A Miraculous Revival | Rabbi Naftali Horowitz

Recently, after one of my Vayimaen episodes ran, I received an email message from my assistant. It said that there was a man from overseas who had called me and wanted me to call him back, and he said it was extremely important. I reached the man on the phone and he was very emotional, and he said to me: Naftali, I want to thank you and the people of Vayimaen for saving my daughter's life. Obviously, I was quite intrigued. He says: Yesterday, after a very, very difficult day in the office, I found myself in a moment of weakness, clicking somewhere on my computer where I knew I shouldn't go. As I was doing so, I pictured myself tied to the tree like the bull with a shoelace, and I pulled the plug out of my computer and I fled my office, knowing that if I stayed there another moment, I would succumb. I said to the man: That's absolutely amazing. You accomplished וימאן and וינס החוצה, just like Yosef HaTzaddik. And he says: Yes, but there's much more to the story. He says: I live 12 minutes away from my office. As I drove down my street, to my total horror, I saw five Hatzalah cars in front of my house, with all the sirens blaring. I rushed into my house, breathlessly, to find my daughter, laying on the foyer floor, with three Hatzalah guys kneeling over her. My wife was hysterically crying and all my kids were crying in the corner and saying Tehillim. My daughter had some kind of a seizure, fell backwards and banged her head and stopped breathing. Hatzalah was called and Baruch Hashem, they revived her. I realized that the exact second that I pulled the plug out of the computer was when Hatzalah had gotten her pulse back and revived my daughter. And that's why, he said, I'm calling to thank you and the people at Vayimaen. I said to this man that this episode may very well define the rest of your life. It's extremely important that you translate it correctly. So I asked him the following question, What would have happened, Chas v’Shalom, had you succumbed at your computer, only to come home and find that, רחמנא לצלן, the worst had happened to your daughter. The man said to me, I would have blamed myself for the rest of my life. I said: That's naturally what I thought you would say. Every father would think that. However, you do realize you would be absolutely wrong. The pasuk tells us that children do not die for the sins of their fathers. Here's the way I would tell you to look at it, even though I don't have Ru’ach HaKodesh. At the moment that that test was given to you in your office, there was a debate going on in Shomayim. Your daughter's life had come to its end. The מלאך המוות said: Her time is up. And the Mal’ach Refael stood up and said: No, she's so young. She still hasn't got married. She still needs to have children. How can you do that? And the Satan said: No way, no way. Her time is up, her time is up. So the Mal’ach Refael said, Let me get her a merit. Let me find a way to save her life. How about if we give her father a tremendous test? A test, that if he passes, will give his daughter a new lease on life. And at that moment, that urge overcame you. When you pulled the plug out of that computer and you ran out of the office, you gave your daughter a new lease on life. You gave your daughter her life, and you have to remember that, as you see Nachas from this child, as she walks down the aisle, as she dances at her wedding, as she has children and grandchildren, you should remember that your moment of Vayimaen is why all this is happening. We never know what a single moment can achieve.