Tisha B'Av: The Presence of G-d - Our Trip Back in Time - Rabbi Mordechai Kraft

[Music] like to speak now the short period we have about a topic of the show and it's very daunting to speak about the Holocaust because it's so difficult to perceive so difficult understand particularly like to speak about hush caja and I mean hush kapha I mean a Shems presence and awareness of Hashem as a poster scuffle scuffle would mean we're trying to look for reasons to understand and perhaps the human mind is incapable but to see the divine hand I think that we are capable of and of course when we're aware of a Shems presence we know that the goal there has to be purpose and there has to be love this perhaps is what I shall himself was hinting to EOF when II of who was living a very successful productive life with the family and wealth and it's all taken away from him because of the test of the the Sutton so basically you have searches to try to understand and philosophically he can't and his friends try to explain he can't finally in Chapter 38 Hashem himself comes to EF and a Shem says the famous words where were you when I created the world and he talks to EOF about the creation perhaps in our terminology about the magnificence of the sign of the self or the magnificence of the emergence of the universe is all perfection and as a result of these discussions he was comforted for his loss he doesn't talk about the whys but what he does do is he makes you more further aware that I'm real and then I'm here and that everything your life is also me and the more we make that reality true the more we able to deal with any circumstance so that is an introduction I'd like to talk just about a few interesting things about the Holocaust that struck me number one as we haven't have a trip this past May and we were standing in Warsaw and we were standing by the Amish lock plots which was the trade station where Jews were deported to from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka where 800,000 Jews were murdered through gas so it was pointed out that what was the date of the first deportation from the Warsaw Ghetto it was tisha buf interesting tisha buf once again there it is if we go back even a little bit further into the history of the Shoah we discover that the conference called Wannsee conference which was in Germany in 1942 at which the final solution was mapped out by Eichmann and Himmler and Heydrich the date of that conference where it was signed that the Jews of Europe were to be destroyed was Arif tisha buff once again tisha buff seems to be surfacing but I think it's very interesting if we go back to the beginning of it all the beginning of the show how perhaps began at the beginning of World War two World War two is really a connection that many say of World War one just one long War World War one we know started on Tisch above but World War two started on a particular date it started on September 9th 1939 what's interesting is September 9th 1939 the parsha that Jews throughout Europe were reading and Jews throughout the world were reading was partially Savile he servo is the parsha of the tokoha the parsha of the rebuke I'd like just to read a few of the bouzouki from the rebuke from the top clunky Silvo and imagine that you're a Jew in 1939 and you're witnessing now the Germans with a new new method of warfare called blitzkrieg rained bombs on Poland and you're reading the following partial listen to what you're reading in 1939 and ask yourself the question in 1945 did you see these things come true the parsha says first of all bozo baina tells us the foreign key Tsavo chapter 28 verse 37 if we don't follow a Shems ways hi you see the shove of the muscle of shin and off we're gonna be confused we're gonna be an object of hatred all the Shanina we're gonna be scorned and mocked first of all confused I think there's any word that defines the Holocaust is confusion in fact may not resemble one of the great condole another generation commit to before he was murdered in the warsaw ghetto he competent and he said that although the jewish people is the wisest of all nations hashem removed that wisdom from us we didn't know what to do every direction was a dead end confusion the muscle hatred mocked and then in 43 chapter 43 plus ik 43 says a garish Shevek Abajo Jana Hamada model for utter terror at Matamata the stranger your mists is gonna rise up and up and you're gonna go down and down stranger and your miss who's the stranger wherever we went somehow there were nations there were people so willing to persecute us sometimes the emerge the lowest members of society people have been criminals now in charge and ruling over great Robottom the princes of the Jewish nation they're going up and up and we're going down and down and the plus it 48 it says V Avada this is Chevy van ho a shaggy schlocky notion buff petrova but summing and you're gonna be enslaved to your enemies and you're gonna serve them in hunger and in thirst slavery the Jewish nation was basically sold into slavery once again in hunger and thirst hunger killed more than 70,000 people in the warsaw ghetto hunger it says that the average caloric intake of a Jew in the warsaw ghetto was about 300 calories per day that's approximately a small cup of Cheerios that was the intake starvation hunger like we never saw before thirst one need read the biography of the Claussen burger Rebbe where he describes the death march that he was on and they're marching to Germany as the walking by a river they're forbidden to drink and anyone who reaches his head down to drink his shot