the story and Message of Yud Beis Tamuz..Rabbi Yossi Paltiel - 5785

amlaykum. My name is Ravi Paliel Yosi Pal and thank you for bringing me to Florida. It's very hot in Florida in case you haven't stepped outside. Um, New York is not exactly cool, but Florida is another level. >> The event that we are commemorating that we are celebrating is 98 years old. 98 years is a very long time. It's a very very long time. In 1927, the previous labba was arrested, imprisoned, then exiled, and then released over the course of a few weeks from the uh Soviet prison. When they arrested him, they planned to make short work of him. He was not supposed to live till the morning. Literally, the plan was to to shoot him before anybody could react. By the incredible grace of God and by incredible fertuitous what we call hashka, by overt expressions of the divine hand, he walked into the wrong room or didn't go where he was supposed to go. And by the time they wanted to end his life, there was too much noise from out of Russia. And that plan was foiled. And over the course of a short time, he was released. He could not stay in Russia beyond that point. First of all, it was far too dangerous to him. And second of all, it he became the biggest obstacle. He the previous labbec obstacle to the underground activities that he was spearheading at that time in the Soviet Union because it need to become decentralized and he was a center. So we left uh that that same year in uh as October and eventually he made his way to the United States and we're here in Florida 98 years later in no small part because of that miracle because of this event. What I would like to do in this talk is give you a sense of what that world was like, what the previous undertook and most important of all, how it speaks to us. We live in a very different world. We we can't even relate to that world. We have no concept of what the Soviet Union was like under Stalin and Machme. We can't even relate to it. seriously unless we come from there. But there is a timeless message in in those events and these events and in this history which is why we don't only talk about it but we literally celebrate it. It's a holiday. It's a real serious yamtiff this day of the liberation of the previous from the uh Soviet prison and gulag and and exile. And I I hope in the few minutes that I have to be able to give you a sense of the history and to give you a sense of the viability of the of the now of the dynamic nature of this history. But I I I need to begin with a story that happened in America actually. It's an incredible story. It's a really wonderful story. The story involves two Jews. One was a young kabad rabbi and the other was a a biology professor. The story happened in 1962. Cir a long time ago. Rabbi Mosha fell who should still live and be well was a young kabad representative living in the twin cities in Minnesota. He had just arrived with his young wife on their mission. And part of what he undertook at the outset of his mission was to try and meet as many prominent Jews as he could. He wanted to make acquaintances. He wanted to get to know people. And more importantly, he wanted people to get to know him. So he got a list. He was he was actually a native Minnesota. He was born in Minnesota. He got a list of all the important Jews in Minnesota and he one by one tracked them down and made meetings with them, introduced himself, told them what he is and why he's here. And of course he hoped a that he would gain their support and b that he'd be able to teach them something. One of the men on his list was Professor Velvville Green who was probably a few years his senior. Velv Green has already passed away a few years ago. And um Green was American but very Jewish, extremely Jewish. He had a very strong Jewish identity. He uh he grew up in a Yiddishist home. He grew up in a home where Yiddish was his first language. Yiddish was culture. It was not religion at all. And he had a very strong Jewish identity. But his Jewish identity was not a religious Jewish identity. It was a Jewish identity. It was a cultural identity. And if you have a strong Jewish identity, you don't need rabbis to help you with your identity. His identity was already established. Rabbi Feller called his office and asked for an appointment. Now, Velv Green was used to rabbis from New York coming around asking for money for schools and for all kinds of institutions. And he gave lots of people came to him all the time and he always wrote checks. The standard check was $18. Now $18 in 1962 is $100 today. It's a lot of money. And if you were a a person with a pretty nose, you got $25. And if you were a local charity, you got $36, which was an awful lot of money. So the secretary walks into Velv Green and says, "There's a rabbi on the phone who wants to meet with you." So without even looking up, Velv Green says to secretary, "Tell him you can come and pick up a check for $18, which was worthwhile in those days, 1962." She comes back a few minutes later. He says, "Professor Velv, he doesn't want your money. He wants to meet you." Okay, tell him 25. So she goes back and comes back a few minutes and no, he wants to meet you. So Velvable Green figures he's a tough bargain. Says, "Tell him 36 final offer. It's that I'm not going above. I don't give anybody more than $36. She comes back again and says he doesn't want your money once. He actually wants to meet you. Okay, you want my money? Fine. He I can afford a half an hour of my time, but tell him he's wasting his time. I mean, I have my Jewishness Jewish identity. He has his Jewish identity and they're in different tracks. Our paths don't cross. We may come from the same roots, but we're going in different directions. He wants a half an hour of my time. He can have it. So, Rabbi Mosha Fella shows up in the office of Professor Green and um he sits down. So, for the first 50 minutes, Velv is lecturing him. He's got to get rid of the black hat and the black suit and the beard and he has to stop looking like a Midwesterner if he wants to have any effect on the Jewish people in Minnesota. Robin Fowler very very um obediently and agreeably nods to all of the wonderful suggestions that Professor Fel Green makes. And