EMUNAH & BITACHON-----9/11 hashgocha

PART II - HASHGOCHA

Ari Schonbrun is one of the heads of Tomchei Shabbos in the Five Towms area of New York. I know him personally. His office was on the 101st floor in World Trade Center

#1. He told Arutz-7 how his life was saved by "miracle after miracle after miracle:"

"I was on the 78th floor, about to enter an elevator for the 101st floor (I happened to have stayed home an extra ten minutes in order to help my son with some schoolwork...), when I heard a tremendous explosion.

All the electricity went out. I entered an office where I saw some light, and someone was on the radio, I tried to get her to get some help, but she couldn't do it because there were too many people. Then I told the floor's fire warden that we have to get out… he said OK, we can go down the emergency steps, but we couldn't find them, there was only smoke all around.

I kept walking and I found a man saying, "Here, here," so about 15 people went down the steps there. A co-worker of mine named Virginia was hurt, and she kept saying, "Don't leave me, don't leave me." I went with her and we started going down.

My cell phone was dead, but after we went about three floors, all of a sudden the phone started ringing. It was my wife, and I told her, "Joyce, I'm OK, I'm OK," over and over. Then someone asked me if he could use the phone and I said sure, and again - the phone was totally dead. I felt that it was just a miracle that my wife got through.

Virginia kept saying, 'Don't leave me,' and I said to everyone, 'Make way, there is someone wounded here,' and they let us through. At one point she said she couldn't go any further, and I said, " Virginia, you just have to!"

We finally got down to the bottom, and the police directed us where to go outside, and I looked around and finally found someone to help [Virginia] - only then did I look around outside and see the second building on fire. I couldn't understand, and I said, "I know that there was some bomb in the first building, but why is there a fire in the second building?" - because the whole time until then I didn't hear or know anything else... So then they told me that two planes had crashed, one into each building. We had had absolutely no idea.

At that point Virginia still didn't let me go, she said I have to go with her even to the hospital. I said I don't know if they'll let me, etc. But she said I had to, and they let me in the ambulance, and we were apparently the first ambulance that left from there… When we got there, I found out that the second building fell.

And I know that if I hadn't gone with Virginia, I would have stayed there walking around, and who knows what would have happened to me. I'm telling you, it was just miracle after miracle after miracle that saved my life… Just like in the story of Purim…"