and he tells them a great miracle as they lay down finally to rest all of a sudden out of the ground sprouted water one of the great miracles that he describes but thirst hunger and thirst and it continues and it says that a nation is going to come upon you a nation's gonna swoop down you're like an Escher like an eagle an eagle we know it's a symbol of Rome it's also the symbol of the Nazis their flag is marked with the Nesher with the eagle but it doesn't stop there the pursuit can continue and they say Gamco Hollywood called McAvoy sure look customer safer to ourselves yonder chemin de fer adi he's shown the hawk there's all sorts of suffering and torture like we've never seen before there's gonna be sickness so many jews died of typhus the sicknesses that surrounded us and then in verse 65 it says over going a hamlet our gear bellowing in my north with half front black hawk they're not gonna allow any rest for your foot but no solution of ha shams lave druggers would kill you and I named the oven that fish are gonna be so broken but how you crave it to leave not legged or polka Delilah said you're gonna have such fear for yeomen below timing bouquet yeah and every day you're saying it I don't know if I can live Rashi says what does it mean you don't you're gonna live is that super color powder where's my bread coming from we don't the issue the survival was bred to get a loaf of bread to get a slice of bread that was the diet and the Tokra says that's gonna be everyone's question every day where's my friend coming from but bokor tomar meat and a bravura Arab Tom I meet in Boca in the morning you're gonna say I wish it were night at night you say I wish it were morning we popular vote for a different memory neffeteria why for the things that your eyes are gonna see things that you never saw before once speaks to survivors of the Shoah and they tell you just that at night they wish for day and day they wish for night and they say they saw things with their eyes that they've never seen before and no one will ever see the sights they saw of bodies stacked up one upon each other to be burnt but the total doesn't stop there either it says and perhaps this is the most chilling of them all right at the end the last toughie says but he's hard to Machado I've ever and you'll be sold to your enemy the varnish fuckos the slaves for in Kona but there's gonna be no one who's gonna buy Rashi explains to us what does that mean Rashi says he put her to shame though a vet Hawk you're gonna be soul to your enemy attempted ship the yealt deep behind the hem of Unleashed photos you yourselves are gonna say just let me be a slave how many Jews got off the trains of the death camps and said just let me work for nothing let let me work for free I could do something just let me live but what so honey be the same back ain't Kona Rashi said what does it mean they're not gonna buy Kiki's hour left for Henrik could kill yon they're only gonna want one thing to see you die a chilling description of the total huh a chilling description of the show we ourselves are to say and slave us and they're gonna say we don't even want you as slaves but we're so valuable we could be shoemakers we doctors no we just want you dead that's all Jews walked off the trains true potential to blinker to signs that said mockingly saying this is the gate to heaven Jews walked off trains in subby bar in Belgic there was no work camp 250 thousand three hundred fifty thousand eight hundred thousand Treblinka straight from the train to the death you don't have been wanted to slaves they just want to see I'll kill you on the Hedrick as Rashi points out and that's what it means there's gonna be no kkona nobody's gonna buy him so we see pursue cream like this what do we say we can't ask why the whys behind us but I think what we do feel when we see this is that a Shem is predicting it a Shem is telling us it Shem is making himself aware that there might be a time in Jewish history that will be this and when we see these words it doesn't depress but makes us aware of the hush go home Hashem you're there I recall a story I saw one time in the camps in which religious Jew was speaking to a non-religious Jew and the religious Jew was broken and the religious Jew was saying I don't understand the Shem where is my god and the non-religious do turns to him and says what are you broken about don't you realize these are the words of our Torah God is right there all off but let's see a few other areas where we could discover the Chicago - am well first of all we see it just in the fact that the Nazis themselves evoked laws that said juice we're not going to let you give up being juice Germany the most assemble the hated of all nations intermarriage over fifty percent all of a sudden laws out of Nuremberg under this new party called the Nazis which seemed to emerge also beyond any in any normal source and evoke laws of racial purity inter marriages forbidden the Evoque laws were Jews lose their citizenship the VOC laws where a Jew has to put on his passport if he's a man yes royal if he's a woman she's a woman Sahra finally by 1939 laws in which we have to wear a Jewish star now it's so interesting because of Osterman tells us that the reason why we came out of Egypt is we didn't change our names our language and our clothing and he explains to us that as the persecution intensified in Egypt the sages in Egypt realized that we have to start living like Jews again they said Jews take on Jewish clothing knocking before clean and elegant take back your Jewish names Avram it's got Yaakov and