A bus driver in Jerusalem on Yaffa Street notices smoke coming out of a car behind him in his rear view mirror. He stops the bus tries to pull the driver out of the burning car. The driver resists. The bus driver believes he is in shock and struggles to pull him out of his car.

The bus driver did not recognize him as a terrorist but he was. The bomb had not detonated the main charge and it only smoked. While the bus driver was trying to save this driver, the driver was struggling to finish detonating the bomb.

The bus driver succeeded in pulling the terrorist from the car, in an effort to save the bomber’s life not knowing the ulitmate deadly mission of the driver. The bus driver succeeded and the terrorist’s mission failed.

I am in no way a Talmudic scholar, but I hear that there is a saying that a man who saves one life saves a thousand. There were far less than a thousand lives on the targeted bus, but sometimes you can take the ancient wisdom literally.

HKO 4/25/07

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