R' Shmuel Yakov Klein on "Holocaust Lessons for Today"

[Music] yes weem Jewish life flourishes in the Americas in England in Australia There Are Places which are friendly to the Jewish people and we do flourish here and we have much to be thankful for but let there be no mistake about the fact that we continue to be in Gus this is not where we belong this is not our home so what we need to do when we focus on the Holocaust in my opinion firstly is to focus on the concept of Gus what is Gus does mean physically we are removed from the land of Israel no no it's it's not really that because those Jews who physically Al live in the land of Israel today are also in galus it has nothing to do with geographical location it has much more to do with the State of the Union if I can paraphrase it has to do with the state of the Jewish people I don't mean a political State the state of Israel I mean the state the mat the situation of the Jewish people that's what Galos is okay so what is that situation let me ask members of the audience does anyone know offand how many Jewish Exiles did there or do they exist in Jewish history when we speak about the Jewish Exiles Exiles of the Jewish people how many eras how many epochs of Jewish history are we referring to three anyone else four or five four four or five okay you said four so I'm going to thank you you're very close actually four or five is probably the closest when our sages when the teach about Gus they speak about Gus B Babylonian exile and then they speak about the G ofas Persia and media and then they speak about gut Yovan the Greek Exile beginning with the conquest of Alexander the Great and ending with the Kaneka story and then the fourth Exile which is called Gus Edom Edom being one of the names for Rome Roman Exile now there is no Rome anymore yeah I know there's a city in Italy called Rome but Rome as a culture Rome is a concept cept does not really exist anymore but the Exile that they brought down upon us still exists so we may be in New York but we are still in Rome that's galus Edom when kazal when our sages speak about Gus they speak about these four of course the question to be raised and I think I heard someone on this side of the room say it mutter it under her breath is MIT Egypt how does Egypt fit into the equation weren't we first exiled to Egypt in the days of Yakov Y and the shim how does MIT fit into the whole equation the answer is theim tell us that MIT was not really a Gus in and of itself but rather it was a preamble or it was a preparation it set the tone it created the essence of GS and now that means to say when we prepare something of course we lay out for preparing to bake something to build something we make sure that we have all of the ingredients before us all the tools all the ingredients that is the preparation and later that which we bake or build we can all Trace that to the ingredients that we had during the Preparatory stage correct so if we view MIT as a preparation for Gus that means to say that whatever we find in Gus can somehow be traced to MIT or if I can invert that thought a little bit I would say that to understand MIT is really to understand the nature of Jewish Exile in a complete sense analyze MIT analyze what Jewish history in Egypt was back then and in a sense we try to do that every year at p analyze that and you will understand some aspects of our own condition today and that would take a very long time but I want to focus on just one little ingredient one little concept which as you will see is not really little at all you know the Jews came to MIT well of course Yosef was there before and he made it big right made it big and then his family came his father the and 70 people all together a total of 70 Souls descended to said and by the end of your Epoch in made you as populous as the stars of the sky there were a lot of you I'll teach about people having sex tuplets on a regular basis ouch but that's what happened but it was without labor pain so maybe the ouch is out of place Jewish people prospered but that's amazing when we think about mam we think about slavery we think about how bad it was Jewish children being killed right that's a little bit of a misnomer a little bit of a Mis snake of of a mistake because the Jews were in MIT for 210 years but for approximately the first 80 years their lives were just peachy Dandy their lives were blessed parro welcomed yov and his clan and said live in the best part of our land in Goan live in the best part of Egypt and the Jews prospered and they melt multiplied and it became wealthy then all of a sudden boom a a new parro whether he was new or just perhaps a new attitude there is a dispute about that but nevertheless a new parro came onto the scene and he said you know what we have to be afraid of these Jews let's outsmart them to make sure that they won't gain the upper hand over us all let's enslave them so for the first 80 years Jewish life in mitzraim was beautiful and then the boom fell down upon them slavery destruction suffering began and it lasted until they left that's one aspect of the Preparatory Gus the Gus of MIT and if you take a look at what happened in other periods of Jewish history you will find the exact same thing anyone know when the Jews arrived in Spain in big number It's actually an easy Date to Remember especially if you drive the year was 7-Eleven of the Common Era 7-Eleven of CE when the Muslims crossed the Straits of Gibralter going from Morocco and they conquered Spain the Jews came with for the next 400 years the Jews of Spain enjoyed the most favorable conditions they prospered they flourished you know can can you imagine having the president of the United States being a religious Jew I can't it was scary enough when Joe liberman might have become become the vice president several years ago we can't imagine having a Jewish president but there were people in Spain who were the prime ministers the equivalent of a president of Spain people like rabm hanagid IB Nagel so they were Jewish prime minister but