It was on a Thursday morning when I remembered that it was Moshe Rabbeinu’s yahrzeit . And so I decided before heading to the kitchen and starting my preparations for Shabbos, to first light a candle for Moshe Rabbeinu. I usually don’t think too much about lighting candles for any one. I’m not a person that keeps head with all those things and the truth is I hardly ever light a candle at a yahrzeit.
And yet for some reason on this specific morning I remembered that it was Moshe Rabbeinu’s yahrzeit and even lit a candle. What happened next was even more surprising to me. I found myself sitting down at our dining room table starting to pray. First I started to just pray and then I started to pray and cry and then I was completely overwhelmed. I started to cry and beg, and I said to Hashem, please keep Am Yisrael safe, do it for the sake of Moshe Rabbeinu. If not for Moshe Rabbeinu, we would not exist today. He was willing to give himself up completely, for us. And all this as a human being. Hashem you are our creator, please give yourself completely for us, as Moshe Rabbeinu was willing to do for us, as today is his yahrzeit, in his zechus and keep Am Yisrael safe. I had no reason whatsoever to cry and beg, everything was fine by me. In our extended family no one was sick or in danger. I also didn’t know about any friends or neighbors who needed heavenly help.
And then it was all gone and I woke up like from a dream and I could not understand what had just happened to me and why.
I continued to my kitchen for my Shabbos preparations, still wondering what it was that I had experienced. After a few hours, immersed in my cooking, I completely forgot about the morning experience.
Later at night I got a phone call from my younger sister that lives up north in Israel. She wanted to talk to me about an incident that happened between us, which she felt she had never really asked forgiveness for. I couldn’t remember anything and it took me some time till I understood what she was talking about. Then when she mentioned some details, all of a sudden it all came back to me. In my heart quietly I thought to myself yes I was really waiting for an apology and I’m really happy she’s finally approaching me about this. So we had a very good talk and we forgave each other from the depth of our hearts and with that we finished our phone call.
The next time I spoke to my sister was the next morning when she informed me that a fire broke out in her house and burnt it all down. She said that the fireman told her that if they had come a minute later she would have lost all of her six children that were sleeping in the house.
The same night their next door neighbor came back from hospital after his wife gave birth to a baby boy. His daughter stayed up and was waiting for her father to come back. When he came back she told him that she was smelling smoke and she is not sure where it’s coming from. The father checked their house and when he saw that they were fine he just wanted to go to sleep. At the last moment he decided to let the fire department know about the smell. The name of this neighbor is Moshe.
It took me a few months to make the connection between my lighting of the candle at Moshe Rabbeinu yahrzeit and how my sister was saved from a certain catastrophe. In the merit of Moshe Rabbeinu and his yahrzeit my sister and I forgave each other at the right time and the terrible verdict was removed. My sister told her neighbor, Moshe, that on the night of their son’s birth they actually gave birth to six more children by saving her six children. This was Moshe Rabbeinu’s manifestation, that Am Yisrael will stay alive.
