The Blessing Within

Quantifying Our True Worth

By Rabbi Yoseph Kahanov, Jax, Fl.

Rabbi DovBer of Lubavitch, would listen to the weekly Torah reading read by his father, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi. One year, his father was out of town for a Shabbos when the Admonition was read. After hearing the Admonition read by the substitute reader, the child was so emotionally upset that even a month later he had not fully recovered. The child was later asked, “Why were you not disturbed this way when the Admonition was read in past years?” The child replied, “When father reads, no curses are heard.”

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The Veitzner Rav, R’ Tzvi Hersh Meisels, was a skilled Shofar blower, who somehow managed to smuggle a Shofar into Auschwitz with him.

One Rosh Hashanah, thoroughly exhausted after blowing the Shofar more than 20 times for some 1,000 men, he learned about a bloc of new arrivals consisting of 1,400 boys, all of whom had been condemned to the crematorium.

Upon discovering that somewhere in Auschwitz there was a man with a Shofar, the ill fated youngsters made an all-out-attempt, via a series of messengers, to arrange for their final Shofar blowing in this world.

The young Hungarian Rav faced a serious dilemma. It was quite obvious that to enter the bloc was to risk his life. Should he be caught, he would no doubt share the same fate as his young petitioners. Yet, can one really deny the final request of 1, 400 holy martyrs? Could he turn his back on this group of angelic souls in a time like this? What should he do? Should he take the chance?

Having gained permission to access the bloc by bribing the Capos, R’ Meisels decided to go ahead and oblige the holy wishes of the doomed youth, the danger notwithstanding.

“Where is the pen, and who is the writer that can transcribe the emotions of my heart as I entered that bloc,” writes R’ Meisels regarding his dramatic experience: “I met a sea of eyes as they pressed forward to kiss my hand and my clothes. They cried with bitter tears and wailing voices to the heart of heaven.

He recalls the extraordinary courage of one of the boys. After the Shofar was blown this youngster got up and cried out, “My brothers, let us, in our final moments, reaffirm our unwavering faith in G-d, by crying out the holy ‘Shema’ in fervent devotion. Suddenly, with great enthusiasm, they all cried out in rendering voices: ‘Shema Yisrael, HaShem Elokeinu, HaShem Echad!’”

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Elijah appeared and said: Arise, Rabbi Simeon, awaken from your slumber. How fortunate you are that the Holy One, blessed be He, is mindful of your honor. All the promises and consolation of Israel are written in these curses. Consider, when a king loves his son, although he might curse him and beat him nevertheless he loves him from the bottom of his heart. Thus, even though the Holy One, blessed be He, uttered curses, His words were said lovingly. Outwardly they appear as curses, but they are a great beneficence, since these curses were said lovingly, (Zohar Chadash).

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The holocaust was such an inconceivable occurrence, that even a half century later one cannot begin to put it into perspective. I often wonder how we were ever able to pick up and move on.

Sometimes I attribute this incredible feat to our extraordinary stamina and resilience as a people. But, to be honest, there are times when I feel like it is our human frailty and weakness that accounts for our ability to shrug off the mind numbing evil that was perpetrated against our very flesh and blood and to construct ourselves anew, without bitterness or resentment.

When I perceive my generation – the generation that followed that dreadful era – so completely whole and restored, I flounder between pride and guilt. Are we really that strong to have healed so quickly and completely, or is it mental weakness that accounts for our miraculous recovery – our inability to absorb the earth-shattering magnitude of the crime and the enormous loss? I sometimes wonder if it is right to have forgiven and forgotten so soon.

Yet there is one thing I do not doubt, that is the heroism of the martyrs. While others question the courage of those holy martyrs – faulting them for failing to stage a formidable resistance and for “Going like sheep to the slaughter”– I share no such sentiments.

I have no qualms with the impeccable and unprecedented heroism of the holocaust martyrs and their interminable contribution to mankind. To me they are the consummate heroes. I credit them for endowing the world with the greatest gift since the revelation at Sinai. I thank them for establishing the essential anatomy and “Value” of man – his eternal Divine spirit.

