The city of Akko is a tourist attraction. Many people come from all over the world to walk down its lanes and passageways, behold its historic beauty, and hear its ancient stories. Numerous shopkeepers and vendors try to sell their wares to the sightseers and other visitors. Large sums of money change hands in this marketplace, which leads to disputes among the merchants, who are divided into two main groups.

The fact that there are both Arab and Jewish merchants simply made the dispute more vicious. It reached the point of intense hatred, threatening to explode at any moment.

One evening, about 10 years ago, I received an urgent telephone call from a friend, a supporter of the Chabad community. The fear in his voice on the other end of the line was unmistakable. He told me that his friend, the leader of the Jewish group competing for control of the souvenir market, had disappeared from his home several hours earlier. At first, there was plenty of optimistic reassurance that he would soon return. However, anyone familiar with him knew that he was an extremely well-organized person, and for him to vanish without telling a soul was totally bizarre. The concern over his welfare grew when it was discovered that the front door to his house had been left wide open, and his cell phone was found nearby.

This and other discoveries immediately raised serious fears among his close colleagues that something awful had happened to him. His friend on the phone sounded terrified and distraught. I invited him to come to my house to write a letter to the Lubavitcher Rebbe through Igros Kodesh, the Rebbe’s published letters, and ask for a blessing

He didn’t waste a moment and came right over. The Rebbe’s answer was in reply to a Jew who was making a visit to ‘that country’ [the U.S.S.R.], and the Rebbe blessed him that he would return safe and sound to his family.

I read the letter again and again, and I told the man that in my humble opinion, the Rebbe was giving his friend a blessing that he should return home safely, and there was nothing to worry about.

It required a lot of courage to say something like that. The story of the kidnapping had spread throughout the city and even made the national headlines. In light of all the details, everyone realized that something dreadful had happened to this merchant. Yet, the Rebbe’s message was clear: the merchant was alive and he would still return home.

After the merchant’s friends and family had endured three days of great fear and anxiety, the police announced that they had found a body lying on the seashore. He was about 50 years old and appeared to meet the description of the missing merchant. The various media outlets reported that the police had asked the merchant’s family to come to the hospital in Nahariya and see if they could identify the body.

The merchant’s good friend called me again, and in a quivering voice, he updated me on the new developments. I had a difficult time reassuring him. The only words left to say were, “These are the Rebbe’s words, and there’s nothing more to be said, even if the reality seems to indicate that the worst had happened right before our eyes.”

A few hours later, I got another phone call from our mutual friend, who told me that the body found on the seashore was not the merchant’s. Nevertheless, he remained genuinely concerned over his survival, as it had now been three days since he last had contact with anyone – something most uncharacteristic of him to do. “If those criminals have him, they’ll show him no mercy,” the friend said with a tone of sorrow and pessimism. All I could do was try to give him a feeling of hope that everything would work out.

Two more nerve-wracking days passed. There was much speculation as to the fate of the Jewish merchant, but the eventual climax of the whole episode shocked everyone to the core.

Two days later, the Jewish merchant happily returned home as if nothing had happened. That morning, police detectives from the northern region knocked on the door of one of the local Arab merchants, and they arrested him on charges of issuing a murder contract.

Now, the details of the story became clear:

It turned out that this arrested criminal had met with someone whom he hired to kill the Jewish merchant. The criminal paid him half the amount in advance. However, the would-be assassin apparently had second thoughts, or he may have been working undercover for the police, because he quickly reported what he knew to the authorities. They decided to lay a trap for the vendor. They staged a kidnapping, while they clandestinely kept the Jewish merchant out of sight. They instructed him to fly to Turkey, where he waited in a hotel at police expense until he was told that he could return.

In the meantime, the police leaked a deceptive report to the media that a body had apparently been found with a description strikingly similar to the Jewish merchant. Hidden cameras were installed, and the ‘hit-man’ came to receive the balance of his fee. When the money was placed in his hands, police detectives came running out of their hiding places and arrested the murder contractor. The perpetrator was convicted of ordering a contract killing and was sentenced to a lengthy prison term.

The amazing story and its stunning finale spread like wildfire throughout the city. As a result, many people learned about the power of a blessing from the Rebbe, through Igros Kodesh.