrated once again that they have no qualms about overturning a decision of the elected government.

If I were to delve into the details of all the judicial machinations that took place this week, I would never reach the end of the story. For instance, the attorney general sent a letter to the prime minister warning him not to use military helicopters for political purposes. Now, she might be technically correct; however, every one of her letters and directives reeks of political bias. She also warned the government ministers to refrain from making any substantive decisions at this time due to the upcoming election. Nevertheless, when she herself is concerned, the attorney general sees nothing wrong with doing as she pleases. This week, she published yet another letter calling on all the state authorities to intensify their persecution of lomdei Torah. This is pure madness. That letter deserves to be quoted at length; it is both fascinating and highly revealing of what is actually taking place here. Perhaps I will do so at the next opportunity.

On that note, another yeshiva bochur, in this case a grandson of a distinguished rov in Bnei Brak, was arrested on Thursday night, which triggered considerable unrest. On Sunday night, yet another bochur was arrested while traveling to Yeshivas Kfar Chassidim in Rechasim. And while there is nothing that can be done about this phenomenon, it is still completely infuriating.

Egged Violates Shabbos; El Al Does Not

This Shabbos, protests were held against the Egged bus company for violating Shabbos. The news reported that dozens of people gathered to demonstrate at the entrance to Yerushalayim, but I heard a firsthand account from my son, who came to our home in Givat Shaul from the Sorotzkin neighborhood for seudah shlishis. He explained that the buses arrived in Yerushalayim from Haifa, and that an Egged supervisor decided to prevent conflict by stopping the buses at the first traffic light in Yerushalayim and instructing the passengers to disembark there so that they would not encounter the protestors waiting at the second traffic light. I explained to my son that public transportation operates in Haifa on Shabbos as part of the status quo that has existed since the state was founded. That is the reason that buses from Haifa traveled to Yerushalayim on Shabbos.

In contrast, let me tell you a story about El Al: Last Thursday night, a flight that was scheduled to leave New York for Tel Aviv was canceled. The flight was originally supposed to take off at 10:30 p.m. in New York and to land in Israel several hours before Shabbos, but the takeoff was delayed, and as concerns grew that the plane might not land in Israel before Shabbos, the airline decided to cancel the flight altogether.

Another subject that I would like to cover at greater length is the potential removal of the IDF checkpoint on Route 433, the highway that runs from Yerushalayim to the Shfela via the Shilat Junction and serves the cities of Modiin and Modiin Illit. The army is weighing the possibility of eliminating the checkpoint in both directions, which would ostensibly save a lot of time for the thousands of people who use the road every day. (Many people from the Modiin area commute on a daily basis to Yerushalayim.) And in case you are wondering how the army will continue providing security without the checkpoint, they claim that there are other means of ensuring that the road is not used by scheming terrorists.

But let us put these stories aside for the time being. For the remainder of this week’s column, I will focus primarily on the election and events in the political realm.

Eizenkot Demands Shin Bet Security

Let’s begin with what may seem like a small matter of curiosity but might actually be a subject of much greater import. Gadi Eizenkot made a demand that is causing Prime Minister Netanyahu (and the chareidim as well) to lose a good deal of sleep: He wants to be assigned Shin Bet bodyguards. His reasoning is simple: There is a chance that he will become the next prime minister after the election, and he feels that it would be appropriate for him to be assigned guards to protect him. In fact, unnamed sources in his orbit have been quoted as claiming that Eizenkot has already received threats to his life. In truth, however, there is a more devious reason for this request: When a person appears on the street surrounded by bodyguards and Shin Bet cars, flanked by muscular men with sunglasses and earpieces, it makes an impression on anyone who sees him. This scene creates the sense that he has already become the prime minister and that voting for him is merely a matter of confirming an established fact. And that is precisely what Eizenkot hopes to accomplish.

But let’s take a look at the real question: Is there a realistic chance that Gadi Eizenkot will become the next prime minister of Israel? That depends on whom you ask, and it depends which polls you consult. Some polls have shown Eizenkot’s party, Yashar, surpassing Likud’s performance in the election by one or two mandates. That, however, doesn’t yet guarantee Eizenkot the position of premier, since the determining factor is the balance between the blocs. Even if Eizenkot garners more votes than the Likud, if the Likud passes the threshold of 61 mandates together with the chareidim and the right, then Eizenkot’s electoral performance will be of no avail to him. Moreover, Lieberman has already announced that if the “bloc of change,” as he put it, receives more than 61 mandates even without the Arabs, then the candidate for prime minister wouldn’t necessarily be the person who heads the largest party (i.e., Eizenkot). Rather, he insisted, it should be the one with the most experience—by which Lieberman meant to refer to himself.

