Gary Tessler, director of the Shalom Funeral Service in Denver, Colorado, never imagined that his hearse would become the vehicle for a unique kiddush Hashem. One morning, Gary had a funeral scheduled at a Jewish cemetery in nearby Aurora. He placed the casket into the back of his hearse and drove to the cemetery, arriving long before the funeral. But his timely arrival was of little help when the door of the hearse refused to open. Despite Gary’s best efforts, along with those of the funeral party and cemetery workers, it could not be pried open. The casket was stuck inside and the burial could not proceed.
Gary immediately reached a painful conclusion: the funeral would have to be postponed.
Gary first told Rabbi Aharon Sirota, the officiating rabbi. Then he braced himself to break the news to the family. But before he could do so, Rabbi Sirota approached the hearse while reciting the chapters of Tehillim generally used to honor the deceased. Rabbi Sirota turned the door handle and elicited a gratifying click. The door opened effortlessly!
After the funeral, Gary closed the door and it refused to open again. A mechanic ascertained that the lock clamp was still in place but the mechanism that released it had broken off and fallen to the bottom of the door. It should not have been possible, the mechanic said, for Rabbi Sirota to open it. The fact that he had done so was nothing short of a miracle.
One of Gary's colleagues, a devout Catholic, witnessed the incident. With awe, he exclaimed, “The Orthodox rabbis must be the real thing.”
Reproduced from Living Kiddush Hashem by Rabbi Shraga Freedman with permission of the copyright holders, ArtScroll/Mesorah Publications, Ltd.
