A chance meeting in a butcher shop and accounts of world-wide Tehilim campaigns brought a ray of hope to the father of one of the abducted hostages.
A Kiryat Malachi resident told her friends a heartwarming story that happened to her recently, after starting to say a kapitol tehilim for one of the hostages. The booklet with the kapitol tehilim and name of the hostage was part of a massive 100,000 booklet tehilim campaign arranged by Rabbi Yosef Gerlitzky, head shliach of Tel Aviv, for the safe return of all the hostages.
The woman shared:“I organized a Challa Bake at my home the day before yesterday to daven for the safe return of the hostages. A lovely girl from Chabad in Kiryat Malachi sent me pamphlets of tehilim to recite for the hostages’ return. Every participant was given a pamphlet and they all recited the particular chapter corresponding to the particular age of the hostage. The pamphlets were taken home by those who wished who wished to continue davening for the hostages’ return.
“One of the girls went to the supermarket the following day,” she continued. “At the meat store, she was waiting in line when the butcher asked for her pardon and moved away for a little while to speak with someone while giving him a strong hug. He inquired about his well-being and whether anything new had happened. The man claimed that three weeks ago, they got a sign indicating he was still alive, and that was it. The friend overheard the conversation and asked who it was. The man identified himself as the father of one of the hostages
When she heard the name of the hostage she shuddered. She walks up to the man, asks him if he is the abducted child’s father, pulls out the pamphlet she was given from her purse, and says she has been davening for his son since yesterday.
“The father starts crying,” the woman continued, “he was unaware that his son was being davened for and that these pamphlets even existed. How likely is it that, the day following, she happens to run across the father of the captive, for whom she had been praying, while waiting in line at the butcher’s shop at the supermarket? Without realizing it, she was selected to be the angel.”
Rabbi Gerlitzky created these little pamphlets that feature an image of one of the kidnapped individuals and contain kapital chof as well as the abducted person’s kapital. “We made the decision to start this effort in accordance with the minhag set by the Baal Shem Tov that every person recite their kapitol tehilim every day,” declared Rabbi Gerlitzky.
“To ensure that thousands of people would recite tehilim for each abductee every day and at all times, we printed over 100,000 copies of the pamphlets based on the precise age of the respective hostage,” said Rabbi Gerlitzky.
How do we get one of these pamphlets?