when he finishes giving him his lecture, now it's Rabbi Fella's turn to make his pitch. He wants to sell Labavich to him. He wants to explain to him what Kabad is. But you're talking now 63 years ago. Kabad was not then, but it is now by a long shot. But as as he begins to make his pitch, he looks out the window and he realizes that it's getting late. The sun is about to set and he hasn't prayed the afternoon service. He hasn't da And feller this meeting is very important to him, but Daven is more important. So he mutters to Velv Green, I I apologize, but uh I have a prior appointment. And without getting any permission, he stands up, puts a string around his waist, turns to face the wall, and talks to the wall for the next seven or eight minutes. Basically talking away his me instead of talk to Green. When MK was over, the half an hour was basically up and Ra Feller apologized for not taking advantage of the time they had together. He said, "Listen, I I had to daven. I had a an appointment with God which came before my appointment with you. They over overlapped. I had no choice. And Abella was certain that he would never see this man again. Abella was certain this was the worst Kabad introduction ever given. And he left his office without a check, without making any impression with the thought, I just laid a really, really nasty egg. What Rab Feller did not know was the following. Velv Green and his wife whose name is Gail. and as far as I know she should live and be well. They lived in Israel at the end of their lives in Beesva were very Jewish and they belonged to a Jewish book club of academics of intellectuals. A bunch of young Jewish academics would meet once a month and discuss a book a book on a Jewish theme. And at the end of each meeting, they would choose another book that they would all read. They would vote. There were suggestions made. They would vote on which book they would do. They'd all read the book. to come back a month later and they would discuss it and then they would choose another book. This was their tradition. Literally a month or two before Rab Feller davened away his meeting with professor Velville Green they had read a book by a writer whose name I do not remember on what's called gazed takat the pograms of 1648 and 1649. The pagram of 1648 1649 are some of the worst in our history. Um there was a rebellion in what was k considered then greater Poland which of course would slowly disappear and by the 1770s there was no Poland anymore altogether until after the first world war as you know and the rebels that rose up against the the noble the higher class took out their anger on the Jews because the noblemen the the people with the land had castles and They they locked themselves up in their castles. They protected themselves until they mobilized an army and they put down the rebellion. I heard from a medical doctor, a geneticist that they killed 17 out of every 20 Jews. 17 out of every 20. Hitler killed one out of two, 50%. 85% of the Jews of the Ukraine in that part of Eastern Europe were wiped out. Communities wiped out to a person. They didn't leave a soul alive. Not one. But what was unusual, what was different about that pagrum was that they were given, every Jew was given a choice, the s the sword or the cross, you could be baptized and stay alive. Don't be baptized and lose your life. And by and large, the vast majority of the Jews in Eastern Europe then, you're talking four centuries ago, gave their lives alashm to sanctify the name of God in public. They refused to even go through a formal meaningless external coerced baptism and they chose to give their life to God rather than cross that line. So imagine American Jews reading a book like that. people just like you about thousands and thousands of Jews, hundreds of thousands of Jews, as many as a half a million who would give their lives not to be baptized, not to, you know, to have some water sprinkled on them, which is a meaningless act. And this group of American intellectuals, this group of young American academics read this book. They gathered at the end of the month, they discussed this book. And the big question that they had was, are there still such Jews? Are there actually still Jewish people who would give their lives rather than go through a a formal meaningless external act of baptism? And they all agreed that there's no such Jews. Jews who were so devout, who were so dedicated, who had such a clear sense of priority that they would die rather than go through this meaningless act of baptism. There was no such Jews. Well, Velv Green watches Rabbi Feller talk to the wall for the duration of his meeting and then apologize for wasting Rabbi Feller's time and Green's time because he had to d when Mosha Feller walked out of his office. Velv Green picked up the phone and he called his wife and he said to his wife, "Gail, I found one." "I found one." So his wife says to him, "You found one? What?" He says, "I found a Jew." She says, "What do you mean you found a Jew? We're Jewish." He says, "No, Jewish like the Jews in the book. I found a Jew who would give his life to sanctify the name of God in public rather than go through an act of baptism. This story started a lifelong friendship between Rabbi Feller and Professor Green who became completely religious. By the time he died, he had a big beard. And one of the most extraordinary little parts of this long saga is that in 1985 at a gathering at a public gathering I remember it I was there professor Green was standing behind it rabbi mosha fellow was sitting in front of the rebba and in the presence of these two men the labba repeated this story in the presence of them the power of a Jew who did the right thing even though it wasn't useful But it was genuine. It was real. It was true. And the impact it had on an American Jew who couldn't value Mina, but he could value truth. He couldn't understand why a man would make a meeting with him and waste his time praying. But he knew this is the real deal. This isn't a game. This isn't an act. This isn't a formality. This is not social. This is deeply and profoundly true, devout, connected to God. And it touched him so deeply that him and his wife and their children