From time immemorial, man’s Divine sprit has been the subject of challenge and adversity. Its contested existence has formed the basis of every moral conflict, tracing back to the very beginning of time, be it Nimrod, Ishmael, Esav or Amalek, or the varied more contemporary despots. At the core of their rebellion lies a direct challenge to man’s essential Divine spirit and image in which it was created, as well as to its Heavenly source.

Three thousand years of unspeakable strife, terror, and mass bloodshed, failed to end this cosmic struggle. Then came the Holocaust along with the incontrovertible verdict: You can break man’s body and even destroy it, but you cannot break or destroy his Divine spirit.

Hitler sought to destroy truth, justice, morality and Divine consciousness; hence he attacked the people who were for thousands of years committed to convey these values to the world. Should any doubt arise as to what was behind the malicious campaign on the part of the Nazis, just consider Hitler’s own words: “Conscience is a Jewish invention. It is a blemish, like circumcision.”

“Providence has ordained that I should be the greatest liberator of humanity. I am freeing men from the restraints of an intelligence that has taken charge: from the dirty and degraded self-mortifications called conscience and morality and from the demands of a freedom and personal independence, which only a few can bear.”

“Against the “so-called” Ten Commandments, against them we are fighting.”

This view was not Hitler’s alone, it was the view of the entire Nazi Party. In 1936 a Nazi Official, Supreme Group Leader Schultz, speaking at a meeting of the National Socialist Confederation of Students, stated as much: “We cannot tolerate that another organization is established along side of us that has a different spirit than ours. We must crush it. National Socialism in all earnestness says: “I am the lord thy god, thou shalt have no other gods before me . . .”

“The internal expurgation of the Jewish Spirit is not possible in any platonic way, for the Jewish spirit is the product of the Jewish person.”

What, exactly is this “Jewish spirit,” which the Nazis and others throughout history sought to destroy? Let a non-Jew, Reverend Edward H. Flannery of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, describe it: “It was Judaism that brought the concept of a G-d given universal moral law into the world. The Jew carries the burden of G-d in history and for this he has never been forgiven.”

On October 25, 1940, in a memorandum dispatched by I.A. Eckhardt, from das Reichssicherheitshauptamt – the Central Office of the German Security Forces – to the Nazi district governors in occupied Poland, instructs them not to grant exit visas to Ostjuden (Jews from Eastern Europe). The reason behind this order is clearly spelled out: they fear that because of their “Orthodoxen eisnstellung”, their Orthodoxy, these Ostjuden would provide, “Di Rabbiner und Talmudlehrere, the rabbis and teachers of the Talmud, who would create “Di geistige Erneuerung” the spiritual regeneration of the Jews in America and throughout the world.

At Auschwitz and Treblinka occurred an event of epic proportions. In Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Sachsenhausen and Theresienstadt the most critical cosmic question had finally been put to rest. The holy ashes and sacred skeletons of the tenacious holocaust martyrs had resoundingly declared that man’s spirit is indeed inextinguishable – as eternal as its Divine source.

The martyrs were well aware of the true nature of this battle. They knew that this struggle was not about physical might or cleverness but rather about the essential temperament and value of the spirit.

They also knew that no military victory can win this battle. The only way to triumph over this perpetual cosmic contest, was by proving the true value of the spirit over the body and they were willing to pay the price in order to deliver the victory once and for all.

This Shabbos we conclude the book of Leviticus with the reading of Bechukosai. Fraught with terrifying warnings of unimaginable consequences for the abandonment of Torah law, it’s no wonder that this portion is commonly referred to as the Parsha of “Tochacha” – rebuke. Each curse is more bone-chilling than the preceding one.

Indeed, throughout the generations it has always been a challenge to find someone willing to be called to the Torah for the Aliyah in which these somber verses are read. It is hence the custom in many Synagogues for the Baal Korei – the one reading the Torah – to take the Aliyah for himself without even being called up, so that no one is insulted.

