The Fire of Faith
During one of the days of the hilula for the tzaddik, Rabbi Chaim Pinto, zy”a, a man sat down next to me, in order to share a l’chaim in memory of the tzaddik. This man had a brother who lived in Geneva, Switzerland, with whom I was acquainted. I took the opportunity to ask after this brother and offered the blessing, “May Hashem protect your brother from destruction by fire.” The man didn’t put too much thought on the wording of my berachah and simply replied, “Amen.”
The next day, he came to me in a most excited state. He related that precisely at the time that I had given this blessing, his brother was on the second floor of his house, with his entire family. Suddenly, they smelled fire. Hurrying to check the source, they found, to their distress, the entire lower floor consumed by flames. All of their possessions were destroyed.
Precious moments passed until the firemen came to put out the devastating fire. By the time they arrived, nothing was left, except for a picture of Rabbi Chaim Pinto and a pair of tefillin which I had once given this man.
In a most supernatural way, the entire family was saved from the fire. They immediately resolved to reinforce their Torah and mitzvah performance, as a token of thanks for their deliverance.
It is most wondrous how the words of the blessing came from my mouth. I had no idea that the family was in danger, so many thousands of miles away. It is definitely in the merit of the tzaddik’s hilula that the family was rescued.