changed their entire lives. And it was all initiated by this episode. I tell this story because I think it's the it's the perfect perfect segue to talking to us to American Jews who are by and large free free from fear and oppression in ways that are really historic. I mean Jews today with all the anti-semitic talk, we have never been freer. We've never been richer. We've never had greater opportunity, I would say, in the last 2,000 years since the destruction of the second temple. That's my opinion. And we have a very very different perspective on ourselves and on our history. And it creates a unique opportunity and it creates a very very very unique challenge a test to each of us. Now let me tell you the story of Y's Thomas. The Hebrew date that begins tonight in the calendar is the 12th of Thomas. We Kabadim and many other Jews over the world officially mark the 12th and the 13th days of Tamos as a holiday because it was on these days that the previous Reb was released from his exile which followed his imprisonment. I want to tell you the story at least in short. Jews in Russia never had it easy. Jews in Russia in general, Eastern Europe was never good to the Jews. Western Europe, if you know history, was actually worse to the Jews. You just got to go back a little earlier to the 10th century and the 11th century and the 12th century and the 13th century. You know, we look at the Eastern Europeans as big anti-semites. Well, they their educators were Germany and France and England and Spain. Jews never had it easy in Russia. They didn't. But there was a status quo. There was a way. There was a status quo. There was an understanding that their second class. There was an enormous amount of antise-semitism in Russia. Tsarist Russia. Anti-semitism was used as a politic. Anti-semitism was used as a way of dealing with with dissatisfaction when the when the population of Russia was rising up because Zyrist Russia was very similar to the to the great Polish Empire. It was very there was there was there was a noble class which was two or three or 4% of the population. There was extremely wealthy and everybody else was so poor that they were almost indentured. They were like slaves for their lives just to pay their debts. And uh the Jews didn't fare very well in that world. But there was a status quo. And then there was a re a revolution a very successful revolution. One of the most successful revolutions in history was the the Soviet revolution. The Marxist it was really very successful. Um it was successful because it was carefully thought through. was very well planned and it was developed over the course of decades. The Marxist revolution which came out in 1917 had been going on since the 1880s and many many many Jews saw this as the late as their messiah. They saw this as the way out of their oppression way of the the terrible burden of anti-semitism that they lived under in the Tsarist Russia. But for whatever reason, then it really doesn't make any sense. Marxism or socialism or communism, which is an economic system, it has to do with how you distribute wealth. That's all it is. Made a cornerstone of its approach, a cornerstone of its philosophy, the killing of God, the murder of of of religion, why you have to destroy religion to create a different social system on an economic level. They ask themselves that question today. They don't understand why. It's just how it was. If you were a Marxist and you believed in what we call today the redistribution of wealth, you need to be secular. You're not allowed to believe in God. But it wasn't just that they didn't encourage faith in God. They had to they had to kill God. And they did a very good job. They had to crush religion. So when the revolution occurred, many Jews ran over to that side. many traditional Jews, Orthodox Jews we would call them in America because they had suffered so much. Their lives had been so difficult under the Zars and communism offered them equal rights officially. There was no difference between one person and another. I mean they all ended up in the gulag anyway. They found out that anti-semitism doesn't have to do with a political system, doesn't have to do with an economic system. It has to do with the fate of the Jewish people. Whoever is in charge is going to be anti-semitism. And they suffered under the communists no less than they did under the Zar. But they believed, they bought into the hope that there's opportunity. But unfortunately, a part of that revolution was to turn their back on God, to turn their back on their tradition, to turn their back on Judaism. And most painful of all to turn that back on any Jew, turn their backs on any Jew who didn't believe as they believed. And this is one of the saddest parts of the story of Soviet jewelry that in the early years in the 1910s and the 1920s the biggest persecutor of Jewish people were Jewish people. There was the eexia. The eexia is Russian for the Jewish section the Jewish department within the Soviet government that was later abolished and all the leaders were shot by Stalin. But initially they were believers. They were believers because they felt that finally there's opportunity for Jews to be able to raise their head to have a voice to be involved in government and to live like anybody else. And you know what? Nobody can blame them. You really if you understand how much we suffered, you can't blame them. But as often happens, we made that mistake. A lot of us made that mistake. So there became a deep deep identity struggle amongst Jews in what was now Soviet Russia, communist Russia, as opposed to Tsarist Russia, where many many Jews became religiously committed to communism, which meant religiously committed to a war against all religion, Judaism, the Eastern Church, which was the of course the religion of the state under the Zars, and any other religions that existed in Russia. and the Jews who held on to that tradition, what we'll call the timeless Jew, the immortal Jew, the Jew who knows that Judaism doesn't change, God doesn't change, the Toa doesn't change, the world changes, the reality, the environment change, the conditions change, the circumstance changes, but absolute truth is always absolute and