Eizenkot’s request for security was denied by the Shin Bet, which claimed that there have been no threats to his life and there is no reason to provide him with bodyguards at this time. The immediate reaction from some quarters was to scoff at the response. Of course, they said, the Shin Bet is headed by Zini, who was appointed by Netanyahu, and his decision was politicized rather than professional. But even before the echoes of derision had died down, it was revealed that the decision hadn’t been made by the Shin Bet at all. Instead, these matters fall within the purview of the chairman of the Central Elections Committee, Justice Noam Sohlberg. It was Sohlberg, not Zini, who decided to reject Eizenkot’s request for bodyguards. Which meant that the critics who trumpeted it as a sign of right-wing bias were forced to eat their proverbial hats.

Binyomin Netanyahu asked Zini to do what he could legally to protect Eizenkot.

The Winter Party—A Threat to the Right?

The next anecdote may seem like a fairly trivial matter at first glance, but it is actually an issue of great substance.

Ofer Winter is a decorated military officer who happens to wear a yarmulke. He first found himself in the spotlight when it was revealed that the army had decided to block his path to the top of the military echelon, even though he seemed guaranteed to rise through the ranks. The chief of staff at the time claimed that Ofer was too “messianic” and wasn’t an appropriate officer for a secular army. Since that time, Winter has become a vocal critic of the army and a source of fear and intimidation to IDF officers both past and present. In addition, as soon as the election was announced, he found himself in high demand, with the Likud and Netanyahu pursuing him from one side while Betzalel Smotrich and his Religious Zionism party vied with even more intensity to include him on their own list. Winter recently announced that he had decided to launch an independent party. He has already decided on his running mates; unfortunately, that list consists of several national-religious figures who are particularly militant about the draft of chareidim. The polls indicate that he is likely to cross the electoral threshold, albeit only by the slimmest of margins.

What could be bad about this, you ask? Let me explain. For one thing, if Winter does not make it across the electoral threshold, it could be very bad; it will mean that four mandates’ worth of right-wing votes will simply disappear down the drain. A large number of voters who would otherwise have voted for Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, or the Likud will vote for Winter, and if he does not make it into the Knesset, those votes will be lost. And that could easily tip the scales in favor of the left.

In case you are thinking that this sounds like an unlikely scenario, I will reveal to you that the same thing has occurred in the past. In 1992, a national election led to the formation of an extremely narrow government. The Labor party received 44 mandates in that election., Meretz took twelve, and Shas received six. This added up to a total of 61 votes, and those three parties formed the governing coalition. That government, headed by Yitzchok Rabin, was responsible for passing the Oslo Accords. While the Shas party did not support the agreement, the Arabs provided a security net of sorts and lent it their support. The Oslo Accords passed in the Knesset by a vote of 61 to 59; if even one of the MKs who supported it had voted against it, the agreement would not have passed. This was also the election when the electoral threshold was raised from 1 percent to 1.5 percent. One of the parties that ran in that election was the right-wing Techiya party, which received 1.2 percent of the vote and therefore failed to cross the new threshold. The result was that tens of thousands of votes went to waste. This made a world of difference: If Techiya had crossed the threshold, Rabin would never have been able to form a government. In other words, by running in the Knesset election, the Techiya party indirectly led to a left-wing government and the passage of the Oslo Accords. The trauma of that election is seared into Israel’s collective memory, and everyone fears a similar result if Ofer Winter does not pass the threshold and causes the right to lose many thousands of precious votes.

In this case, in fact, the fears are based on another potential scenario as well. Even if Ofer Winter crosses the threshold, his presence on the playing field might siphon enough votes from Religious Zionism to cause it to fall short of the crucial minimum, since the polls are showing that party hovering around the threshold as well. This, too, is a scenario in which Winter might cause the political right to lose several mandates, precisely at a time when the outcome of the election will almost certainly be determined by a few isolated mandates. Rumor has it that Netanyahu is prepared to offer Winter a reserved spot on the Likud slate (see below for more on that subject) to prevent him from obstructing the right’s path to victory. Alternatively, he might press for a union between Smotrich and Winter, just as he pushed for Ben-Gvir and Smotrich to run jointly in the previous election.

