It was early afternoon. Bus line 823 left the Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv in the direction of Nazareth via Afula. The bus was full of passengers. At the wheel sat Danny, a young driver. He had a short beard stubble on his chin, and behind his head barely protruded a small Kiple attached by two pins to his unruly hair. At that time, the road was open, traffic flowed peacefully, and nothing prepared the passengers for the great drama that would take place in a few minutes.
At the Megiddo junction, the bus stopped at the station, passengers got off and others boarded. Danny pressed the gas pedal and began to merge into the traffic. Then suddenly shots were heard. Danny felt a sharp pain in his abdomen and right leg. With a quick glance to the side, he was able to see the two terrorists standing on the side of the road and firing. From the mirror in front of him, the frightened faces of the fifty passengers were visible, and in a split second, Danny realized that the lives of fifty families now hung on the brakes. Despite the sharp pain he felt in his leg, he continued to press the gas pedal. The wheels were blowing and the bus was barely stumbling. Danny began to lose blood, his senses were foggy, and his strength was gone. In the meantime, the terrorists continued to run and shoot at the bus, and Danny continued driving with forces that were not his own. After a few minutes, it collapsed and the bus stopped.
The results of the attack were severe. Two passengers were killed in a private car traveling behind the bus. Twenty other people were injured to varying degrees. Miraculously, with the exception of Danny, none of the passengers on the bus were injured. Danny was rushed to the hospital, where he was described as seriously injured. The next day, when the newspapers reported on the horrific attack, a special section was devoted to the resourcefulness of the driver, Danny Spielman, who, despite his severe injury to his leg and abdomen, kept the bus away from the scene of the shooting.
One of those who heard this news was Rabbi Avraham Salomon, who headed the Maor HaTorah Yeshiva in Be'er Sheva. The yeshiva students were usually from traditional families who were persuaded to send their children to the yeshiva under full boarding school conditions at a discounted price. Rabbi Salomon and the rest of the spiritual staff tried and made an effort to instill a love of Torah and fear of God. And so, out of the hundreds of students who passed under their hands, many of them built magnificent homes in Israel. But there were also those who were disappointed, and one of them was Danny Spielman. He was a talented, diligent student with a noble soul. When everyone believed that a young bachur was growing, the deterioration began. Rabbi Salomon is convinced that these were the children of Danny's neighbors. He himself has a gentle soul, and he is not automatically attracted to despicable behavior. The neighbors' children managed to pull him by force into the night parties, and cut off his soul from the Torah of God.
When Danny left the yeshiva, the entire spiritual staff mourned him. The feeling was that the yeshiva had lost its best sons. Almost ten years have passed since then. Now that Rabbi Salomon heard about the driver who was injured in the attack, all the difficult memories came up and flooded his heart. Two weeks passed since then, and Rabbi Salomon, after much thought, decided to visit Danny, who was lying in the "Emek" hospital in Afula. The effort was difficult, especially for a Jew of his age, but Rabbi Salomon did not think of his pleasure and comfort, but of the golden opportunity to exchange a few words of encouragement with the rebellious student. Perhaps his heart would be awakened? When Rabbi Salomon entered his room, Danny winked in his eyes. It seemed that his longing for the good old days had increased. Danny was very weak, and yet he made an effort to talk about something important. "The rabbi surely knows that many private cars were damaged in the attack. "Rabbi Salomon nodded his head. He heard about two dead and dozens more wounded. "On the bus, I'm the only one who was hit."Rabbi Salomon responded: "Yes, a huge miracle. I heard that despite your serious injury, you continued to drive a few more kilometers. True heroism. “The rabbi has a big part in this. “Me?!"Yes. Many years ago, I think it was in Parashat Chayei Sarah, the rabbi then told a parable about a driver who was transporting a bus full of passengers, and suddenly he got shot. The driver is filled with tremendous and superhuman powers to get the bus out of the scene, because he is responsible for the lives of fifty families. When I started working as a driver, I thought about it a lot, and it gave me the strength. “Rabbi Salomon remembers something. "Remind me what the parable was? “Danny smiled embarrassedly. "I remember that too. The rabbi said that sometimes a young man thinks only about his private life, and he behaves promiscuously. A guy has to think that he is going to be a father to children, a grandfather to grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A whole bus is behind us and we are supposed to take responsibility for all these people. The thought of this should give us strong strength to deal with the trials and the difficulties."
Rabbi Salomon recalls: "Yes, it was in Parashat Chayei-Sarah. Thus it is said in the parasha, "And Avraham was old and came in days" – the Midrash writes about this (Aggadat Bereishit 34): When Sarah died, agedness jumped on him. The parable of a heroic captain who had a ship, conquered the water and the winds, a pirate came upon him and stood up and killed them all. After a while, a terrible wind came upon him and his ship broke. He began to ask for mercy from people, asking you to save me. They said to him, "Yesterday you were conquering the water and killing the pirates, and now you are asking others to save you?" He said to them, "As long as my ship existed, I was a hero and I did not need anyone to help me, and now my ship is broken, my strength is broken." Thus Avraham, a pirate came upon him, and he stood up and killed them all, as it is written: "And he and his servants divided against them, and they smote them," and he circumcised himself, and Ishmael, and the children of his house, eighteen and three hundred, They said to him, "Yesterday you ruled over the whole world, as it is written, 'Blessed is Avram to the Most High God,' and now you say, 'Stranger and resident.'" He said to them, "And what shall I do when my wife dies, as it is written, 'And I will bury her from the dead,' and Avraham is old. "As long as the captain has a ship under his responsibility, he has powers against everyone. But when there is no ship under his responsibility, he no longer has the strength to protect himself."
