Shomer Habris
     
 

Shomer Habris By Katriel

We had this apartment in the Rova, Old City Jerusalem. There were four guys all had dropped out of the Yeshiva system. All of us were very busy with Kabbalah we would study, do Tikunim and meditate all day long. At one point we decided to spread the light. We started teaching Kabbalah, to a number of young men floating around our neighborhood.
Soon we had some of them move in to our apartment. It was a big place, it was attached to a huge bomb shelter. If someone needed a place to stay, then why not by us. These guys were all well meaning and were seriously interested in Kabbalah, however they had some bad habits. I put my foot down, all drug use was restricted to the bomb shelter. I understood that drugs were hard to stop, I also knew that as they began receiving the light from Kabbalistic meditations they would stop the drugs.
It was Chanuka, I knew of a big kabbalist that was making a meal in honor of the holiday. I took Dovid with me. Dovid had come from the US on a Birthright trip. He was totally unreligious when he arrived. He decided to stay, after running around for a number of months he ended up in our apartment.
After the Kabbalist lit the Menorah, he went into his room and a number of people lined up to talk to him. I urged Dovid to join the line. The line was long so I sat studying from a text. Later I looked up, Dovid was walking towards me he looked very down and depressed. He related that when he had entered the room the Kabbalist took one look at him and with an angry frown had kicked him out. He asked me to go find out what happened.
I approached the Kabbalist and explained that my friend could not speak Hebrew and had sent me to find out what he had done wrong. The Kabbalist told me that my friend had been Pogem Habris many times and he had seven big demons hovering over him, he must stop and repent immediately. I had spoken to Dovid about this topic many times but he had not taken it to heart, now he was very scared but he said he could not stop.
One day we were siting in our apartment when the electricity suddenly went dead. We tried everything but we could not get it to work . It was dark everyone besides Dovid and me left the apartment. Around fifteen minutes latter the door was suddenly kicked open and a swat team of police officers burst into our apartment. They were not a regular unit they were specialized for carrying out drug bust operations.
I made the calculations fast, some guys from the apartment were acting wild lately, the neighbors obviously did not like that. Calling the Cops on us was an easy way out of the problem. At first I thought that the electricity blackout had something to do with the raid. I then noticed that the cops were just as frustrated as we were about the lights. They kept on playing with the fuse box trying to make it work. Eventually they gave up and started searching with their flash lights and a some candles that they had found. They kept on asking us how to turn on the light, we ignored them for more then one reason.
The Officer of the unit had taken one look at me and saw that that I had nothing to do with drugs, they pretty much left me alone. Dovid was another story; they dragged him into the bomb shelter. He started giving them attitude, they started roughing him up. There was one Arab in their unit. One cop held Dovid down while the Arab pulled down his pants; they said they were searching for hidden drugs. In the end they could find nothing so they left. I knew that it was a big miracle from G-D that the lights busted fifteen minutes before they came. Dovid was very upset about the incident, after they left he lost his temper and broke one of the windows in the apartment.
A couple of days later I noticed something about Dovid, I just couldn't place my finger on it. He looked the same but yet much cleaner. Later that day I was sitting learning Kabbalah with a friend of mine. My friend took a look at Dovid and said "Hay brother you look holy, what did you do." I took a closer look at Dovid, he did look kind of Holy, the smug look was gone from his face, his eyes looked different, in a small way he was like a new person. David's only reply was that he took the strip search as a divine sign.
A week later Dovid asked me if we could go see the Kabbalist again, I agreed. We stood by the Kabbalist door, Dovid grabbed the handle and pulled open the door. To my surprise he ran right in waving his hand in the air and yelling triumphaly SHOMER HABRIS, SHOMER HABRIS. The Kabbalist smiled.