they were not only from but they were Rim they were rash they were great they opened acmy for the teaching of Ty themselves that's a pretty favorable description of Jewish life yeshivas were opened fairly similar to what we have today in the year 1146 a second wave of Muslims conquered Spain called the aloades that was the end of the good times it was the end of the Calm before the storm then the storm came in forced conversions expulsions tortures the Christians came and conquered Spain away from the Muslims They carried on the terror campaign against the Jewish people that culminated with the expulsion of 1492 but the point is look at the history of Spanish jewry 400 years of living high off the hog or on the hog and then the boom fell just like in MIT and just like in Poland and just like in Persia and just like in Germany that's a pattern one of the lessons we learned from the Holocaust is look at the pattern of Jewish history but why is that a lesson for today again I am very reluctant to be the harbinger of bad news maybe there is no bad news but I tend to try to be a realist Jewish life in America is very favorable as I said earlier we flourish we have beautiful buildings where we come together we can Daven we have yot we have Kim we have bakov we have schools that cater to our educational and spiritual needs life is just great in fact The Luminaries that Torah leaders of today refer to America and to Britain Canada I'm a Canadian by the way refer to these lands as malus kingdoms of loving kindness that's because life for us here is just great but we need to know we need to bear in mind that we've been here before we have EXP experienced these things before I don't want to inject Panic who am I to inject panic and I don't feel the panic but realism teaches us a lesson that all of this ultimately can be mere illusion it can all be taken away at the drop of a hat which realist has not felt a little bit of fear as a result of the PO of the current administration of the United States that's only a a drop in the sea do we know what's going to happen no the lesson for us to realize the lesson for us to internalize is that this is what Gus is all about it started that way in MIT and it continued that way over and over again throughout history and today we are enjoying what we can possibly described as the calm will there be a storm we certainly pray that there shall not be but I do know that if heaven forbid mashiach does not come before very long then this calm that we experience might in fact be accurately described as the Cal for a storm make sure your passports are up to date oh he's such a scaremonger I'm not I'm really not but I am a child of Holocaust Survivors I am a son of two people who were in Poland born in Poland grew up and raised in Poland married in Poland before the war to other people and my mother in particular had a very blessed life life her family was well to do very very Noble aristocratic kidish people in the second largest city in Poland known as Lodge and then it all was taken away her wealth her comfort her first husband her first child so I'm not a scaremonger I just have a little bit of the weight of Jewish suffering that I carry around with me at all times and there isn't a day that I don't think on this if only for briefly let me go ahead because again the time that we have is limited that was one lesson I want to share another lesson the lesson of Western culture which one Western culture which one of us here is not at least in some measure secretly a fan of Western culture the Arts and the Sciences the entertainment industry the literature the philosophy the music we all live in a society where these components surround us at all times and I guess they tend to affect us to some extent and we don't necessarily bck and say B hug if I may paraphrase we are immersed in that culture but there was another culture which was also which was quite similar in these respects as a matter of was the culture that was considered by all to be the jewel in the crown of Western civilization and that was the culture of Germany in the 19th century and before the 18th 19th and early 20th century students of secular learning probably heard the name Emmanuel Kant George Hegel Beethoven Mozart Schubert nii Schiller H and the list of these cultural Stars goes on and on and on George Hegel a philosopher of a German philosopher of the early 19th century taught that the world is constantly unfolding the world is getting better and more refined the Ancients believed that most people should be slaves we are coming to an enlightened presence and present Todd Hegel but I have news for you Hegel his philosopher his friends their music their literature their poetry did not save Germany from creating such nightmares as aitz and midan and belgit D Bergen Bellon booken and the list goes on but H how is that possible the Pinnacle of human civilization it's only possible but it's entirely possible because there's nothing in all of these beautious cultural facades that face us day after day that safeguards against an ultimate fall to the lowest of the low of The Human Condition not even education and and this in a sense is a third lesson let me share with you just a bit of Holocaust history in the early year or two of the Holocaust the Germans began to activate their plan their dream of making Europe and ultimately the world UD which means free of Jews initially they shipped them out get away of course nobody wanted us including the land of the free and the home of the brave so the only alternative was to do what's logically most sensible was to kill us so they had different methods there were death Vans Nazis would come together in a little town gather together the juw put them in the back of a van stick the exhaust pipe into the top of the van and just keep the motor running until all those inside would be killed and they did this hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times there az's group and groups of soldiers who would merely shoot Jews into a pit that they