I knew right then that if I was saved, I would do complete teshuvah

By Barak Nixon, as told to Chananel Shapiro

Barak Nixon kept Shabbos two weeks in a row, but even when his resolve crumbled and he traveled to the music festival on Simchas Torah, he realized he was still embraced

IF you see me today taking a seat in my morning kollel, with my white shirt, trim beard, large black yarmulke and turned-off kosher cell phone, you might assume I’m just one of the recently married regulars, following a path that was carved out for me since yeshivah days. But in fact, this life is all new, pretty surprising, and totally unexpected. True, it’s my personal story, my own unequivocal miracle, but I’m sharing it because really, aren’t all of us living directly out of G-d’s Hand?

I was born 25 years ago in Afula. My mother is Yemenite and her father was a mori, a Torah teacher, so on that side of the family, there was always a pull toward Torah, tradition, and spiritual connection. My father is another kind of tzaddik — not exactly religious, but a person who knows the value of honoring his word, and of giving kavod to everyone, even the indigent and down-and-out. From age 13, I put on tefillin every day and would go to shul to help make the minyan. But somehow, all that started to slip during my army days and after.

I didn’t think too much about it, though — I was basically gliding through life, partnering with my brother in his barber shop and hanging out with my friends. But then, this year after Rosh Hashanah, something started to pull me from the inside. I had this inner feeling that I had to start keeping Shabbat or else something terrible would happen — and I did. I kept Shabbat Shuvah in the strictest sense: I bought a hotplate and brought it over to my mother’s house, and that’s how we ate all our Shabbat meals. Plus, it was important for me to daven in shul in the morning, but because I was afraid I wouldn’t get up in time, I stayed up all night saying Tehillim.

On the following Shabbat, which coincided with the first day of Succot, I did the same thing, and again stayed up all night saying Tehillim. It was so elevating that I walked around all morning in Afula wearing my tallis.

The Test

And that’s really where my story begins. Now it was the third Shabbat — Simchat Torah, but for some reason, I felt my resolve crumble. The big Nova music festival in Re’im was scheduled for then, and many of my friends had booked tickets. My FOMO kicked in, and although I had started to keep Shabbat, I felt this desperation, like I just had to be there or I’d miss out on something amazing. When I told my mother about my plans, she was visibly upset.

“But you took upon yourself to keep Shabbat!” she told me.

I reassured her by telling her what I heard: that if Am Yisrael keeps two Shabbatot, they will be redeemed. I told her I’m sure that the two Shabbatot I kept would protect me — that’s how I talked myself into going.

For all that pre-festival angst, I didn’t even have time to enjoy it — less than an hour after we arrived, just before 6:30 in the morning, the surprise attack by Hamas was launched. At first, I didn’t even realize that missiles were being fired, but then I saw someone lying on the ground, dead, right in front of me after being struck by shrapnel. I began to realize that something awful was going on here, but I didn’t fathom that my very life was in danger.