Rabbi Tomer is a distinguished rav in Ramle. He recounted this story with a pronounced Sephardic pronunciation, while constantly repeating words of praise and thanks to Hashem.

"It was a week after Chanuka 5760, and three Jews and I decided to visit the kivros tzaddikim in the Ukraine, to daven at the kvarim of the Baal Shem Tov, the Maggid of Mezritch, Rabbi Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, and other tzaddikim.

"It wasn’t easy traveling in the Ukraine. We experienced hard times but we overcame them all. One morning we went on a tour with a local driver whom we had hired for this purpose. It was four of us, Shlomo Edery, Ezra Degaga, Ovadia Tomer (my brother), and myself.

"We traveled for hours from one tziyun to another, and in each place we beseeched Hashem for His mercies. At 1:30 A.M. we arrived in Haditch, a tiny village, which we could barely make out in the complete darkness.

"We were getting out of the car to go to the holy tziyun when we noticed that Ezra had not exited the car. We asked him why he didn’t get out, and he said he was too tired and he had no strength to go down the hillside. We could understand his feelings, as the cold was bone-chilling, several degrees below zero, there was a strong wind, darkness, and a steep downward climb. He also complained that his feet hurt, ‘Go down and daven for yourselves and for me, too,’ he asked us.

"We refused to leave him behind. We didn’t want him to stay alone in the car with a stranger in a strange place, and after all - we had finally gotten to this holy place and we didn’t want him to miss the opportunity. We just couldn’t leave him.

"After much pleading, Ezra finally agreed to go with us. We saw that it was really mesirus nefesh on his part. We went down the hill, and when we got inside we lit candles and began to daven with great feeling.

"As we were davening, I heard the sound of something falling behind me. I quickly turned around and saw Ezra on the ground making some kind of gargling sound. I knew Ezra had a sense of humor and I thought he was joking around. I said, ‘Ezra, this is a holy place. It’s not a place for jokes,’ but he didn’t answer me. That’s when we realized something terrible had happened. Ezra was white and he continued to make that noise, and he frothed at the mouth. He finally took a deep breath and was utterly silent.

"In my life I had already seen a goses, a person in his final moments of life. I knew this was it! We had lost him right before our eyes!

"Our thoughts raced furiously. I thought, what happened? How did he suddenly die? How will we bring him back home? What will we tell his wife? How will I be able to look his children in the eye? All these thoughts ran through my mind.

"None of us was a doctor, and we didn’t know C.P.R. We stood there helplessly as the cold of two in the morning got even colder. A strange place, darkness. We just stood there.

"Instinctively I turned towards the tziyun and prostrated myself on it and burst out with, "Rebbe! I ask and plead for Ezra Degaga. We came here to you, to a great tzaddik, as four live Jews. We came to daven at your kever, and we ask and plead that you do a miracle so that we four Jews can walk out of here, also in the z’chus of the Tanya we learned.

"I prayed from the depths of my heart, and after a short time I heard a sound behind me. I turned around and saw Ezra opening his eyes. The others quickly poured water on him to revive him a bit. Within a few minutes he was even able to get up.

"The whole thing took ten minutes, but it took much longer for us to recover. The driver came down to see what had happened to us. We all turned to R. Shneur Zalman and thanked and praised Hashem and His loyal servant, the great tzaddik.

"When we returned to Eretz Yisroel a day later, we told our friends about the great miracle that had happened to Ezra. They all looked at him as a walking miracle.