By COLlive reporter
Menachem Segal, a Lubavitcher living in Lod who works as a computer programmer, visited a client who has a store in Ramat Gan on Tuesday.
While working on their computer, an elderly Jew walked over to him and said “Shulem” in a Yiddish accent.
“I was busy and hurriedly replied to him ‘hello’ to get back to my work. But he didn’t leave and insisted on telling me about himself,” Segal relates.
“My family name is Tesler, which is a respected family of Vhiznitz Chassidim,” the elderly man said. “My parents were Holocaust survivors and I was born in a displaced persons (DP) camp in Germany in 1946.”
Mr. Tesler went on to tell:
“At the age of 13, my parents sat me down and told me about the calamity of the Holocaust. I was so upset that I decided to cut my payos and erase religion from my life.
“My family was in shock and tried to bring me back, but I refused. I enlisted in the IDF and fought in all the wars of Israel. I retired after 24 years while holding the rank of lieutenant colonel.
“I did start a family. Recently, faith returned to me and I began to pray alone, but without tefillin. My tefillin is in my heart. I will never put on Tefillin,” he concluded.
Segal says that despite the man’s firm words, he saw it as a soulful call for help.
“I look at him in shock,” Segal says. “I then looked at my watch. It was 4:40 PM. There were 15 minutes left to sunset. I told him this is Divine Providence – and I must help you with Tefillin.”
“No way!” the man said at first.
After some words to pursuade him, the man finally said: “You know what, let’s put Tefillin on my arm.”
Segal ran to get his pair of Tefillin from his car and suggested to the store’s owner that they go to a back room not to disturb the clientele.
“No!” Mr. Tesler said. “Let’s put them on here in the middle of the store so everyone can see.”
Segal’s second surprise came when Mr. Tesler rolled up his sleeves. Tattooed on his arm was a magen dovid, the letter T for the name of his family, and 19/05/44 the date on which the Nazis murdered his family in the death camps.
Mr. Tesler laid Tefillin on his arm and head and said the Shema Yisroel, having in mind those who perished in the Holocaust. It was the first time he put on Tefillin in 60 years!
And so now Moshiach can come!!!
nice story
My father-in-law a h was in 6 death camps. He put on tefillin in the death camps when they w e r e available and every day after the war! This man BH is coming back! But he would have helped the n e s h a m o s of his murdered loved ones hyd by keeping Torah and MIT Z VOS instead of going otd and getting a tattoo which does nothing for their souls! I’ve heard too many times Jews say the Torah is in my heart, my Judaism it’s in my heart that is worthless as… Read more »
You are not this man..
You have no right to judge him..
Only Hashem can.
A brocha on this neshoma whose heart finally was ready to put on the tefillin once again..
This is our job.
The Torah commands us:
אל לדין את חבריך עד שתגיע למקומו
He is a dear neshama which is part of Hashem.
I encourage you to study the Rebbe’s approach on how to look at a fellow Yid.
A good start would be to remember to say Hareini Mekabel with concentration.
They used to have a name for this, “being a cardiac Jew”. Glad he did the deed!
We are working on dissolving all labels please join us in bringing Moshiach by discontinuing the modern practice of dividing yidden into labels. for 70-80 years a Neshama just wants to do a favor for another! Hope this message of love is received well!
Did he put on a few times when he was 13 before this revelation or did his parents tell him literally the night of his Bar Mitzvah?
This man has so much Ahavas Yisroel that he could not fathom how Hashem did not seem to care about the Yidden. Maybe that’s why he felt alienated from Hashem. His Ahavas Yisroel is admirable!