The videographer was focused on filming the holiest moments of the chassan and kallah under the chuppah as they began life but what he captured instead was a freaky horrifying scene of near-death.

The chassan’s best friend and ceremony emcee singer-DJ Harel Tal took the microphone to call up the honoree for the sixth benediction when he suddenly fell backward like a stone the microphone glued to his chest and sending an electric current through anyone who tried to pry it away. Harel Tal had been electrocuted.

The Tal family had lived through destruction and resurrection before — after their Gush Katif town of Neve Dekalimwas razed to the ground they were at the forefront of rebuilding in the villageof Yad Binyamin where Rav Shmuel Tal is rosh yeshivah of Torat HaChaim. Now the medics on the scene at the Hordus wedding hall in Beer Sheva were trying to resuscitate a near-dead young man. Would he too come back to life?

Time proved that 23-year-old Harel Tal married and father of three has inherited the family trait of resilience. Two days after doctors in the ICU predicted he’d be brain-dead at worst a vegetable at best he opened his eyes and regained full consciousness. And just a week later the paramedics who saved his life surprised him with their arrival at a festive song-filled evening in Yad Binyamin in honor of his miraculous recovery; they were as shocked as everyone when the young man they thought would never return from the Next World took his guitar and spun around with them in thankful euphoric dance.

“I Want Your Prayers”

The prayers and supplications in those hours that Harel Tal hovered between worlds evoked Hashem’s mercy according to Rav Shmuel Tal. In a candid open interview with Mishpacha Harel and his parents — Rav Shmuel and Rabbanit Yifat Tal — relived the fear the hope and their family’s unbelievable salvation just weeks ago.