were told to dig for themselves but it wasn't fast enough it wasn't fast enough so get this on January the 20th in the year 1942 in a little suburb of Berlin called van looks like it says want if you just read it phonetically in English but van in the town of Van 15 members of the highest echelons of the Nazi regime met to discuss the question how can we Quicken how can we expedite the murder of Europe's Jews and they declared an acceptance of a plan called the Reinhardt plan which would use gas Chambers and crematoria and the the gas Chambers would be fueled by poison pellets called zeyon B pellets which when in inserted into a room would oxidize fill the room with poisonous gas and it wouldn't take longer than 20 minutes or so for all those inside to be suffocated and to die that was decided by 15 people at the Von conference take a look at the pictures of the vanon palace beautiful a beautiful medieval Palace a castle but that's not the point the point is that nine out of those 15 people had doctorates these are men of Higher Learning either phds or MDS the rest were not doctors perhaps but they were also men of Higher Learning maybe they only had Master degrees these were sophisticated cultured but that didn't save them from being the beasts that they became that day that didn't save them from flippantly deciding on the death of millions of yiden millions of Jews and by the way we usually speak about the Six Million that died they were not 6 million no I'm not a holocaust denier what I'm telling you is that there were not 6 million there were seven or more there's a Catholic priest in France whose name is Patrick deah who for the last number of years has been traveling throughout the Ukraine and bellarus discovering this is his mission discovering Mass Graves where Jews were killed and buried and he discovered to date that that at least a million people were killed in this manner and they were not in theone they were not in the account of 6 million that's the culture of Germany the crown jewel of human sophistication and that's men of Higher Learning that's the end of the doctorates and the end of the science the end of the sophistication of individuals doesn't help none of it helps all of that learning cannot extricate us from the beasts that we can become hopefully not us but those around us never make the mistake of saying in a right-minded society like the society that that grips the world today in the 21st century nothing like that can happen please don't lower yourself into a belief in that faulty reasoning because it's certainly far from the truth I will proceed with another Li another lesson or maybe another couple of lessons one has to do with the resiliency of the Jewish people you know if you look into the midrash at the beginning of shos you will find an interesting statement made by our sages and that statement is that the reason that Hashem enumerates the names of the Jewish people yet again in parim even though he did it just before in is because hem loves us and because of the love that he has for us he counts us over and over again by name just like he does the Stars you're probably familiar with the p that we say in DAV in the we sayem counts by number the stars and each one he calls by name so in the same way that Hashem loves the stars and he therefore counts them each by name over and over again similarly the Jewish people so therefore even though in par of we read the names of the Jews that came to MIT it says it again these are the names once again enumerating the names of the Jews that came to it's a beautiful thought and there's truth Associated to that thought on many levels but I will share only one of those that's a thought that was expressed by the G Reb the rebbi of gur of G one of the Giants who passed away in 1977 the said the the said if kazal if our sages have compared us to Stars you should know that the comparison is valid on another plane as well and that is the following try to look up into the sky and see the stars you can on a clear night but depends where you're standing because if you're standing in the city in New York where we are flooded with street lights with airplane lights with building lights with car automobile lights there's so much light that it's sometimes hard to make out the stars in the St in the sky go out to the catale mountains where none of those accouterments exists on a clear night when it's black you look up and you see the stars clearly each star illuminates brightly the darkness around it said the the same thing is true for the Jewish people and that's part of the comparison Hashem loves us like the stars because we have that same capacity the blacker the night is around us the darker the circumstances are that surround us the more brightly we shine and the more we have the ability to illuminate the world you want to know one of the things that you should accomplish that you will accomplish by studying the Holocaust more by reading stories from the Holocaust is to see how Jews illuminated the dark Darkness how Jews were able to shine now good God don't missunderstand me I'm not asking for the situation to be repeated so that we can shine yet again but wouldn't it be just great if we could say let's Shine without the Blackness let's try to be as shiny as the stars in the Catskill Mountains without being in the Catskill Mountains let's shine brightly in the way we live does not mean losing one's life yes that's part of it it's the extreme part of it but the sanctification of hm's name has to do with the way we live not the way we die when we live modestly when we live consecrating our lives to Hashem ding with great intention doing Mitzvah with love and excitement we are shiny We Are Stars so the resiliency of the Jewish people is that they can shine even though there's Blackness around them and again if I can just make mention of the fact that as a child of survivors when I came of age of understand Landing I felt it important for me to reflect on the fact that both of my parents lost everyone I had no