The Boy Returned After the Prayer

A young boy who suffered from bullying in his Talmud Torah (Torah school) ran away from home on Friday night after a stormy argument with his parents. After hours of anxious searching in Jerusalem, the family members went in to Morinu HaRav Berland shlit"a, who immediately calmed them with his ruach hakodesh (divine inspiration) and promised that the boy would return immediately after the Netz (sunrise) prayer, and that is exactly what happened.

One of the members of the holy community related the story that happened with his brother. He lives in the Ramot neighborhood of Jerusalem, and one Friday evening, things heated up in their home in a stressful way, until his brother, towards whom most of the critical remarks and insults were directed, spoke back to his parents with great insolence and ran away from home.

His Wounded Soul Was Crying Out for Help

This is a precious family of baalei teshuvah (returnees to the faith) of Sephardic descent. At that time, the boy was studying in the eighth grade in a Talmud Torah where most of the students were not Sephardic. For whatever reason, the children in the class began to tease him and call him derogatory names and slurs - "Frenk" (a derogatory term for Sephardim) - "Black", and the like. He could not vent his frustrations in the cheder (school), and so he began to act disrespectfully at home. However, his parents did not understand that his wounded soul was crying out for help. They thought he was genuinely being insolent and meant what he was saying to them, and in response, they began to get angry at him and criticize him. As mentioned, on that Friday evening, the tones in their home escalated until, in the middle of a stormy argument, the boy left the house, slamming the door behind him, and disappeared.

The parents feared the worst. Not a few children in their neighborhood had thrown off the yoke of Torah and mitzvos at this age and joined groups of bored friends filled with emptiness. They understood that their child had nowhere to go, and if he ran away, he would likely join one of these wandering youth groups. There, he would learn more and more insolence and corruption.

We Searched for Him All Over the Ramot Neighborhood

Throughout Friday night, we searched for him all over the Ramot neighborhood. When hours passed and we did not find him, we realized that he had probably gone to the areas of Shmuel HaNavi, HaChoma HaShlishit, and Beit Yisrael. We found out the addresses of some of his close friends from class who live in these neighborhoods and began walking to those areas, hoping we would find him, and especially hoping we would manage to appease him and bring him back home.

We reached those neighborhoods at three o'clock in the morning. We knocked on the doors of his classmates and relatives where we thought he might be, but we found no sign of his whereabouts. We began to worry, fearing that something might happen to him, Heaven forbid. After all, he was only a 13-year-old boy, not an adult who could manage in the wee hours of the night in the Jerusalem cold and the unusual conditions that the Jerusalem night produces.

He Will Return Home Immediately After the Prayer

When we passed by HaChoma HaShlishit Street, we decided to go in to Morinu HaRav Eliezer Berland shlit"a to ask him where the boy was. We hoped that the Rav, with his ruach hakodesh (divine inspiration), would tell us where he was and thereby put an end to our continuous searches. We went up to the Rav's house, knocked on the door, and Morinu HaRav saw my father and immediately said to him: "Did you come here because of your child? Do not worry, he will return home immediately after the Netz (sunrise) prayer." Morinu HaRav added and told my father that from now on he should not make critical remarks to him, because since he is already of bar mitzvah age, he is responsible for himself, and he should not make any critical remarks to him.

It is our duty to note that the student of Morinu HaRav, the Gaon Rabbi Moshe Tzanani shlit"a, heard the story and said that this is likely not a general instruction for the public, but rather an individual instruction necessitated by the circumstances, especially in light of the fact that the father's remarks at that time caused the boy to run away from home.

We Drew Him Close With Cords of Love

"We returned to the Ramot neighborhood," the family member recounts, "and behold, when we arrived, the boy was already sitting at home, while our mother was weeping softly, excitedly telling us that early in the morning, after the Netz prayer, he had returned. The boy had already managed to cut off his peyos (sidelocks), but we drew him close with cords of love and truly did not make any critical remarks to him, and very soon he returned to the straight path. At that time, he was ashamed to walk around without peyos, so we got him stick-on peyos that looked like real peyos, so that he could return to his studies and not be embarrassed before people who mock him in his service of Hashem."

From the book "Pele Elyon, Part 3"