Rabbi Eliyahu Amar in a speech explained a great strategy to silence the prosecution in the Days of Awe. He recounted a story of Rabbi Moshe Moreno and his wife who were saved by a miracle from certain death. They were driving toward their town of Maale Ephraim in the Shomron.
A car was trailing them and shining its bright headlights so Rabbi Moreno allowed the car to pass. This kind gesture was almost the end of the lives of the rabbi and his wife. The car passed and blocked the road. 3 terrorists with automatic rifles came out of the car and started spraying them with gunfire. All the tires were shot out and not one window or windshield was intact. Miraculously, the rabbi and his wife were still alive.
The terrorists finished up their cartridges of bullets spraying them on the car. They ran back to their car to get new cartridges to finish off their murderous work. At that moment the rabbi and his wife took advantage of the ‘temporary cease fire’ and they ran out of the car and threw themselves into the wadi (valley) of the side of the road hoping to find cover in the brush. They rolled downhill for 30 meters through rocks and thorns getting bruised along the way. Rabbi Moshe even got a bullet in his foot from the terrorists shooting at them in the dark. But in the end the terrorists left and the rabbi and his wife were still alive.
But what could they do in this situation? Their cell phone despite all the gunshots, bumping and rolling was intact in his wife’s pocket. They called the military security in the area which came quickly and whisked them off to the hospital. The security also sealed off the roads and managed to apprehend the terrorists.
A few months later the Rabbi and his wife made a “Thank You” meal to thank G-d for saving their lives from what should have been certain death. One of the rabbi’s family friends spoke emotionally: “The army upon investigating this incident was left with one unanswered question. How did you make a phone call from your cell phone deep in the wadi? There isn’t even any reception on the road where the car was, let alone in the wadi!”
“But I think I know the answer. Rabbi Moreno accepted upon himself to turn off his cell phone upon entering the synagogue. Now the rabbi is talking
to G-d and everyone else can wait, not like some people who come to pray but somehow forget about G-d, leave him on ‘call waiting’ and talk to their friends instead.”
“If you go into an embassy, the phones are put away in storage. If your phone rings in a court room you can get fined for irreverence to the court. So why should a synagogue where the Divine presence rests be any less? Should our cell phones be on there? When Rabbi Moshe disconnected his phone for G-d’s honor in the synagogue, G-d gave him a special connection in the wadi, measure for measure.”
Concluding the story Rabbi Amar says: “If someone is silent from saying mundane things in the synagogue G-d will, measure for measure, silence the prosecutors that want to slander us in heaven and cause us harm. May G-d silence the Satan from speaking ill of us.”