Likud Primaries Reveal Bibi’s Influence and Its Limits

Last Monday, the Likud party held its primaries. This was the final primary election among the parties that held them. There are some parties, of course, that do not have primaries, most notably the more dictatorial parties: Lapid and Bennett’s party, B’Yachad, and Avigdor Lieberman’s party, Yisrael Beiteinu. In these parties, the party leaders make up the Knesset lists on their own. On the other side of the spectrum are the chareidi parties, in which the candidates are picked by the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah (in the case of United Torah Judaism) or the Moetzet Chachmei HaTorah (in the case of Shas). All the other parties hold primary elections. By now, primaries have been conducted in all the other parties, and the final picture is unclear only in Ben-Gvir’s party. The remaining parties’ slates are more or less clear.

More or less, that is, because the head of every party has the right to insert candidates of his own in several reserved slots on the party’s list, and the identities of those candidates haven’t necessarily been decided yet. In one case, a party leader chose to forgo his right to reserved slots: Yair Golan of the Democrats party has long been promising Einav Zangkauer (the mother of former hostage Matan Zangkauer) a spot on his party’s list in the event that she sides with the left. Zangkauer has held up her end of the deal by attacking Netanyahu in the ugliest and most extreme—and, in my view, the most atrocious—fashion. However, when the time came for Golan to make good on his promise, he informed her that he had decided not to make use of his right to assign reserved slots on the party list. This story was fairly damaging to Golan’s public image, which suffered from his failure to honor his own commitment; however, he certainly managed to rid himself of a headache that would otherwise have accompanied him for four years.

In the Likud party, Netanyahu has been insisting all along on receiving eight reserved slots for candidates of his choice in realistic places on the party list. That is a very large number of slots, especially given the large number of ministers and Knesset members vying for a limited number of places on the list. But while his demand encountered resistance from within the party, Netanyahu emerged victorious; his request was granted, and everyone is now waiting to see whom he chooses to fill those slots. I have already mentioned the American-Israeli businessman Oren Dobronsky, who is one of Netanyahu’s candidates of choice. For some reason, Netanyahu is very excited about his inclusion. Dobronsky himself, meanwhile, is probably less enthusiastic; in the event that he is elected to the Knesset, he will be required to give up his American citizenship and will undoubtedly have to pay a huge sum in taxes to the American government for that purpose.

The reason Netanyahu insisted on receiving the reserved slots is that he wants to make sure the Likud’s Knesset list will appeal to as broad a range of voters as possible. He is afraid for the list to seem too hawkish, too capitalist, or too populist. He wants a diverse list, and he is absolutely right about that.

For a while, people in Netanyahu’s inner circle have been aware that he was hoping to entice Gabi Ashkenazi, a former chief of staff, to join his party. Naturally, Ashkenazi would serve as a counterbalance to Gadi Eizenkot, another former chief of staff, and would fill the void in the Likud party’s ranks due to the absence of a security-focused candidate. The aforementioned Ofer Winter is likewise one of the candidates being considered for Netanyahu’s reserved slots. Of course, there is also Ron Dermer, the man who is responsible for the good relations between Israel and America—or, perhaps more accurately, between Trump and Netanyahu. When those relations are not good, it has nothing to do with Dermer. Former minister Yuval Steinitz is also on the list of candidates whom Netanyahu would like to add to the Likud slate. Today, Steinitz heads a defense technology company.

Whom Will Netanyahu Pick?

Netanyahu hasn’t yet revealed his final picks for the reserved slots, other than three Likud ministers—Defense Minister Yisroel Katz, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, and Housing Minister Chaim Katz. Before announcing his choices to the public, he wanted to wait for the results of the Likud party’s primaries. As the party takes on a certain character, Netanyahu will attempt to balance it with the candidates he adds to his reserved slots, ensuring the party’s diversity and broad appeal.