there began a period of terrible persecution. Terrible persecution. I'm talking now 1921 after the after the civil war was over 22 let's say the war start the revolution started in November 1917 in Lenningrad in Petersburg and it swept through Russia from the very north to the very south. It was a terrible civil war. Many many many many Jews were murdered in that civil war by all sides. And when the civil war was over by 1922 approximately, there was opportunity for the Soviets to now consolidate their power. And the the Jewish section of the communist party made it their business to close every sh to close every to close every mikvah to close every institution that had any trace of Jewish faith, of Jewish religion, of Jewish practice, of Jewish tradition. And they did it cruy, they did it quickly, they did it oppressively. And a lot of people who could ran away. They left Russia. It was very very difficult. They ran away. They left the Soviet Union. They went to Poland. And many of them would lose their lives 20 years later in Hitler's war. The previous Reb stood and fought and he screamed from the podium. Where are the rabbis going? When there's a challenge to the Jewish people, the rabbis have to stand and fight. The Reb would say all the time that when a ship is sinking, the captain leaves last, not first. And all over Russia, which had the strongest Jewish tradition in any country in the world, people of prominence ran away. They left and a vacuum of leadership was created. At the previous Reb with a handful of his tried to fill and he did incredible underground work, incredible underground work. He sent uh people, individuals, his students, his former students to reconoider the the the length and breadth of Russia, which is a very very large country. And to find out what was happening in every Jewish community, rabbis lost their homes because officially being a rabbi, being clergy of any type was not a job. And in the Soviet Union, if it didn't work, you were a nobody. If you were a worker, then you were everything. This is the Soviet system. And they they lived they were they were impoverished and many of their former parishioners many of their former members turned against them because they believed in this hope in this promise that this is going to be a new world you know the latest messiah there've been a thousand messiahs and they're all false unless they're connected to the unchanging truth of mitzvah of practice of Jewish practice and Jewish thinking and Jewish living and the Reb began to plug holes. Where a rabbi left, he sent one of his students to be a rabbi. Where the school was closed, he opened a little in the underground. Where the mikvah was closed, he opened a secret mikvah. And many many many of his students were arrested, sent off to Siberia. And quite a few quite a few including relatives of mine never came home. and they left widows and they left orphans. But the previous believe that this was a moment for defiance. And that's really the essence of the story. What do Jews do when they have challenge? What do Jews do when they have challenge? The two kinds of Jewish challenge. Thank you. I have my coffee over there and I have my water over here. Okay. I won't drink either of them. Both of them. The two cups will keep me company. I need the coffee. Yeah. What do Jews do when they have challenge? So, we have two kinds of challenge that are represented by two very important holidays. There's a physical attack against the Jews which is represented by Purum. And there's a spiritual attack against the Jews which is represented by Kaneka. Right? You know the stories of Purum and Kaneka. Purum was an attack against the Jewish bodies. What did the Jews do? They prayed. Kaneka was an attack against the Jewish soul. What did the Jews do? They fought. The way I like to say it, and it's really painfully sobering. When someone attacks a Jew, it's God's business. When someone attacks God, it's the Jews business. And that moment, that moment in the Soviet Union, 1922 and 1923, the previous made the decision that he's not running away. He's going to stand and fight. He's going to stand and fight. And he had built a yeshiva 25 years before. And however it worked out, did he know what was going to happen? Did he build it in anticipation? The students of the yeshiva that he personally raised as their principal, as their educator now became his generals and his lieutenants in this war to keep Judaism alive in Russia. You must understand, ladies and gentlemen, this is very personal to me. I have a father and he's alive and well and he was born in Moscow. He knows what I'm telling you, not because he heard it from anybody, but because he lived it. I'll just tell you one story from my personal family which just it makes my hair stand up. My father had a brother who's now deceased. He was older than he was. My grandfather who I knew worked at the central bank in Moscow. He was very well educated and he he was an Orthodox Jew and he worked for the Soviets. His son would come home from school and they had no mother. Their mother had died. So he would go to his father's office and he would lean over his father's desk. Try to imagine this. A kid of eight years old, nine years old. He would lean over his father's desk and whisper to his father. He would talk to him and that's how he prayed ma. That's how he dav. You imagine that's how he davened the afternoon service in a room full of communists. He was talking to his father after school. This is real and it's it's to a great extent very personal. And the rebba the previousb said we're going to fight and I I be direct with you. It was a fight they couldn't win. You're not going to defeat the Soviet Union. And I don't think the previousb fought this battle to win. He fought this battle to fight. This is the story of this holiday just like 22 centuries ago. The Kashm fought a war they could not win in any world. And it was a war of defiance. It was a war of principle. If you desecrate God, if you desecrate what is precious to God, the Jews says, "I'm going to stand and fight." As a statement of defiance to he or she who wishes to desecrate what is holy and what is sacred and what is true. And of course, the