Segulah Sent to Kidnapped Families

By COLlive reporter

Wine and coins that were given by the Rebbe over 2 decades ago were sent to Israel to the families of the three Jewish teens that remain kidnapped by terrorists.

Nachum Markowitz, an activist in Crown Heights, said he sent a bottle and a coin to the homes of Naftali Frankel, 16, in Nof Ayalon, Gilad Shaer, 16, in Talmon, and Eyal Yifrah, 19, in Elad.

They went missing on Thursday, 12 June 2014, on their way home from Yeshiva, and have not been heard from since. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is holding Hamas responsible.

“I felt an inner urge to send the families wine that was on the holy table of the Rebbe during the farbrengen as a segulah for success and an immediate release,” Markowitz told COLlive.com.

He said that he doubted at first if the idea was a good one. So he traveled to the Rebbe’s Ohel gravesite in Cambria Heights, Queens, on Monday, June 16, to ask for a blessing.

Following reciting a prayer, he sat down to learn the Rebbe’s teachings from the Toras Menachem series. He opened volume 44, page 236, about the Rebbe instructing to share L’chaim from the farbrengen and to sing “Hoshia es amecha” (“Save Your people” from Tehillim 28:9).

That farbrengen was held on the 20th of Av 5745 at the main shul at 770 Eastern Parkway in honor of the Rebbe’s father. In the sicha the Rebbe explains the differences of redemption.

Markowitz said that “to be sure of the Rebbe’s answer to my question,” he opened the book again, and this time it opened on page 216 where the Rebbe was discussing his father’s extended exile.

On the way to Flatbush, to bring the wine to a person traveling to Israel, Markowitz called Rabbi Shimon Hecht of the NCFJE organization which still has medallions, minted at the Rebbe’s request for the Lag B’Omer parade in 5750 (1990).

The coin depicts a Lag BaOmer bonfire on one side and 770 Eastern Parkway on the other with the lines “May this be a year of miracles” and “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers also to dwell together!” from Tehillim 133:1.

Markowitz sent the wine and coins to Rabbi Shalom Ber Wolpo, founder of the organization SOS Israel, to arrange to bring it to the families who on Friday called on world Jewry to light Shabbos candles in their sons’ merit.

“They were given to the families before Shabbos and the families said they were very grateful,” Markowitz said. “We hope and pray for good news.”

Please keep praying for Eyal ben Iris Teshurah, Gilad Michael ben Bat Galim, and Yaakov Naftali ben Rachel Devorah.

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