On Tuesday night last week, one day after the primaries, the results were announced. According to all political commentators, Netanyahu should be satisfied with the results, not only because most of his recommendations were clearly accepted at the ballot box but also because the primaries demonstrated that he wields a large measure of control over the party. On the other hand, his dominion isn’t complete. There are two members of the Likud whom Netanyahu wanted to remove from the playing field but managed to find their way onto the party’s list despite his opposition—MK David Bittan and MK Tally Gottliv.

Bittan has long served as an internal opposition of sorts to Netanyahu within the Likud party, and Netanyahu considers Gottliv to be a liability to the Likud. Nevertheless, it seems that the Likud’s voters did not agree with his assessment. On the other hand, Nir Barkat, who seemed poised to defeat Netanyahu not long ago, fell to a relatively low spot on the party list. At the same time, a number of Netanyahu loyalists also found themselves low on the list. Four current ministers and nine current members of the Knesset were pushed down to slots in which they do not stand a realistic chance of being elected; it is expected that they will be sent home after the election. There are only two women in the realistic slots—Miri Regev, followed by Tally Gottliv. Therefore, Netanyahu is bound to use his reserved slots to add women to the list.

According to the polls, there were three main contenders for the top spots on the list: Knesset speaker Amir Ochana, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, and MK Tally Gottliv. Gottliv ultimately took the twelfth place in the primaries, which placed her in the 20th spot on the Knesset list. The highest slot went to Minister Eli Cohen, who was followed by Ochana and Levin. Cohen’s success was a major surprise, which seemed to indicate that his habit of attending bar mitzvahs and the like did not go to waste. Netanyahu’s reaction was fairly predictable: “The prime minister is extremely pleased with the results of the primaries. The new Likud list reflects renewal and the integration of new forces at the top of the list.”

The reactions from the left were equally predictable and quite antagonistic. Golan mocked the Likud primaries as a contest for spots on the sinking Titanic, insinuating that the party is heading toward its downfall.

The ministers who were pushed out of realistic spots on the list were Zeev Elkin (Gideon Saar’s partner), May Golan, Avi Dichter (a former head of the Shin Bet), and Idit Silman, who famously defected from Bennett’s party and created a massive upheaval at the time. It is possible that Netanyahu will reward some of them by placing them in reserved slots higher up on the list. The members of the Knesset who will ostensibly not be present in the next Knesset are Nissim Vaturi, Chanoch Milwidsky (presently chairman of the Finance Committee), Avichai Boaron, Amit Halevi, Katy Sheetrit, Eti Attiya, Ariel Kallner, Sasson Guetta, and Shalom Danino. Most of these Knesset members have supported the chareidi community at every possible opportunity, including in the fight over the draft law. Once again, however, it is possible that Netanyahu will reward a couple of them by placing them in more realistic spots. Boaz Bismut, another Likud member who is valued by the chareidi community, has ended up on the border, at least in the event that the Likud receives 23 to 25 mandates. Of course, it is quite possible that the results of the election will take us all by surprise.

Hendel and Tropper, Erdan and Edelstein

But we haven’t nearly finished our overview of the political playing field; there are many more parties to discuss. One is the new political party led by Yoaz Hendel and Chili Tropper. The party is meant to appeal to reservists, who are ostensibly represented by Yoaz Hendel, who left the Knesset to serve in the reserves in the Gaza envelope. Chili Tropper wears a yarmulke and is meant to bring votes from the right. This party is performing beneath the electoral threshold but is close enough to the minimum that it does have a chance of entering the Knesset. What will happen if they make it into the Knesset? Hendel claims that he is not opposed to Netanyahu but he is indeed opposed to the chareidim. In his own words, “Our mission is only to establish a Zionist government, not a Netanyahu-led government with chareidim. Therefore, we will not complete 61 mandates, not even with the opposition and the Arab parties. We will only establish a Zionist government.” When he was asked why he ruled out the possibility of sitting in a government with the chareidi parties, Hendel said, “The chareidi parties are harming our ability to win a war. We are not succeeding in meeting our goals, and people are putting in hundreds of days of service at the age of exemption. As long as the chareidim are part of the government, it will be impossible to pass a draft law.”