story of Kaneka was that this incredible miracle happened. And that's why it's a holiday that we celebrate every year. That's what we're celebrating. Well, in modern times, the previous battle against the Soviets was was a latter day story. It's exactly what it was. He told his we're going to stand and fight. And I cannot tell you how many lost their lives in fighting this battle. There's a time there's a moment which fortunately for all of us is not today when a Jew digs deep and he finds inside himself the courage and the integrity to say some things are worth dying for. Some things you have to stand on principle. The previous rebba, the previousb whose name I carry fought the Soviets defiantly and even brazenly. He was daring them. He was daring them to arrest him because he was a very prominent figure. He was very well known inside of Russia and outside of Russia. He stood up to Stalin and he lived to tell the tale. Few people have that good fortune. He dared the Soviets and specifically the Jewish communists, the sexier to stop him. He was going to contempt until there was no blood in his veins. The previous Reb had a gathering in the in the in the in the spring of 1927 at a pudding, tore open his shirt and he pointed at his bare chest and he said to his who loved him very deeply, "If you see this body burning, don't stop teaching the children. Don't stop teaching the children." And they arrested him. They arrested him in I guess it's May of 1927. The same night that he was arrested, they arrested 20 clergy people from all religions all over the Soviet Union. And they shot every single one of them. They were telling the world, the Soviets were telling the world, "We're not afraid." The Fredbe didn't show up to his bullets. He just he sat in the hall and smoked a cigarette. I mean, the story is hysterical. It's unbelievable. He was told to go to a certain room and he said, but they didn't tell me what time, right? So, he sat down on a bench to smoke a cigarette and somebody walked out of an office and knew who he was and asked him why he was there. He said, "Well, he told me to go to room 60." He says, "That can't be." Cuz he knew what happens when you open up the door to room 60. And that's how his life was saved. A cigarette. So much for cigarettes being dangerous, huh? The frame of this story is that when the previous reb in the Soviet Union fought Stalin, he fought the communist. Number one, I don't think he believed he could win. It would take an enormous miracle. But he felt like you have to fight. This war you have to fight. This war you have to fight. Number two, he for himself personally, he had no exit strategy. I I believe and I don't know if it's true, but I believe that the previous never expected to come out of there alive. That wasn't his plan. He was going to fight and give his life for for Judaism, for the timeless truth of our faith. What the Mymanities calls Dasa Emis, the religion of truth. God saved him in spite of himself. He was completely reckless. Completely reckless with his life. He was defiant and outspoken. He was a leader. He was a presence. He was a voice. He was a a time and a place in the Soviet Union that everybody knew about that was overtly and directly defying the Soviet Union. It wasn't clandastine. The people who worked with them were clandestine. He was out in the open. He dared them. He dared them to stop him. And they tried. They tried. They put him in jail. They tortured him terribly. They tortured him unbelievably. The beatings that he took are hard to read. He describes them himself in a in his own account of his 18 days that he spent in the Soviet prison. He was held for 18 days for two and a half weeks. The original plan was to shoot him and then that was suspended once word got out that they had arrested him. There was too much pressure from out of Russia. So they wanted to send him away to 10 years of slave labor in solv. And that was also crossed out and they sent him away for three years of exile in Asia in Russian Asia in a city called Castra. He spent nine days there. That was his three years. And at the end of nine days, he was told that he's free to go. He went back home. So I'll just tell you a little detail about the story which is very compelling. In the Soviet Union that a six- day work week, the day of rest was Tuesday. They didn't want to make it on Shabas. God forbid the Jews to be able to keep their Sabbath. They didn't want to make it on Sunday. God forbid the Christians keep their Sabbath. So they made it on Tuesday. So Tuesday a cable arrived from Moscow, which was the capital under the Soviets, telling the leadership of the KGB in Castraau, where he was exiled, that the previous reb is being released. Somebody met him in the street and told him, "Rabbi, a cable came that you're free to go home, but the offices are closed, so you're going to have to come in tomorrow morning and register every He was supposed to register every Wednesday. that he was in exile who hadn't left the city. So the following day which was on a Wednesday, it's the same arrangement as it is this year. This year's Thomas is Tuesday. The 12th of Thomas is tomorrow is Tuesday and the 13th of Thomas is Wednesday. It was the same exact arrangement. So because of Stalin they got two days y not one. You see by moving the day of rest from Sunday to Tuesday. So he was told unofficial that he's free to go on the 12th of Tam which is tomorrow which happens to be his birthday. And he was told officially that free to go home the following day, Wednesday. So Kabad has got 48 hours to Fabang. I'm in Florida to Fab Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, and Thursday night. Every night there's another celebration. We celebrate this holiday. We celebrate his survival. He celebrated his survival because he saw his survival as a divine act. He saw the fact that he came out of the Soviet system alive as a message from God which amounts to your efforts are not in vain. All that sacrifice, all that risk takingaking, all that courage is not for nothing. That's how we interpreted it. It's 98 years since tomorrow is 98 years since he was told unofficial that he's free to go home and Wednesday is 98 years since he was