grandparents growing up I had no uncles no aunts I had one first cousin who lived in a different town from a family or from families of probably in the area of 120 or 130 people one Lone Survivor which one of us would not be crushed by those kinds of situations by those circumstances but my parents they swung back they married they had children in fact my older sister she should be well was born right in a DP camp in Bergen Bellen right after the war in 1946 and they came back and they moved to Canada and they sent their children to from schools to learn Tyra God Almighty how do you people think about Tyra at a time like this you are fragments of great things that used to exist and don't anymore where do you have the presence of Mind where do you have the Inner Strength where do you have the wherewithal to devote your efforts to these kinds of things I don't have the answer to that but I know that they did these Jews are resilient some of the greatest tests that we have as we we go to the supermarket and we find that our favorite flavor of yogurt is out of stock and we become as they say in yish O men o how do I possibly deal with this Calamity maybe I'm being a little bit dramatic but only a little bit but the Jewish people collectively have the ability to deal with tests that are a lot greater than that as I see the clock ticking I'm going to conclude with a lesson related to this and that is the the The Eternity of the Jewish people because it has to do with this because Hashem promised that we will be resil that we will be existing forever like the PUK says even though you'll be in hostile situations I will never cut off the Jewish people I will never destroy them I will never break my PCT my Covenant with them so in order for him for Hashem to fulfill that pledge we have to be resilient but I want to show you how resilient and there's going to be two stories and I'll try to wrap it up on time one story takes us to a concentration camp which was known as stovitz you think you've heard the names of all the concentration camps there were tens of thousands of smaller ones but sharitz wasn't so small in sharitz there happened to be a Barracks with about 150 men one of those men ended up being a very famous individual his name was RAB yosel friedenson the main may not ring a bell for most of you Ras fredon was the editor of the and perhaps the foremost from historian of the Holocaust he passed away several years ago unfortunately a great man and a mentor of mine in many ways I've heard him say the story several times and I've repeated it already several times he was in his barracks and it was the night of Simas and it was 1943 at the height of the Blackness and the suffering and the degradation and together with them there was another Jew who had been a RV in a little town in Poland he was like the head of the group of FR young men in the barracks so they had this dilemma the night of simra how do we celebrate simra in stovitz in 1943 so the r remembered the famous song that is is even today sung in most shs it's the Pismo which begins with the words a lot of shs today sing with the so I don't know if he sang with Farish I doubt it but he began singing those words to a different tune and the F guys around him started joining in and there was a little bit of a Ruckus all of a sudden the door opens and in comes an SS guard what's going on here so everyone looked down they were afraid what are you supposed to say the truth you can be shot right on and that's not just an overdramatization people were shot for less than that what were you thinking so he went straight to Y feden because y fedon had been a journalist before the war and he know he knew German what was the rabbi singing so he didn't want to answer it first but he had no choice so he said what does that mean translate so said means there is none who is as mighty as God there's no one who is as Choice as select no one is as fine as Ben that's mosenu there is nothing as great as the to our Legacy and none who can expound on the toor as great as the Jewish people so the SS officer started saying you've got to be crazy do you believe this and he looked at the rabbi said GL do you believe in this driil and the r was taken back with a question but he nodded his head I do jph Vinson nodded his head and he went from person to person he asked them all do you believe your lives are worth a bit of snuff look at where you are you're in a concentration camp your lives are are worth nothing I could shoot you just at whim and at will and you believe that God is mightier than all of the might around you and they all nodded their head not only that but the hien who were not particularly from were not from at all who were in the other parts of the Barra they started slowly moving their way towards where this was happening and they started nodding their heads too because a Jew is a Jew is a Jew we all believe this and the says guard turned around and he said I really believe that even the furer himself will not be able to destroy this people and he turned around and walked out of the barracks can you repeat it what you say I believe that even the furer himself will not succeed in destroying this people and he left now that's called being luminous in a dark night I think some people know the word f is German for the leader and that was the name that was given to Adolf Hitler that's the way they refer to him the fer the Feer the the leader maybe I should ask you before I tell the second story because it's going to take two or three minutes and I've already overstepped the time I should go for it sorry plenty of plenty of time okay I will tell this story and I will conclude with that you know it takes a a beautiful summer's day when the temperatures are around 93 for us to really think about Kaneka so I'm going to tell you a Kaneka story and the Kaneka story focuses on an individual whose name was the Blu re Reb the Blu rebba who is the was The Stepfather of the rebba who passed away a few weeks ago in borrow Park the blues of rebba was one of