Twenty-Five Stabs and One Word: The Night a Tzaddik Created a Baal Teshuvah

Emunah is not just believing in Hashem. It is believing in His children — even when they have fallen to the lowest depths.

In 1989, I was in Eretz Yisrael and personally met the man this story happened to. What you’re about to read is not embellished. No additives. No exaggeration. This was told firsthand, raw and real.

And it carries a message that must enter your bones.

The Gabbai Tzedakah of Yerushalayim

He was the 10th-grade rebbe of Yeshivat Ateres Yisrael in Jerusalem.

But that title barely captured who he was.

He was widely known as perhaps the most devoted gabbai tzedakah in the city. He raised vast sums of money and personally distributed it to almanot and yesomim — widows and orphans throughout Jerusalem.

He carried sacks of cash through the streets, ensuring that families had food for Shabbat, clothing for children, dignity in hardship.

He lived in Bayit Vegan.

He lived for others.

The Night Everything Changed

At 2:00 a.m., a crash shattered the silence of his home.

Five masked men burst into his bedroom.

They dragged him from his bed.
They tied up his wife.
They locked his children in a room.

Then they turned to him.

“We know who you are,” they said. “You’re the great gabbai tzedakah of Jerusalem. You have between $80,000 and $100,000 in this house. Where is it?”

The rabbi answered calmly.

“That money is not mine. It belongs to the widows and orphans. I cannot give it to you.”

They shook him violently.

“If you don’t give us the money, we will kill you.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “It’s not my money. It belongs to yesomim.”

“Kill Me.”

The leader ripped open the rabbi’s pajama shirt. His tzitzit lay against his chest.

“Kill me,” the rabbi said.

“But I cannot give you the money of the orphans.”

The masked man pulled out a knife.

And began to stab him.

Once.
Twice.
Again.
And again.

Twenty-five times.

With every stab he screamed, “Where’s the money?”

And with his fading strength, covered in blood, the rabbi answered:

“It’s tzedakah money. I can’t give it to you.”

The Breaking Point

Something broke that night.

But it wasn’t the rabbi.

After stabbing him 25 times and still hearing, “It’s not my money,” the attacker froze.

He pulled off his mask.

“Oy vavoy! What did I do? I’ve never seen such a tzaddik! I stabbed him and he still won’t take money from orphans!”

He picked up the bleeding rabbi, ran to the getaway car — without a dollar — and sped to the hospital at Shaare Zedek.

He carried him into the emergency room, screaming:

“Save him! Save the tzaddik! Please don’t die! What did I do?”

The Words That Changed a Soul

They placed the rabbi on the table.

The attacker leaned over him, weeping.

“Rabbi, forgive me. What did I do to you?”

The rabbi, barely conscious, looked up at him.

And smiled.

“My friend,” he whispered, “you’re a tzaddik too. You just need to do teshuvah.”

That was it.

No hatred.
No curse.
No accusation.

Only belief.

The man ran out of the hospital.

From Murderer to Baal Teshuvah

That very night, people reported seeing a tall Israeli man walk into Aish HaTorah in the Old City.

The rest is history.

The rabbi survived — miraculously.

And today?

They learn together every Wednesday night.

Chavruta.

The man who once stabbed him 25 times became his learning partner.

I heard this from the rabbi himself while visiting him during his recovery.

The Power of Belief in Another Jew

What transformed a would-be murderer?

Not fear.
Not punishment.
Not threat.

Belief.

The rabbi saw beyond the mask.
Beyond the knife.
Beyond the blood.

He saw a Yehudi.

And when a Jew is reminded who he is, something awakens.

We are called Yehudim — from Yehudah — because embedded in us is the ability to admit, to rise, to return.

No matter how far we fall.
No matter how dark the moment.
No matter how terrible the mistake.

A Jew can come back.

Emunah in the Darkness

This story is not just about mesirut nefesh for tzedakah.

It is about radical emunah:

• Emunah that the money of orphans is sacred.

• Emunah that Hashem runs the world even at 2 a.m.

• Emunah that even a stabber is still a child of Hashem.

Most of us will never face a test like that.

But we face smaller versions every day:

• When someone hurts us.

• When someone betrays us.

• When someone acts beneath who they truly are.

Do we see a villain?

Or do we see potential?

Harotzeh B’Teshuvah

Hashem is called Harotzeh B’Teshuvah — the One who desires return.

He waits.

He believes.

He never gives up on a Jew.

That night, a rabbi on the brink of death embodied that Divine trait.

And because he believed in the attacker…

The attacker began to believe in himself.

The Essence of a Yehudi

We all fall.

We all err.
We all carry mistakes we regret.

But no fall is final.

No darkness is permanent.

The ability to brush ourselves off and return to Borei Olam — that is the essence of what it means to be a Yehudi.

If a man holding a knife can become a chavruta…

Then none of us are too far gone.

And that truth should enter our bones.

Because somewhere, at this very moment, Hashem is whispering to each of us:

“You’re a tzaddik too. Just come back.”