officially allowed to leave the world over. And many people affiliated with this way of thinking honor these two days. We don't say we don't confess. We celebrate them as holidays. They're holidays that they're really they really are a latter day Kaneka. That's what they are. They're a story of a few Jews who stood up to one of the mightiest empire in the world. Did they win? Did they win? How many Jews did we lose in the Soviet Union? How many millions of Jews were assimilated? They didn't lose, that's for sure. But most important of all, they fought. They fought. They stood up. They didn't hide. They fought. They fought. And you know the Soviet system lasted about 70 years, a little more than 70 years. When that system was over, the grandchildren and the great grandchildren of those who had started that fight with the previous reb in the 1920s were still fighting. I was in Moscow in 1988 and I met a first cousin of my father's, a first cousin of my father's who was one of the great leaders of the underground in Russia. his whole life when I met him he was 80 and around him was a whole following of young men and women who were balicha they were not even raised traditional they were not raised f they were not raised orthodox as we call it in America who under the Soviets found God under the Soviets looked for truth and they would come to shul and say teach me and in the Soviet system when someone came to schul and said teach me you were afraid to teach him what if he's an agent of the And you would delay him and you would delay him. You imagine a guy comes to Kabad House. He wants you to put on film and you're afraid to put film on him. What if he works for the KGB? How do you know if he's sincere or not? There was a whole game they had to play till they ascertained the integrity of every single Jew, boy and girl, who walked through the doors of the Shouls all over Russia in the 1950s and the 60s and the 70s and the 80s and said, "Teach me. Give me a briss. Give me a briss." Adult men and women. Women don't do abs. Adult men abiss. It's not fun. And they would come into the schul and ask for yiddish kite and the people would look at them like as if they were strangers. And they would spend months until they were trusted. And then they would learn alaf and they learn Hebrew and learn. And many of these people built Jewish families in this Soviet Union. And the reb who would mark this was his rebrea was our rebba. He would mark this day with a great celebration. And he would always speak to the fact that the defiance and the sacrifice that the previous Reb showed all those years ago was the reason that even now and I'm talking now I mean the 70s and the 80s and the 60s when he would talk about this there are Jews who are holding on to their tradition trying to retain their identity trying to grow under the nose of the communists. This is what we are celebrating. It's a powerful story. It's a It's moving. At the very least, it's very, very moving. Here's the problem. How do we American Jews, Western Jews relate to something like this? It's such a foreign concept to us. Our biggest problem is assimilation. Our biggest problem is that the gentile neighbor is our best friend. Our biggest problem is that we don't have any problems. We're free. And yet we struggle. We struggle with our Jewish identity for a very different reason. You know, one of the biggest mistakes all anti-semites made historically was to try and use oppressive means to destroy the Jew. You use oppression against the Jew, you make them more Jewish. You use assimilation works like a charm. Look at America. The question that we ask ourselves of how if in any way does this story and does this event and does this holiday uh have a relationship with us? How is it personal to me? And the answer to that question is that it's always true that every single one of us, every single Jew is in a position to be one of those that stands up and is counted. is one of those who says, "I'm going to do the right thing, not the convenient thing. I'm going to do the right thing, not the popular thing. I'm going to do the right thing, not the mainstream thing." It's a very different world. It's a very different challenge, same God, same tora, same mitzvah, and the same Jewish people. I would argue that as the previous rebba fought for the education of children, Stalin didn't mind if the shs were full of people as long as they were a retirement age. He didn't want kids in Shaw cuz he he was a viciously evil man. But he understood that as long as there are no children in Shaw today, the Scholes will be closed tomorrow. Taking children to sh was one of the worst crimes. And I want you to know my grandfather took my father to show which I find incredible. My father was inside the what's called the choir show in Moscow that's still there today. You can go and visit it. It's been re renovated and beautified. My father was in that sh as a child many times. My grandfather would sneak in the back door. He was taking a great risk to his life to take his three children. Remember he was a widowerower. He had no wife. My father doesn't remember his mother. So my grandfather raised his children alone. He took him to Shaw. They didn't want the children in Shaw because they understood as long as the kids are not involved in the religion, the religion will die. This is our challenge. There's a lot of tradition. There's a lot of seeking meaning. One of the greatest challenges to the American Jew is raising our children Jewish. raising our children, little kids who we want to entertain and protect and make peaceful and comfortable and safe and give them all the amenities of life, all the pleasures of life. The greatest things we can give our children is what our parents gave us. God fills kosher to be Jewish in the same way that our ancestors were for thousands of years. Judaism is timeless. And because it's timeless, as old as it is, it's never old. And we have this test. You know, there's a very famous story. I don't know if you're familiar with the story that in Germany in the 19th century, there was an enormous amount of assimilation, an enormous amount of assimilation. And Rabi Sham followers came to Rabbi Hirs the famous Rabbi