Rav Sassi: “I said Shema, waiting for my neshama to leave” | JP
At that point he tried to reach cover with the officer behind a garbage bin. “They’re shooting at me the whole time. I ran to the officer, took a bullet, fell on him. I tried to drag him to the bin to hide with him, and on the way to the bin I took two more shots.”
He says that even while he was under fire, people tried to help him from a distance. “They’re throwing me water, throwing me bandages. But no one dares come close because there’s constant gunfire.”
He remained behind the bin for about an hour and a half, until they came to extract him.
“I understood that I was going to die too”
During the time behind the bin, he understood that his condition was not good.
“I understood that I was going to die. I wanted to say vidui — I simply didn’t know it by heart. So I said Shema Yisrael.”
“According to the Midrash, a person’s neshama leaves on the word ‘echad,'” he recounts. “I said ‘Shema Yisrael,’ I reached ‘echad,’ I opened my eyes, and the neshama didn’t leave. Nothing happened.”
After the extraction, he continued treating the officer who was with him. During the drive, he noticed the officer was struggling to breathe.
“He had a hole in his back and he could barely breathe. During the drive I’m pushing my finger into the hole, basically sealing the hole for him. Suddenly he responds with a deep breath and he starts breathing.”
The two were evacuated together to the hospital.