By COLlive reporter
4,000 Jews packed all of the halls of Ateres Chaya in Boro Park, Brooklyn, this past Motzaei Shabbos for the annual Hatzalah of Boro Park dinner and to salute the selfless activities of the volunteer medical emergency service.
David Sassoon, who lost 7 children in a fire before Pesach, spoke and thanked Hatzalah for their efforts on that fateful night. “I can’t thank Hashem enough for being part of such a nation,” he said.
The keynote speaker was the renowned lecturer Rabbi YY Jacobson, who for 45 minutes enraptured the crowd with his Yiddish address. He spoke of the fact that during the Second World War there was a certain apathy that affected many Jews in safe countries.
Some said at that time, “Am I my brother’s Keeper?!” Hatzalah declares every hour of the day: “I am my brothers keeper!” he stated and went on to thank the wives of Hatzalah members who give up so much, so that their husbands can save lives.
He quoted the Rebbe‘s sicha that the beginning of exile happens when a Jewish child lay lingering in a pit, and his brother who should save him goes instead to fast and repent. “How can we work on perfecting ourselves when a Jewish child is in the abyss?!”
“It was a very moving experience, to watch thousands of Jews inspired by the Rebbe’s message that all Jews are really one and we must live that way in our daily lives,” commented businessman Dudi Farkash who brought Rabbi Jacobson to the Hatzalah event:
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