Hirsh you you know the Hersh Kish he was he wrote many many books to create a philosophical/scientific approach to Judaism which he wrote of course in German because he was trying to reach German Jews and wake up their souls. He came to Frankfurt and he gathered all the girls all the young women and he spoke to them about mikvah. He spoke to them about the family purity about a Jewish woman using the mikvah and the purpose of using a mikvah is to live a Jewish life in the most intimate part of your life and to bring Jewish children into the world kosher the way God wants. And he got up in sh of all these girls and he explained to him what mikvah is and explained to them the importance of mikvah and explained to them how special it is and how holy it is and how it has a great blessing effect on our children. And then he asked does anybody want to be the first volunteer to use the mikvah? And not a single girl volunteered. Not one. Not a one. And after he asked a few times and nobody moved, he went over to the ark. He pulled open the curtain. He pulled open the doors and he stood in front of the seafo scrolls and he said, "I swear that any girl who stands up and commits herself to use the mikvah. I guarantee her that she will have long life, she will have great health and she'll have great wealth and she'll have beautiful children. And one girl stood up. One one and then another and then another. Three girls and the entire Frankfurt Jewish community came from those three girls. And he he kept his word. The promise that he made in front of the open holy ark was actualized. Your people who knew those women, they actually lived and they lived long. This ladies and gentlemen is the relevance of this holiday. It's very personal. You know, being a Jew is very personal. But the problem with being a Jew is also very social. It's a community activity. You don't want to be more religious or less religious than the guy next to you, right? You want to be right where everybody else is. But everybody has the test, the challenge, the opportunity to be one of those that are counted, who says, "I'm going to be a leader. I'm going to be a Jew the way God wants. I'm going to keep all the mitzvah. I'm going to keep Shabas." And then another person follows and another person follows and another person follows. You don't necessarily get the credit, but you created the ripple, the trigger that set in motion a series of events which translates into another mitzvah, to another mitzvah, to another mitzvah. I I want to share two stories with you. There's a man in Crown Heights who I know I know him socially. I know him because I saw his picture in a book and the next time I saw him, I I virtually embraced him. I pounced on him with every way except my body. I said, "Oh, I'm so happy to meet you." His name is Cohen. If you will meet him, we'll say, "Nah, not me. He means somebody else. I want to tell you a story about this Mr. Cohen." And I don't care that I'm saying his name. Okay, let you all go find him and look him up and embrace him. He's a simple man. He's a professional. He's a businessman. Has a wonderful life. But he was born in the Soviet Union. And his grandfather was a big sadic. His grandfather was a famous rabbi who was deeply involved in the work of the underground. And in the Soviet Union, if you were involved in the underground, whether you liked it or not, you were you were kabad because kabad were the the unified presence. They were the community, so to speak. And this was his zade, his grandfather. His mother was a professional. She was a dentist. She was an orthodox woman. And in Russia, you didn't tell your children to keep shabas. You didn't tell your children to put on film. You explained to your children they should keep Shabas. And then you prayed. You explained to your children that they should study to. You explain to your children that the poisonous rhetoric of uh of anti-God that they hear in school they should not allow themselves to absorb. But you couldn't force them. You can't force children ever. But in the Soviet system, this boy had to go to school. School was six days a week. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Chabis. Chabis had not allowed to write. The teachers were very aware of who was a Jew. The teachers were very aware of whose parents were religious. And Saturday, they paid attention. Did the kid show up? Did he write? Imagine being 12 and all your friends are looking to see if you're going to write on Shabas. Huh? And every week you have to come up with another excuse why today I can't write. One week it's a toothick one my hand is broken the next day you don't come to school but you can't play games forever and at some point the pressure builds. So this I think his name is Misha Cohen went to school and he would write on chabas and his mommy did not patch him when he came home for writing on chabas. She just explained to him that on chabas he let her write. at the age of 14 after this bar mitzvah. 14 is little people. I think we know that he decided he's keeping Shabas. He's keeping Shabas. Now this is the person that I know physically last summer. I spent the Shabas with him. This is an actual human being that's walking terrairm earth as we speak. He made a decision that he's keeping Shabas no matter what. His parents didn't force him. It was his own choice. So the game started. you know, one week he didn't come, the next week he got sick, the third week there was something else. But at some point he had to go to school and there was an exam. There was a test that was scheduled for Saturday. He came to school with his face wrapped in in a in a uh scarf. His tooth is hurting him. His tooth hurts him so much that he's not able to write. Now his teacher knew exactly the game that he was playing because he played it every week. And the teacher said, "Today you're going to write. Today is an exam. You have to write. I don't hear any stories." My tooth hurts. So he said to the teacher, "Okay, let's go downstairs to the infirmary and let the dentist examine your tooth and we'll fix your tooth." Now his tooth didn't hurt. So go down to the infirmary. The the dentist examines him and the dentist says, "Which tooth hurts?" And