Rav Sassi: "I said Shema, waiting for my neshama to leave"

Rav Chaim Sassi, a rav at the hesder yeshiva in Sderot and a volunteer medic with United Hatzalah, left his home on Simchas Torah morning 5784 at around 7:15 a.m., after reports began coming in of wounded. In an interview, he recounts the moments of terror.

"I went out to treat the wounded," he says. "I left on the motorcycle. I was still in my Shabbos clothes."

He began moving between sites of attack across the city, treating casualties. "The entire route I drove, there were wounded. By the time I reached the police station, there were six or seven wounded who were already dead. There was only one we managed to save."

He describes what he felt in those moments: "You work on autopilot. You don't think about anything, you just work, because it's so intense. You go to one wounded person, drive another ten meters, another one, you're constantly moving."

Sderot police station (Photo: Flash90, Chaim Goldberg)

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.

"We continue, we don't look back, we continue to live."

At the same time, he continues to volunteer with United Hatzalah, though he no longer goes out on the motorcycle for treatments. "I continue to volunteer, not on a motorcycle but in a vehicle. I continue to do what I can."

"There's an incredible thirst"

One of the things occupying Rav Sassi today is the great thirst for Torah that he encounters across the country.

"We have missions in life. Hakadosh Baruch Hu brought us here because we need to advance toward Mashiach and the building of the Beis Hamikdash."

According to him, the feeling on the ground is that the public is seeking more Torah.

"Not a hunger for bread, not a thirst for water, but to hear the word of Hashem. There's an incredible thirst."

He brings as an example an event that took place recently at a high school in Sha'ar Hanegev, where letters were written in a sefer Torah.

"Inside a secular high school, all the student, each one of the students wrote a letter in a sefer Torah. In a high school of the kibbutzim of Sha'ar Hanegev. This is even beyond our dreams."