start speaking Russian Dakota should get started death defying the earth of your real nationhood not with the Egyptians so again what do we see we see us go home we see something divine hinting to us that there's a plan behind the scenes and in fact the measure humma identified this already in 1926 already six years before the rise of Hitler and said that there's gonna be a fire that's gonna emanate from Berlin why because the fact that Yusuf said that Berlin is our new Jerusalem but I don't think there's got to stops there I think we see that stuff in other ways as well first of all I think we see it just in the names one looks at the names of the chief architect of the Final Solution anchormen if we spell out Eichmann how the for you and your took off ma'am none it's 131 that's interesting because the name of the Sutton called the Sun kale there's also 131 the job of the sub care the job the Suttons to create darkness through which we bring forth the light Eichmann 131 some killed 131 if we take the name of the sump Kell and we drop the sonic remember the Lamba and we take the remaining letters there's a value there of 254 that's the same numerical value as Hitler spelled hey your pet llama duration and how interesting it is when you add to 54 to 131 it's 365 which is numerical value of the shekinah a divine presence hidden in the names of our enemies meaning that there's a divine plan and there's a purpose but I'd like to take you back even further right now in Jewish history and I'd like to take us back to the story of Noah and says that Noah emerges from the floods and he's emerges from the TAVR so he offers up an offering to a sham and the prusik says that his shemp's melted various Shem a Sierra and ha Shem smelt this beautiful offering this fragrant offering but Yogesh Emily bought a chef says to his heart lo Oh Steve the Kyle oh oh this or dumb before Adam I'm no longer gonna destroy the world again a Shem smells this beautiful offering the dog brings the Midrash comments and the Midrash wants to know what did the Shem smell what was the beautiful offering what was that fragrant odor of a yurka Shem is record he caught the Memphis rabbit tells us her red red ashhadu Ravi know all of me keeps on age it was the smell of Avram Aveeno who would not bow down to the idols of nim roads and was thrown into the fiery furnace and he emerges alive so when hashem is smelling this fire he's not necessarily only smelling the fire that not brought he's smelling the fire that Avram Aveeno emerges from the Metra's continues and says for your wrath what did he shall smell Rick shook Nonya Misha Bazaar yay we know the three great tsadikim who refused to bow down to the Selim the idol of Nebuchadnezzar and they too were thrown in a fiery furnace shem created an ace shem created a miracle and they walked out so what is it Shem smelling what's the fire offering he's smelling the fire that least the great flood he came walked out of good ninety me show as are you and then the Midrash says something at the end a chef smelt a third offering via rare Hashem Herrera hooray DeRusha schmod Hashem smelled the offering of the generation that was destroyed in fire a generation that's destroyed in fire and the eighth's Yosef on the Madrid comments and says it was a generation that was brought into a fire but not emerged from the fire what generation was thrown and brought into the fire but didn't emerge from the fire what generation was brought like a sacrifice in animal cars in cattle cars from every part of Europe to be brought into the fire but not to emerge from the fire it looks like the meadow is telling us a piece of prophecy there's going to be a generation in the future that's gonna go into the fire but not emerge and yet a Shem is smelling that beautiful fragrance of that generation there's something about that generation that died that has beautiful fragrance to a chef but it's good to take a few thousand years in order to understand what it was what it meant it's interesting also when we look at hash coho the fact that it was an animal offering how interesting it is that in the Holocaust the fact that Jews were brought like animals to their executioner's might have been the only case like that in human history where the victim is transported to the killer usually the killer comes to the victim but let's just keep that thought for a mod for in our minds for a moment and let's jump to a statement made by the great rabbi rev Destler and Reb Destler asks a question and read the such questions as follows he's wondering about his own yeshiva Destler was in Manchester during the ward but he's wondering about his only ship and fell and we know that the narrative of the Ukraine and Russia wasn't necessarily death camps it was squads that would go out and execute usually in their own backyard 1.5 million just died through bullets shot on the spot and he has the question and he says robbing Charlevoix Tamayo there's so many wonder and ask my bet some of my sauces halal Oh what was the purpose of these deaths hey let me talk you services schmod may sue even if they only died because they were asked to do something if the only died because they were said convert or die and he said we're not reverting I can understand the death or muscle now show kaduche more therefore they would have sanctified god's name by refusing but a little dove remember that wasn't the case of all rooms give another low they wanted our show the nazis when they murdered the ship of helm and all the jews who were shot in pits or even when they were sent into gas chambers they