he points out one tooth at random. And the dentist says, "Okay, let's pull the tooth." And Mosha Cohen says, "My mother's a dentist for heaven's sake. My mother is a dentist. My mother can pull my tooth." No. If you're not going to ride today, we're going to pull your tooth. A 14-year-old boy. And they had no novacaane. They had no painkiller. They pulled this boy's tooth without any painkiller. So he should not write on shabas. It's an actual story of an actual person who I know and when I saw him after I read the story in some book I to me he's a hero. I'm a nobody. This was life in the Soviet Union. We don't have such tests. Our test is that we don't have such tests. And the challenge is to know that Judaism is always true. Always. And it's on each one of us as individuals to stand up and be counted as the previous Reb did in the 1920s in the Soviet Union. I'm going to finish with one more story and then I'm going to stop. I suppose after this we're going to go into the other room and have a fab and I don't know what the program is but this is my formal speech but I'm going to ask you a favor after I finish talking I would like to sing several please sing with me because if I sing alone I'm not much of a it's going to be a terrible concert but I it is it is a fab and it is aid gathering this is a little bit formal as opposed to what we've done in the past when I've been here but I'd like to end this meeting with I want to sing two songs which I'll explain to you in a moment But before I do, I just want to tell you a story. There's a rabbi in South Africa whose name is Rabbi Lapen, Rabbi Le Pine. Rabbi Lapen in the He's not a kabadnik, he's not a lab. In the 1970s, he he had he had been fortunate enough to to go to Israel, learn any yeshiva, and he came back to South Africa. He married and he settled there. He was from South Africa originally and he joined one of the large congregation, one of large shuls in Johannesburg and he saw that there was an enormous lack of uh engagement with religion and an enormous lack of Torah classes of Torah studies. He started to teach. He gave one class to three people, another class to two people and people flocked to him. Over time, the number of classes he gave and the number of people participating in his classes grew. Now, he was a businessman who was working very hard to support his family and his quote unquote rabbit was a volunteer job. He became so exhausted that he decided to liquidate his business and dedicate himself to the rabbinet full-time. and he flew to New York to meet the Reb in the 1970s to discuss this with the Reb. And he told the Rebi, "I'm a businessman. I've made some money. I'm prepared to close my business because I see the need to teach and I can't do both. I'm just exhausted." And the Reb in typical Reba form told him, quote, "More raonus, more business, do more ravenet, more business." He says, "Reb I can't handle what I got." And um Deb said, "No, no, you you keep your business open." Because people listen to a rabbi differently when that rabbi earns a living in a way that's independent from his role as a rabbi. So he said to the rabbi, "Rabbi, I I I I love your opinion of me, but what you're describing, I can't do. I simply cannot do it. I'm falling apart. I'm collapsing." So the Reb said to him, you know what your mistake is? Your mistake is that you view a meeting between one Jew and another that involves religion. A meeting between one Jew and another where one Jew puts on with another Jew. One Jew teaches ta to another Jew. One Jew encourages another Jew to keep Pesak or Shabis. You review it as a as a chemical reaction. You have one chemical, one element, it's stable. You have another chemical, another element, it's also stable. You bring them together, they interface, they interact and there's a reaction. And after the reaction, there's a new normal. The chemicals find a new balance and the reaction stops. Every act of toy emits is not a chemical reaction. It's a nuclear reaction. It creates ripples, what they call a chain reaction. Every act has multiple actions that come from it. And we may look at ourselves and think, "What can I do? How can I change the world? I'm a little nobody." We must appreciate is that every good deed that we do begats additional good deeds. And the more time that passes, the more good deeds come from one initial good deed. And the Reb says, "If you'll look at your life that way, you'll see that you can do more. And there's time for everything. So, ladies and gentlemen, you've listened to me very, very well. I appreciate that. I want to sing with us together two songs. That's a short announcement. Just want to make sure we're doing the shortly, but we divided the evening into two phases. Phase one is going to be the lecture. We're going to do the nigunim. Whichever nigim and then shortly after, we're going to transition to the social hall. We're going to have the traditional setting of so everybody please stay. The evening is not over. >> Okay. So that's your first challenge, huh? Am I sticking around? Am I getting out of here? Okay, think about it. We're going to sing two songs. The first is a kidic melody which was composed by in Russia to celebrate the previous is released from prison. The second is one of the most sacred songs in the alter is niggan, the song of the great rabbi, the first the founder of Kabad Rabi. It's the song that we sing at weddings. It's called the song of the four stanzas. Uh we don't sing this niggan on ordinary days. This is a special day. I would like you to sing with me because like I said if I sing by myself it's going to be a disaster. Okay. And there's no music. So it's on us. Okay. So we'll sing first the and then we'll sing and then we'll go into the other room. And I do [Music] [Laughter] Da [Applause] da da da da da. Dad I d [Music] I D. [Music] Now we'll sing the al. Okay. Please sing with me. Please. Please. This probably more familiar to more of you. [Laughter] I had I [Laughter] Yeah. D Yo D [Laughter] [Music] it A a dam. Oh yeah. A yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. D La da da da. I la [Applause] Y I [Laughter] Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I adj. Yeah. LaM la. [Music]