Baruch Ben Yigal, Father Of Fallen Soldier, Tells Of Amazing Meeting With Rav Chaim Kanievsky

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — As the mourners gather in the house in Rashbam street where Rav Chaim Kanievski Zts’l spent his last years, numerous stories about the rabbi’s wondrous acts and attributes are slowly being revealed.

Baruch Ben-Yigal, a bereaved father who lost his only son Amit during army duty in Samaria in 2020, came to visit Rav Chaim after losing his son. Ben Yigal came unaware that he was well known to Yanki Kanievski, Rav Chaim’s grandson, who introduced him as the “father of a hero of Israel.” Ben Yigal was wearing the dog tag of his son and was astonished when Rav Chaim held the dog tag and stroked his face and started crying. Rav Chaim said to him: “Your son is a hero, he is as close as possible to Hashem’s throne. He is near Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and Rabbi Akiva.”

Ben Yigal was even more astounded by this: How did the Rav know that his son had died on Lag Ba’Omer, the yahrzeit of Rabbi Shimon?

Upon leaving Bnei Brak, Ben Yigal went to fill gas in Ramat Gan. A young woman met him at the gas station and said “You’re the father of Amit, I dreamt about him. I asked her: What did you dream? She said: “I dreamt that Amit is close to Hashem’s throne and Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and Rabbi Akiva are together with him.” I was in total shock, she said exactly the words of Rav Chaim.

I cried out to Hashem and said: “What do you want from me?”

Ben Yigal said that “I learnt from Rabbi Kanievski’s humility and modesty and that everything is for the good. The most moving thing for me was that the Rabbi wrote a letter in the Sefer Torah honoring Amit, the purest letter that one could ask for.”