The Boy Pulled From the Sea

As with many gedolei Yisroel, miraculous events are told of the parents of Rav Ben Tzion before his birth. His father, Rav Eliyahu, was a boy in a small Persian village when a local ruler ordered the Jews to convert or leave. His grandfather took the family onto the first ship he could find, bound for Eretz Yisroel.

The ship never reached the port of Haifa. It ran aground on the coast beneath the cave of Eliyohu HaNovi on Har Carmel. Rescuers came out and began tossing passengers into rowboats, and young Eliyahu was thrown, but he missed the boat and landed in the water. A gentile sailor spotted the drowning child, hauled him out and saved his life.

The family wandered for a time and finally settled in Yerushalayim, where they followed Rav Tzadka Chutzin. Rav Eliyahu later married Banya, a woman devoted to Torah. She would hug her children when they came home from cheder and bless them that they should become talmidei chachamim, and all of them did.