Tate's talking - We just have to listen...

Tevet 16, 5769, 1/12/2009

Tate's talking - We just have to listen...

Tate's talking to us. We just have to listen to what He's saying. Tate's talking to us.
We have a doctor who lives here in Hebron. Born in Iran, he's a unique personality. His specialty is respiratory illnesses, lungs, and the like. But despite the fact that his diploma doesn’t' say so, he's also a super psychiatrist.
A little while ago I left 'my hole' where I spend many hours of my day, to take a stroll outside in the cool crisp Hebron air. The good doctor Ya'akov was sitting on a step trying different keys in various locks he had stored in a box. He smiled seeing me, and we talked a little. Mostly him, telling me some stories.
"I was working in Beer Sheva. There were a few rockets that hit. I received a phone call from one of my older patients.
'Doctor, I won't be coming to see you today.'
'Why not, what's the problem?'
'A Kassam him, right next to our building.' Now there's a telephone pole blocking the entrance, with exposed high-tension wires on the ground. We can't get out.'
'Was anyone hurt or killed?'
'No, thank G-d.'
'Mamale you can come to me whenever you want, with an appointment or without. I'll take you whenever you show up.'"
"David," Dr. Ya'akov said to me, "Tate's talking to us."

"Of course," I answered, "wasn't it that way here in Hebron for two and a half years?"
The doctor growled, "Shooting from Abu Sneneh and Harat a'Shech, may their names be blotted out."
"Did you know that I made the 'Bentched Gomel' (recited the blessing for thanksgiving, said after being involved in a life-threatening situation)?"
"When, what happened?"
"It was a few months ago. I was working at a clinic in Ashkelon and decided to take a break. I told my secretary that I was going out for lunch. I walked down the street to a different mall and bought myself something to eat in a restaurant there. A while later I got a call from my wife:
'Ya'akov, where are you?'
'What kind of question is that? I'm at work?'
She nearly came thru the receiver. 'No, where are you, exactly? Are you in the mall?'
'No,' I replied, 'I’m down the road at the other mall.'
'Your clinic, it went. It's gone.'

I went back, went upstairs, and from my office looked up straight into the sky, thru a huge hole in the roof of the building. I couldn't believe what I saw. And the doctor in the room next to me, he had just gone outside to smoke a cigarette. Don't tell anyone, but a cigarette saved his life.
And then I decided to measure where the rocket had exploded. Quickly I realized that had it hit about seven meters from the actual point of impact the roof would have come down on everyone inside the mall. Hundreds of tons of concrete and metal.  At least 300 people would have been killed.
So a few days later I recited the special blessing said when your life has been Divinely saved."
"David," Dr. Ya'akov said to me, "Tate's talking to us, maybe not verbally, but He's talking to us. All the time. Today, a rocket hit an apartment in Ashkelon, with two girls inside. They managed to get into their 'protected room' before it exploded. Otherwise…. David, Tate's talking to us. We just have to listen to what He's saying. Tate's talking to us."

(For those who don't know, 'Tate' in Yiddish means Father and is often used as a synonym for G-d.)