“Wearing Tzitzis Saved My Life”

Yair was getting ready to leave the house a few days ago in Ra’anana, Israel. Getting dressed, he looked for a pair of tzitzit (ritual fringes) that he wears under his shirt all the time, following the biblical commandment to do so.

It turns out they were all in the laundry except for the brand-new pair he had purchased in honor of his sister’s wedding, which was to take place in two days.

Since he intended to keep them clean and new for the wedding, he decided he would go without wearing tzitzit that day. But at the last minute, uneasy about his decision, he turned back and put them on, knowing it was the correct thing to do (and feeling that if he didn’t, he would somehow be inviting trouble).

At the bus stop, waiting for it to arrive, he felt tense because of the ongoing terror attacks that had been taking place all across Israel. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a man near him having a conversation in Arabic on his phone. The man looked very agitated and was dripping with sweat.

Before Yair could do anything, the man lunged at him, and began stabbing him in the shoulder and neck. As Yair struggled with him, despite the pain, he tried to make sure to keep the attacker away from a woman and her children nearby.

People around him came to his rescue, some tackling and holding the terrorist, while others took Yair’s tzitzit and tore them into bandages to staunch the flow of blood.

Yair was rushed to Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba, where Rabbi Menachem Kutner, director of the Chabad Terror Victims Project (www.ctvp.org), came to visit him, accompanied by Rabbi Yossi Lipkin.

“I feel sure that G-d had protected me from worse injuries in the merit of my having worn tzitzit that morning,” Yair told them. “Not to mention the fact that the new tzitzit itself stopped his loss of blood,” he noted.

Yair underwent a series of treatments and was released from the hospital just in time to attend his sister’s wedding.