After Three Times They Gave Up
Me'oros Hatzaddikim | July 18, 2024
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After Three Times They Gave Up

Me'oros Hatzaddikim | June 25, 2025

Rav Chaim Uri Lipshitz used to tell this story about the Ohr HaChaim that he heard from the Arabs:

After the Six-Day War, when Yerushalayim was under Jordanian rule, the Jordanians decided to renovate and destroy the Jewish cemetery at the Mount of Olives. They began using a tractor to demolish kevorim but when the tractor reached the kever of the Ohr HaChaim the tractor overturned, killing the Arab driver. That did not deter them, however, and they sent a second tractor, which for some reason broke down just as it reached the Ohr HaChaim’s kever. They fixed the tractor and had the engine repaired, and then the second tractor also turned itself over and the driver was seriously injured. Finally, they decided to use a metal sledgehammer to demolish the kever by hand, but this time somehow the hammer flew out of the worker’s hands and struck the foreman in the head. Finally, they admitted that the Divine Hand must be involved and they gave up!

From then on their nefarious plot was over; never again did the Jordanians try to demolish the tziun of the Ohr HaChaim, and eventually control of the Bais HaChaim returned to Jewish hands. (Hillula Kadisha, 15th of Tammuz, page 612)

Rav Chaim Uri Lipshitz used to tell this story about the Ohr HaChaim that he heard from the Arabs:

After the Six-Day War, when Yerushalayim was under Jordanian rule, the Jordanians decided to renovate and destroy the Jewish cemetery at the Mount of Olives. They began using a tractor to demolish kevorim but when the tractor reached the kever of the Ohr HaChaim the tractor overturned, killing the Arab driver. That did not deter them, however, and they sent a second tractor, which for some reason broke down just as it reached the Ohr HaChaim’s kever. They fixed the tractor and had the engine repaired, and then the second tractor also turned itself over and the driver was seriously injured. Finally, they decided to use a metal sledgehammer to demolish the kever by hand, but this time somehow the hammer flew out of the worker’s hands and struck the foreman in the head. Finally, they admitted that the Divine Hand must be involved and they gave up!

From then on their nefarious plot was over; never again did the Jordanians try to demolish the tziun of the Ohr HaChaim, and eventually control of the Bais HaChaim returned to Jewish hands. (Hillula Kadisha, 15th of Tammuz, page 612)

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