She Lost Her Father in a Synagogue Attack and Found Her Way Back to Hashem

“We arrived in Har Nof. My parents’ house can be reached from two different streets, but I asked to go through Agassi Street. From the car window, I looked out at the gathering crowd and the police officers standing at the entrance to the synagogue, and my eyes filled with silent tears.

I walked into my parents’ house. It was full of people. After a short conversation with my family, the questions started racing through my mind. Where exactly was my father murdered? Was he afraid? Did he have time to say Shema?”

Michal Levin begins our conversation with these haunting words. She speaks with composure and quiet strength. Her eyes still radiate goodness and faith. Yes, even now. Just nine months after her father, Rabbi Kalman Ze’ev Levin, was killed in the horrifying terrorist attack at the Har Nof synagogue.

Where does this deep faith come from, especially in the face of such loss? From home, of course. The home where she was raised, where emunah, faith and yirat Shamayim, awe of Heaven, were part of the air she breathed from the time she was little.

“This faith is what carried me through everything. Even through my father’s murder,” says Michal, now 29, married and the mother of an eight-year-old daughter. Her words stir something inside, a longing for sincere teshuvah, a return to Hashem that comes from deep within, when a person strips away the distractions and searches again for truth.

“At first, I couldn’t look death in the eye. It was hard to face it, to even think about my father being gone. But today, I truly believe that everything happened for the best.”

You understand that in your mind. But what does your heart say? Do you ever feel resentment?

She gently smiles and shakes her head no. “There are definitely days when I miss him deeply, and I regret not spending more time with him while I had the chance. But I don’t feel any anger. I’ve accepted what happened, because I believe my father gave his life al Kiddush Hashem, to sanctify God’s name. He was chosen to be a public sacrifice so that the coming of Mashiach would be closer. We were privileged to live and see it.”

How do you feel today about your relationship with Hashem after going through such a painful test?

Michal answers with quiet clarity. “If I feel this way about my biological father, how much more so should I feel this way about my Father in Heaven. And I’m working on that every day. I see now that all the time I spent with my father was preparing me for the next chapter of my life. He had such passion for Hashem. He fulfilled every mitzvah with love. He didn’t waste a minute on things that didn’t matter. Those memories are still vivid, and they guide me toward Hashem as my father knew Him, and as I hope to know Him.”

What has changed in you the most since this loss?

“So much has changed,” she says, “but especially my connection to prayer. I went through a period of spiritual distance, and back then I only prayed from the heart, and only when things were hard. I rarely opened a siddur (prayer book). But today, after understanding how powerful tefillah really is, I made a commitment to pray twice a day, and always from a siddur. When I get to the section that describes the korbanot, the sacrifices, it strengthens my emunah even more.”

Isn’t that part especially hard for you, given what your father went through?

“Not at all. Actually, I cry every time I say it, but not out of pain. It gives me strength. When I read about the offerings, I think about Avraham Avinu, our forefather Abraham. He was asked to bind his son on the altar. He believed Hashem wouldn’t harm him, and still, he was ready to give everything. So even if the knife is raised and the child is lying there, faith is not lost. That’s the kind of trust I want to live by, and that’s what I want to pass on to my daughter.

“I’m not afraid of loss, because I know that if Hashem allowed something to happen, then it must be for the best. No one wants to die. We all want to live long, happy lives. But if Hashem were to ask me to walk into fire, I would do it joyfully because He asked. And He alone knows what is truly good forever.”

Michal’s connection to her father runs deep not only through memory, but through shared values and purpose.

“One of the last conversations I had with him was about Hidabroot,” she recalls. “Almost a year before the attack, Rabbi Zamir Cohen came to Miami, where I was living at the time. He was raising money to write a Torah scroll in honor of the kidnapped boys. I donated my ma’aser, my tithe money, to this important mitzvah. I still remember how happy my father sounded when I told him. He told me that he also donates to Hidabroot, and he was so proud that I was supporting something meaningful.”

It was one of their final conversations and one that remains etched in her heart.

According to Michal, Hidabroot continued to play a key role in her spiritual growth. “For the past five years, I haven’t gone a day without listening to a lecture. Rabbi Zamir Cohen and Rabbi Panger are like guiding lights for me. People think that because I was raised in a Haredi home, I don’t need platforms like Hidabroot, which are usually geared toward people becoming more observant. But the truth is the opposite. My education taught me the what and why, but Hidabroot helps me with the how. It gives me structure, priorities, and helps me know how to apply Torah values to real life.”

And now, thank God, she has entered a new chapter of her life.

Two months ago, Michal remarried. Her husband, Shmi (Shmaryahu Gur Aryeh) Harel, shares her desire to grow spiritually. Together, they are working to bring nachat ruach, joy and pride, to their Father in Heaven. This time, it’s for both fathers: the one above, and the one who raised her with love and strength.

She ends with a memory she will never forget.

“One of the strongest images I carry with me from the day of my father’s death is of his tefillin (phylacteries). When the terrorist entered the synagogue, my father was the first person he saw. My father was standing in the hallway, wrapped in his tallit (prayer shawl), with his back to the attacker. He had nowhere to run. He fell right there, bleeding.

“He lay there for hours, still wearing his tallit and tefillin. Later, when the Chevra Kadisha, the Jewish burial society prepared his body, they told my brother that my father’s tefillin boxes had opened. And unlike the others, which were soaked in blood, my father’s were completely clean. Not a single drop.

“We see that as a clear miracle. Something beyond nature. And it’s in moments like those, in the small things, in the quiet details, that I feel Hashem’s presence most clearly. And it gives me the strength to keep going.”