At a Yud Beis Tammuz farbrengen in 770, freed Gaza hostage Yosef Chaim Ohana and his father, Avi Ohana, shared their gratitude to Hashem, describing the open miracles they experienced during Yosef Chaim’s captivity and the deep connection they felt to the Rebbe throughout the ordeal.

Yosef Chaim, who was abducted from the Nova festival, began by saying that although he is often invited to speak, this time felt entirely different.

“Usually, when I come to places where people invite me to speak, I thank them for inviting me and giving me the privilege,” he said. “But today, the one who truly invited me is the Rebbe, and I want to thank the Rebbe for inviting me to his home to speak.”

He said he did not want to focus mainly on the suffering he endured, but on “what the Creator of the world revealed to me in such a deep and dark place.”

Yosef Chaim recalled how, after hours of helping evacuate wounded people, he found himself hiding under trees with nine other civilians. Terrorists surrounded them at point-blank range and began shooting.

“I was in the middle of the group,” he said. “We held hands, closed our eyes, and said our final Shema Yisroel. Some of our parents were even on the phone and heard it. Everyone around me was murdered. I remained alive in the center. The Creator of the world decided to leave me alive.”

Only later did he begin to understand what had happened.

“If I wanted to attribute this insane reality, that I remained alive against all odds, I had to believe there is hashgacha pratis,” he said. “The moment I said, ‘Creator of the world, I believe I am alive because You choose to keep me alive, and not because it is simply a coincidence,’ I began to see the miracles.”

One of the most striking moments he shared took place on Chanukah in the tunnels. The hostages generally did not know the dates, but that year, they learned through a radio that the first night of Chanukah had arrived. Yosef Chaim went to a dark area of the tunnel where he would go when he needed time alone.

“I said, ‘Creator of the world, You are making miracle after miracle for me. Give me a sign that You are with me here on this first night,’” he recalled.

He tried to connect a makeshift LED light that usually had eight bulbs. That night, only one lit up.

“It was as if it was flickering to me, and I felt that the Creator of the world was with me. I sang Chanukah songs, ate something small that I had managed to save, and celebrated the Yom Tov.”

Growing up attending a Chabad school, Yosef Chaim learned that every person must find their shlichus in the world. But in captivity, he discovered something deeper.

“They can take everything from you. They can take from you the ability to choose what to eat and when to use the bathroom. But no one can take from you the choice to be a Jew, to believe in Hashem, and to choose to do good.”

In the tunnels, he said, he came to understand that “it is not we who choose the shlichus, but the shlichus that chooses us.”

His shlichus there, he explained, was to bring peace, love, optimism, and tefila among the other hostages, even under the most unimaginable conditions.

“I was there with five other hostages,” he said. “When I understood that even if I remain there all my life, every day there has value, I understood that I cannot hold myself together and suffer only because maybe one day I will be freed. I do not decide for the Creator of the world where to be. He decided that I should be there in the tunnel.”

Under those conditions, Ahavas Yisroel became outstanding.

“We were five or six people most of the time, and everyone around us hated us and wanted our harm,” he said. “We were the only ones who had to want good for each other. At times when I was suffered from hunger, if I managed to share a little food with a friend, my own pain became lighter.”

Inviting his father to speak, Yosef Chaim said that “the emunah of my father is what, until today, gives strength to me and to so many people around him.”

Avi Ohana began by calling the happening in 770 a miracle.

“What we are seeing now is krias Yam Suf, techiyas hameisim,” he said. “If the Rebbe had not acted in Shamayim and turned over worlds, we would not have merited seeing him now.”

The event was the closing of a circle for Avi Ohana. A month after Yosef Chaim was taken captive, Avi had come to 770, joined a farbrengen, and davened intensely. At that time, he made a neder.

“I said that if he comes back alive, with Hashem’s help, I promise I will come here with him to give thanks and recite Nishmas,” he said.

Avi shared his own long connection with the Rebbe, recalling how as a teenager in Kfar Chabad, he came to the Rebbe in Tishrei 5751. At that time, his father was critically ill after open-heart surgery. The Rebbe instructed that his father’s tefillin and mezuzos be checked.

“The tefillin of my father were empty,” Avi said. “There was nothing there. And the mezuzah in my father’s room, the word ‘levavcha’ was erased, and he had undergone heart surgery.”

After the Rebbe’s brachos, his father, who had been given only hours to live, lived another ten years.

When Yosef Chaim was taken hostage, Avi returned to 770 and the Ohel. For 23 days, he said, he poured out his heart.

“I said, ‘Rebbe, my son is not my son. My son is your son. I give him over into your hands. My son is not in the hands of Hamas. My son is in your hands.’”

After returning home, he begged for a sign that his son was alive. He then remembered a dollar he had received from the Rebbe 33 years earlier, one of 19 dollars he had received during that Tishrei. When he checked the date on which the Rebbe had given him that specific dollar, he saw it had been October 7, 1990.

“I looked at the dollar,” Avi said, “and I saw that the Rebbe was telling me, on Yud-Ches Tishrei, ‘Yosef chai,’ Yosef is alive, and he will return alive.”

From that time onward, throughout the two years of captivity, Avi felt the Rebbe with him.

“From the moment I left the Ohel after 23 days, I felt for two years that the Rebbe was standing right here next to me,” he said. “I felt the spirit of the Rebbe, I felt the Rebbe with every step I took.”

He described how even government officials had no natural explanation for the hostages’ release. He recalled a meeting with Gal Hirsch, Israel’s coordinator for captives and missing persons, who warned that freeing the final young hostages could take ten or fifteen years. Avi replied that according to nature he was right, but “there is the Creator of the world.”

After Yosef Chaim was freed, Avi said, Hirsch approached him and told him, “Shir lamaalos, esa einai el heharim, mei’ayin yavo ezri.” Avi asked what he meant, and Hirsch replied that the help had come from a place no one understood. “It came only from Hashem, as you told me a few months ago,” he said.

Avi also shared a remarkable memory from before October 7. On Sukkos, Yosef Chaim was leaving the house, and before going out, he asked to bentch lulav and esrog so he would not forget. As Yosef Chaim held the daled minim, Avi placed his hand on his son’s head and said words he did not understand at the time. “In the merit of the mitzvah of the daled minim, may Hashem save you from death,” he said.

Two years later, on Hoshana Rabba morning, right after being released from captivity, Yosef Chaim held a set of daled minim that his father brought for him and recited the bracha with Shehecheyanu.

“Hashem showed everyone what the power of emunah is,” Avi said.

At the conclusion of his remarks, Avi said that although he could continue telling stories for days, the main point was the overwhelming gratitude.

“For me, this is a historic moment,” he said. “It is an eternal moment. I have no doubt that the Rebbe and the Frierdiker Rebbe are here now.”

Fulfilling the promise he had made, Avi turned to Yosef Chaim and said they would now recite Nishmas together to thank Hashem for the miracles we all merited to see.

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