didn't request us to believe in anything or to change our belief or give up something and the high street Lahari gallopping command Kabul Mart one thing just to destroy us rouhani says coulomb i'll Shinoda you who them all they wanted was to kill us why because we were born as Jews Andra Destler says c'mon English person and Gavin show us like how small you sparkling little haruchan he didn't give us an opportunity sanctify God's name in Kenema lava white a muscled robust he says I don't understand what was the purpose I'd like to offer two explanations perhaps of where shemish Gaucho meets with these events number one let's go back to what we just read we just read that a chef is smelling the sacrifice of Noah and he's smelling a ref the clock of the generation that was destroyed in fire now it's interesting I'd like to offer a thought that I saw on a safer rabbit Albert and he says as follows yes a very interesting question by Avril Lavigne oh I would love vino at the akkada skeet stop offers up Isaac and we know at the last minute God tells about to do it for your album Avram for your Mohini our mommy says I'm here for your man at each lunch I'll teach the jerilyn our don't send your hand forth to the boy out Tesla MoMA and not only that don't even make a blemish so Rashi says that Alfred said to his sham he said it Shannon he became the peanut boss see the kind if I can't even make a blemish I can't draw a blood I've come for nothing I said let me at least do something I would cement amount Dom I'll make a little cut I'll draw a little blood so at least I did something fulfilling your command to to to check them and it actually shocked him I didn't actually kill him but let me do something chef says I'm with a loti slow mama don't do anything out front right now best interesting question you know before we do SH Lita we make a blessing baroque etosha volcano medical amateur Kenny shot at miss wood 700 mitzvahs Rita we make a blessing over the myths of shmita before we do before we shut the animal to eat it half wrong must have made the blessing if he's given a command to check the Sun to kill his son he made the blessing and that was Shem is saying don't do it so there's a problem what's the problem it's a broccoli patella let me at least draw blood so won't be a brothel divert power the kabocha Duchenne tells us something so important and so interesting one of the ways that Hashem shows his love for us Hashem says the following March over Toberman saw her for the mice saw a good thought Hashem says I'm gonna connect to a good action what does that mean my shovel tobits over the mics she never asked about yo a chevy chevrolet obk shiva sham with hashem oh I don't know I see my vas he says a feel of horn is awesome it's mo a person wants to do a mitzvah but then that's awesome but for some reason a person came to the Mitzvah matter of a Kousuke loss so Hashem looks at it says if you did it for example a person might say I in my heart I really want to give a million dollars to Sadako to yeshiva to ash or whatever it might be I don't have the money but someone else gives the million dollars so chef says you know I'm gonna do I'm gonna join together his gift with your thoughts but star if my shovel them ice it doesn't work in Reverse by the way shem will never put a bad thought together with someone else's bad action but ash Evan his love for us says I want to give you credit for the million dollars - you wanted to give it it hooks up with the action so time to suggest something so beautiful all those Jews who went to the pit and didn't know why they were dying didn't have an opportunity less necessarily to commit and say we're dying because we're Jews and we are doing with what wouldn't never want to change our position all those juices didn't have time or didn't have intention what does it Shem do Hashem hooks up someone else's thought to their action whose thought Avram of eNOS I'll remove you know four thousand years ago made a brothel in order to sacrifice his son but he was never able to fulfill it four thousand years later those sons are not being sacrificed our Frome's mind arms thoughtfulness our arms intention is connected now to their action and their action now is seen as an action that has thought as well a Shemin is infinite love for us allows Jewish history to span such a magnificent course with one body one people connected through time and space and history and no one's death is therefore meaningless in any way our mom's blessing and their death however I don't think it stops there there were many Jews who understood exactly why they were dying and it says in fact that the Achieva in hell led by Rev Daniel Moshe that's the great Sadiq a messiah he turned to the Nazi in charge and he said to him before you shoot we need a few more minutes he's granted those minutes and he turns to his Tom Edom and he says to his students we are now going to die as Corbin note it's so necessary that our hearts be pure they're our minds be free of any distracting thoughts our death is going to be atonement for the Jewish people I want everybody now to have a pure heart the Tom made him look back at him he nod he turns towards his Nazi executioner and he says we're ready you can proceed there were many Jews who did rise to that occasion who understood that right now is a time to show a sham exactly who I am and what I am to show a Shem that our hearts are capable of loving you even now I reminded the story of the Rebbetzin the mother of the reminiscing of the tells of Rebbe who at the point where the Nazis were about to shoot