Lessons from Rav Kanner - Rabbi Chaim Eisenstein

this past week my uncle rebecca sharya conner passed away my uncle was not a famous man but his life story story which is quite gripping and i'll just mention a couple parts of it has tremendous lessons that can inspire us to grow as people my uncle arie when he was a child grew up in poland when the nazis came he managed to escape with four other siblings and his grandparents to communist russia the reason he wasn't with his parents is that in the initial bombings of poland his sister had been seriously injured and his parents stayed back to tend to her while the grandparents tried to escape with the rest of the children into the soviet union his parents and his sister's fate was the fate of so many that they were all killed when they entered russia very early on the communists told the grandparents that the children can't stay with them they were separated from their grandparents there were five children that were left all alone their parents would soon be killed and their grandparents actually died a short while later both of them heartbroken that they weren't able to protect their last five grandchildren my uncle met his grandfather as they were separated by a river and his grandfather gave him two parting words two parting messages one was that you're a jew and don't forget that you're holy and you come from holy people and the other is you now have a responsibility to take your four siblings protect them and ultimately i don't know if he told them to co-terrorize israel but to bring them to a place that's better and safer ultimately my uncle came here tarzan ladocia terez israel and he passed away with more than a hundred descendants now there are two very very powerful messages from this story my cousin of christian kaner when he eulogized his father he said as you go up to heaven as your soul arrives upstairs your grandfather is going to come out to greet you i'm going to say you fulfilled your mission you may maintain true to who your identity and he managed to bring all four of his siblings to eretz he's throw each one of them having special families the first message is every single one of us has a mission in some ways my uncle's mission was overwhelming it's mind-boggling and there are so many parts to the story that i haven't told about how he managed to usher his siblings to safety but on another way my uncle was given a very clear direction he was given direction from his loving grandfather and he set out in his life to fulfill it and anybody who knew my uncle knew that he lived every moment in his life fulfilling those two holy requests but you and i also have a mission in a way we're not as lucky to have such dramatic circumstances to be told what exactly that mission is but one day we're going to go up to heaven after 120 years god willing and the question is are there people who are going to come out and say i appreciate so much what you did in this world for our souls and for the entire universe