Another new party is led by Gilad Erdan and Yuli Edelstein. Erdan is a former Likud minister and Israeli ambassador to the UN and to Washington. Today, he is the global president of Magen David Adom, Israel’s national emergency medical service. And they have a single agenda—the IDF draft. They would like to see the Likud party establish a government together with them, Tropper, and Benny Gantz (whom I haven’t written about yet), as well as Gadi Eizenkot and possibly Bennett, Lapid, and Lieberman as well. The main thing, as far as they are concerned, is for the chareidim to be excluded.

And that still doesn’t complete the picture. I haven’t yet written about events within Shas and United Torah Judaism, and I can assure you that there is plenty to discuss. The Shas party was the first to hold a rally opening the election season, and the party has already introduced its slogan for this election: “Derech emunah bacharti—I have chosen the path of faith.” As for the composition of the party list, it will probably remain mostly unchanged, with the exception of Moshe Arbel and Yaakov Margi, who have announced that they will not join the Knesset in its next term. I wouldn’t be surprised if Aryeh Deri decides similarly that he is not interested in being a member of the Knesset and chooses to settle for remaining the party chairman. In Agudas Yisroel, the rebbes will make their own decisions; the rebbes of Ger, Vizhnitz, Belz, and Sanz will choose their respective representatives, while Meir Porush will undoubtedly continue representing the Shlomei Emunim faction. The Degel HaTorah representatives will be chosen by the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah, primarily by Rav Dov Landau and Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch. Some voices in the public have begun calling for the existing representatives, or at least some of them, to be replaced, but I doubt that the rabbonim will pay much heed to those calls.

The Benefits of Giving a Brocha

I have given so much space in this column to political news that I’ve had to omit many other stories, some of them quite significant—such as the preparations that are underway for tens of thousands of people to travel to Uman, or the discovery of the remains of Yehuda (Yekusiel Yehuda Nachman) Katz, a soldier in the IDF who has been listed as missing for the past 44 years. Katz was killed in the Battle of Sultan Yacoub in Lebanon along with two other soldiers, Zechariah Baumel and Tzvi Feldman. Amazingly, his sister purchased a kever for him on Har Hazeisim just a few days before his remains were retrieved; he was interred in the newly purchased kever this past Friday. When she decided to purchase the kever, Katz’s sister asked me to help her receive a discount, and I contacted many officials in an effort to assist her. All of them scoffed at the request. “Does she really still believe that his body will be found after 44 years have passed?” I was asked repeatedly. Well, a week later, his remains were recovered. Bli neder, I will write about this story at greater length next week.

In closing, let me move on to a Torah thought. My son, a yungerman and maggid shiur, told me this week that he had encountered a distinguished man in his eighties in a shul in Bayit Vegan who regularly shares divrei Torah with others around him. This man, Rav Michoel Sternfeld, considers himself a talmid of Rav Dov Tzvi Karelenstein, under whose tutelage he learned in the Grodno Yeshiva in Ashdod fifty years ago (“during the lifetime of the Baba Meir,” he often adds). Rav Sternfeld revealed that he has made many laminated copies of a letter from Rav Yechezkel Levenstein, the renowned mashgiach, and has distributed it to others. The letter was written in Mir in the year 1937, following the passing of Rav Yeruchom Levovitz, when Rav Levenstein returned to Mir from Petach Tikvah. Not long after that, the yeshiva and its talmidim fled to Vilna and then to Shanghai; Rav Levenstein went on to accompany some of the talmidim to America, but he decided before long to return to Eretz Yisroel, fearing that he would lose his spiritual sensitivities. He spent a period of time in the Mir yeshiva in Yerushalayim before taking a position as the mashgiach of Ponovezh in Bnei Brak.

In his letter, Rav Levenstein wrote, “I received your letter, and in exchange for your blessings, you can be confident that Hashem will give you good things, as in the posuk, ‘I will bless those who bless you.’ This is a very worthwhile trade: A person gives a few kind words to another, and in exchange, Hashem will bless him with a true outpouring of blessings. How great is the success of a man who has acquired the virtue of loving others. He will always receive Hashem’s blessings, for ‘one with a good eye will be blessed.’ I, too, send my blessings to you; may Hashem grant you a gmar chasimah tovah and a year of success and peace for all of Klal Yisroel, and ourselves among them. My friend, it is good to give encouragement to others as much as possible.”

In other words, Rav Levenstein echoed the fact that wishing others well can evoke many brachos.