A famous story circulated about the car driven by an Arab which was stopped at Erez checkpoint and identified by the checkpoint commander as a stolen vehicle because its bumper sticker had three Hebrew words on it: Ain od milvado. ("There is no one but Him.") How that sticker got on to that bumper is a story in itself. Some yeshiva students involved in outreach in the Jerusalem suburb of Maaleh Adumim had approached one of the residents who had just purchased a brand new car and tried to interest him in religious observance. When he stubbornly refused to listen they politely departed but not before asking him if he would mind if they put a sticker on his bumper with a message of faith in G-d, and to their surprise he consented. Half an hour after the sticker was attached, the car was stolen from in front of the home of its owner who came running to the head of the yeshiva with a complaint of suffering such a loss after consenting to the placing of the sticker.
The rosh hayeshiva assured him that no harm could result from that sticker and even convened a group of students to say Tehillim for the distraught fellow to recover his car. An hour later the phone call came that the stolen car had been recovered – because of the identifying bumper sticker.
“Vishavtem ba! Vishavtem ba!” kept Abba repeating to himself as he was walking the streets of Yerushalayim on a Shabbos afternoon. “Abba, what are you saying?” asked his son Binyamin. “I am saying a phrase from this week’s parsha (Massei) - “ ”וִּישַׁבְּתֶּם־בָהּ(Bamidbar 33:53), answered Abba. “What does it mean?” asked Binyamin. Abba turned to Binyamin and explained: “It means, “you should live in it”. The Ramban explains that with these two words, the Torah is teaching us that there is a positive mitzva to live in Eretz Yisroel.”
Just at that moment, a man stuck his head out of a window, and screamed out, “Come! Come upstairs! I have a very nice apartment. I lived here for 15 years. But I want to sell it and move to Cairo where my family lives.” From the accent of the man, it was clear that he was an Arab. “Come! Come! If you like it, we can sign the contract right now. I am selling it for very cheap. Come! Come! I must sell it today.”
“Wow! We always dreamed to buy our own apartment in Eretz Yisroel,” said Binyamin. “But how can we buy the apartment today? It’s Shabbos,” said Abba. “But maybe because of the mitzva of Yishuv Ha’aretz, there is a way we can do it?” asked Binyamin.
Question: May they go up to see the apartment and somehow buy it today?
by Rabbi Mendel Weinbach zt”l
[Source: Ohr Somayach Institutions www.ohr.edu . Printed with permission]