the most shining stars one of the greatest kic leaders who was in a concentration camp during the war and survived and he was in Beren Bellen Beren Bellen was a DP Camp as I mentioned my sister was born there after the war but during the war it was a concentration camp and one of the worst and it was again 1943 and it was Kaneka or a day or two before Kaneka the blues of Reb was saying to the people around him how can we possibly celebrate kanah in this situation and they were scratching their heads indeed how do you celebrate kanuka forget about Lis orot orot I'm not even talking about that I'm just talking about doing the Mitzvah of lighting candles how can we possibly celebrate kanuka so one of the people said what's the problem and he took off his Nazi uniform issue shoe which is made out of wood and where the ball of the foot goes in there's a concave part like a bowl and he said Reb we can use this as a Kan lump which in Yiddish is a in the shoe said where are we going to get Wicks so another one of the inmates said reab wiek is the least of our problems look and he started tearing off threads from from his striped uniform we can tear off threads we can W braid them together we can have Wicks and and and oil so a third fellow says Reb oil it's also not a problem my job he said is every morning I have to polish the black leather boots of the Capo now the Capo usually was a Jew who was given the task of being the policeman and the counselor not counselor but the one who had to make sure that everyone does what he's supposed to do in the barracks and the Jew was given a little bit of a better life by the Germans the cppo that is my job this fellow said is to polish the Capo's Bo boots every morning you know what the Polish is made out of it's based on oil we can melt some of the Polish in the oven each Barracks had a Little Oven and we'll use the oil so the Reb said I don't know if I'm quoting exactly but the rebba said it sounds like a plan so on the first night people were gathered together because they knew that the re was going to like candles when I say they gathered together I don't mean only the from Jews you know there's something about Kaneka which unites us all even those who are not particularly religious get somehow moved and inspired by Kaneka yeah maybe it's a symbolism I'm not sure what it is maybe it's the lights maybe it's the season don't get too involved in that but nevertheless all the Jews rallied around the rebit to see the rebba light the first candles and they did exactly what they set out to do they used the the the bowl of the of the shoe and the wick and the shoe polish oil and everything was all set and the Reba was about to light the first candle on the first night of Kaneka and all eyes were trained upon him he picked up whatever he used for and he said the first some people say but doesn't matter then he said the second and then he paused and he was not able to continue and he looked around the room and after must have been about 30 seconds which is a long time in that situation he continued and he said he lit that candle they all said or sang Etc and the Mitzvah was done but that's not the point of the M of the story after that a fellow came to the rebba not a particularly religious Jew but a very respectful one he said Reb please explain something to me when you lit the candles you said the first I understand that BR makes sense in the second one blessing hem for having done the Miracles back then I understand that too but Reb but Reb how possibly were you able to recite the you're thanking for having kept us alive for having sustained us to this time to this situation that we're in where we've lost all of our loved ones where we are starved and we are enslaved and our lives are hanging on a thread re explain them how you thank Hashem for bringing us to this kind of a moment so the BL of looked at the questioner and he said my Kint my son my child your question was my question too as a matter of fact think back to when I did the lighting of the candles you remember the before I said I paused I stopped the reason I stopped is because I couldn't bring myself to say for the same reason that you're bringing up now but then I looked around the room I looked throughout the barracks and I saw dozens and dozens of Jews who were looking at me and all they wanted at that moment is for me to continue and to perform perform the Mitzvah of N khaka and I said dear God I'm blessing you for keeping me alive to the point where I could see this that I could see what sort of precious gems are your people I blessed that I was able to see what are all about that's what I said the on the questioner was satisfied in fact after the war he became a religious Jew moved to Baltimore and used to come visit the blues of Rea and he said your answer not only kept me alive in the darkest hours but it also got me thinking and the story like many many many many many others should really keep us thinking get us thinking keep us thinking what does it mean to be a Jew we take these things for granted we're born into a Jewish Home we have a kosher deli down the block we have a kosher groc on the other side we go to Jewish schools our lives are blessed we flourish but you have to understand that really what lies at the core of each and every one of us is a tremendous reserve of strength a tremendous reserve of commitment to the and though we pray that we should never be tested with the circumstances that brought that commitment out to the four in the way that it was 70 years ago but the lesson that we learned 70 years later is that we can do that without those circumstances all we need to do is to apply ourselves and sanctify hashem's name in that way and in that sense and in that way hopefully before very long we'll be able to welcome mhia in our midst and reflect back to the time when the Holocaust was really an issue once upon a time in Jewish history meanwhile it still is may we all be Z to live through the time that it won't be anymore thank you for [Music] listening [Music]