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The Lost Children - (Kiruv) STORY

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Rabbi Daniel Glatstein Official avatar
Rabbi Daniel Glatstein Official

Transcript

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the following story has been brought to you by stories to inspire dot org you know I'll end off with one story it's always a very moving story to me because I heard about this uh firsthand Rabbi uh Barrow wine likes to tell over the story that when he was a young boy in the in the uh late 40s he was a young boy in Chicago and this was after the Holocaust in 1946 he was 11 years old and his father told him you know a big Rabbi is now coming to Chicago to speak to us and this rabbit is the first Chief rabbit of the Palestine and that is Rabbi Yitzhak Isaac halevi Herzog and he was a very aristocratic yeah it was before the it was before the state of Israel was founded 1946. and Rabbi Isaac Hersey was a very his grandson by the way is currently the uh president of the state of Israel and Rabbi Herzog comes off the plane he would wear a shiny top hat and he had a cane and we'd walk around with his Tanakh and he gave a sheer he spoke to the young men of the Skokie Yeshiva he spoke to all the balabatim all the all the entire Jewish Community he gave a 45-minute in-depth year and when this class was over he said I now I want to have a word with the young men and he says to the young man listen you know where I just came from I just came back from meeting Pope Pius the 12th in the Vatican and I came to him with a list and this list had on it the names of ten thousand boys and girls who during the Holocaust their parents gave them over to monasteries to priests to Christian institutions because the parents didn't think they would survive and now the parents survived we know the names of all these ten thousand boys and girls we want our children back rather Herzog said to the Pope give us our children back their hours we know their names we have their birth dates we have all their information at this point you're kidnapping them from us we need our children back and rather Herzog said the pope slammed the door on his face he said all these children have been formally baptized and once a child is baptized they can never come back to another religion and with herzog's meeting had ended and those ten thousand boys and girls were lost forever and Rabbi Herzog turns to the young men in the Skokie Yeshiva 1946. and he breaks down crying at the lectern like a baby Ray wine said he was never so scared in his whole life this great rabbi is weeping is crying he then picks up his head and he says to the boys there's nothing I can do for these 10 000 boys and girls they're lost forever but you're still here you're still with the program and I ask of you what will you do for the future of the Jewish people and that's the responsibility that every single Jew has today because we're almost at the Finish Line we've made it this far our great grandparents our grandparents our parents have hung on until this point and the responsibility rests in our hands as much as we can to connect to the Torah to study the Torah to connect with erits Israel connect with Torah and Mitzvahs that is our primary responsibility enjoyed this story come again bring a friend stories to inspire dot org