her and her children she turns and says shoot my children first they happily oblige as soon as they die she takes dirt and she covers their eyes and their nose their mouth and she says Baruch Hashem that my children had the opportunity to have a cavity soil a Jewish burial and then she turns he said now I'm ready also so many Jews were able to have these type of hearts and types of thoughts and type of purity and perhaps that's what the chef was looking for define ourselves as a nation define what a real Jew is what are we capable of really now those choose award to able were able to get our burritos blessing but so many Jews weren't able to say we can do it on our own and in my humble opinion when we look for hushka and how the cost we find it in so many ways but I think the deepest place we find the hush cocoa is to see what a Jew is capable of being a Chicago means God is present that a Jew can rise and say I'm ready means there's something more than just an animal it means that there's a southern medical Kim the understands has a greater purpose for life and I can sanctify life even now harsh Kaka God's presence its most powerful demonstration is in these actions of Jews we look at the the Holocaust and we look at this time period and I'll just end with a few final thoughts just to review the war begins in 1939 we're reading the tokoha we're reading almost a perfect description of what's going to be the next five years of Jewish life aren't you looking at in 1939 and say oh my gosh look what I was reading and 1945 if they had made it and said I was being told my future World War 1 the beginning of it all some say also started at issue about the 1c conference as we mentioned where the final secured the final the final solution was put into paper every Shabbat 1942 the Nuremberg Laws Germans are telling us keep your change your clothing your names your language reminding the Jew that they have to be a Jew a directive from the General Staff telling the army don't let Jews from the east leave they're called the OU student and the reasons are so interesting because the US Juden are going to be the table of teachers and we let the Talmud teachers survive there's going to be a spiritual rejuvenation of the Jewish nation a fire from Berlin Berliners our New Jerusalem the Talmud tells us at Mugello there's a nation called Garen Mamiya if that nation will unite will mock reverse Colorado culo it will destroy the entire world the villa Cohen says don't really care mommy and ritika Manya the Talmud was written eighteen hundred years ago Germany came a nation in 1871 a nation which destroyed the world not once but twice the names as we mentioned a vitamin and Hitler Eichmann 131 Hitler 254 some cow the external letters 131 the remaining letters 254 he added together it's 365 there should be not the divine presence behind everything the prophecy that we mentioned did Noah a prophecy that talks about a generation that's grow into the fire but said not gonna come out of the fire Abraham's blessing that goes unfulfilled for 4000 years allowing Jews who might not been able to know why they died to connect their actions with afros intention confusion uncertainty hatred Menachem Ziemba statement that this is we don't know what to do whatever we did whatever decision we made it was wrong and just to end on two thoughts number one when Haim Weitzman came to Germany the first president of Israel so he brought as a gift to the German Minister he brought a candelabra a menorah from Jerusalem a gift that's normally given for one head of state to another something from your culture to theirs he was presented by his German counterparts with a Tom attract a person and he was surprised because usually you give something that belongs to you nots and they belongs to the other and he said I have a set of thalamus this is ours why are you giving me this I tried to tell you about this pitama son it was found where was it found it was found in Hitler's bunker when they wanted the Hitler's bunker in Berlin after the war they found the Talmud succomb on the shelf I'd like to present it to you Hitler thought he could destroy you and your Talmud and your people he kept a copy of the Talmud suck him in his bunker why because sucking teaches about the Eternity of the Jewish people it teaches about her c9 Pesach and how God made us a nation through miracles and he kept it there to say look these people are no longer God's chosen people and kind Weitzman was all for this Talmud and said I'm giving it back to you the chosen people are still here I don't think we get asked or intent attempt to know the wise the wise are beyond us if shimmy Schwab would say despite the fact that we look and we see obviously there are signs signs of assimilation and everything we talk about for the deepest wire the Holocaust is so beyond us it belongs to the divine mind and divine mind alone however I think what is in our purview what is in our scope of analysis is the intents of Chicago the presence of God all through the entire period whether it be through predictions whether it be through seemingly coincidences but it indicates that God was there all along and we have to say when we see a Chicago we feel God's presence like eeyow said he overs comforted when God says where were you when I created the world I can't explain - I won't explain to you why you lost your family but if you know it's me you know there has to be purpose and there has to be love and when we know this purpose in love we too could find healing and comfort in the period we call the show [Music] you [Applause]