Yet not everyone was afraid to be called up to the Torah for these verses. It is told of the merchant Chizkiah Tajir that his success in business was actually due to his having been called up to the Torah for this Aliyah. In fact, according to Kabalah, within the curses there lie great blessings.

This view that the curses contain great hidden blessings, has in fact led to competition in certain places over the purchase of this Aliyah. Rabbi Ovadiah Hadaya once reported: “I heard there are certain places where they compete for the purchase of this Aliyah, and the one who wins makes a great feast for the entire congregation at the Synagogue.”

“There are other places where a certain person might traditionally have the claim to this Aliyah and no one else may take it from him. It is clear that whoever considers them blessings has the reward of all the hidden blessings being fulfilled for him. And conversely, whoever (Heaven forfend) considers them curses, brings on himself these curses just as one might tempt fate, and in this regard it is said: what business have you prying into the secrets of the Merciful One?… and pleasantness will come to those who hear them, and they will be blessed with good.”

This notion finds further expression in the reason why after concluding the petrifying section of rebuke, the Parsha abruptly shifts gears to a section dealing with the laws of “Arachin” – the dedication of the value of one’s own worth or another person to the Temple. This narrative seems completely misplaced. What is the relevance of these laws to the rebuke which dominates the rest of the Parsha?

During the Holocaust, when many of the harrowing curses of this week’s Parsha were manifested before our very eyes, the Germans derived a particularly sadistic pleasure in torturing and disgracing the great Rabbis who served as pillars of inspiration to the Jewish community. The suffering endured by these righteous men is unfathomable.

In one particularly cruel incident, a number of malicious Nazi officers beat the Klausenberger Rebbe to the brink of consciousness. After enduring seemingly endless blows, the officers asked the battered and bloodied Rebbe if after all of this he still believed that the Jews were G-d’s chosen people. He responded unequivocally in the affirmative.

Infuriated by what they considered to be the Rebbe’s stubborn arrogance and audacity, they beat him some more. When the Rebbe continued, in between blows, to affirm his unshakeable belief in being one of G-d’s chosen people, the miserable, frustrated officers scoffed in outrage: “Look at you! You are laying here on the ground bloodied and bruised; scarcely alive, and you call yourself chosen! Is this your idea of chosen?”

To this the Rebbe replied: “As long as I am down here declaring my unwavering faith in my G-d and my principles, while you are up there doing what you’re doing, I am indeed convinced that I’m of the chosen people.”

Applying the lesson of this story to our original question, the Kotzker Rebbe explains that after reading the terrifying curses contained in the Parsha and after witnessing their tragic fulfillment; the Jew might begin to lose faith in his intrinsic value and self-worth. Our disproportionate persecution as a nation throughout the ages, as well as our intense personal suffering, could easily cause a person to lose hope.

In order to counter this conclusion, the section outlining the painful times to befall the Jewish people is immediately followed by the section dealing with the laws of Arachin. This section details how much a person is required to donate if he chooses to dedicate the “value” of himself or another Jew to the Temple.

This juxtaposition comes to remind us that even in the darkest moments, after enduring the most inhumane suffering fathomable, having been stripped of all dignity, we maintain our intrinsic worth in eyes of Hashem.

In fact, as difficult as it is to say, our true worth in the eyes of man and G-d, could never be fully realized in absence of our tenacious faith and conviction in face of brutal oppression and suffering.

We have now passed the test by all accounts. We have demonstrated to G-d and the world that our priorities are intact, our faith is unshakable and that our G-dly spirit is invincible. In doing so, we’ve bequeathed humanity with the ultimate gift – proof of man’s higher existence and value, which cannot be denied or suppressed – a truth more critical than life itself. Our precious value is now known to G-d and man beyond a scintilla of doubt.

More importantly even, we helped bring the purpose of creation into fruition – to bear witness as to the existence of a creator, in whose image we are created. The mission has been acco