Torah From Down Under: Sydney - The Glory of Jewish Eternity and Survival

this tour class is brought to you by torahanytime.com good evening everyone thank you so much for welcoming here welcoming me here in Sydney many have asked so what has the highlight of your trip been so far which zoo the Sydney Zoo the Melbourne Zoo the Penguins the kangaroo um I think the Highlight has been meeting so many wonderful people uh we begin with uh your brother Blackman who it's been a really great honor and privilege to have come to be introduced to and to enjoy his wisdom and his Sage advice and his Torah and we wish him and his kahila much continued success in spreading Torah here in the country down under um he's been sanctifying the name of Hashem here already for many decades and we wish him and his family continued good health and continue to be Mikado so this trip really began probably maybe a couple years ago when I received an email about the number of seeds in a Ramon from my dear friendly orstin who is by the way a Ramon advisor and I had given a class about the number of Shir of seeds in the Ramon and leor who I didn't know at the time I didn't know where he lived even I don't know if I paid attention to the fact that you came from Australia he sent me some correspondence and then I want to thank my good friend Mr Ivan Sachs who I bumped into in the winter in Dallas Texas and he's like Rabbi you know I see you you have these classes online and you get around where have you been you're in Dallas you were in uh where else have you been you were in Eastern Europe you were in South Africa but you were never in Australia I'm going to get you to Australia yeah I don't think he hasn't gonna get me touched I looked through my emails I put in Australia like how many people have contacted me from Australia so I saw this name Steen and I said how you doing you know I have a friend who wants me to come to Australia and that's when um Mrs Lindsey Steen contacted me and I think you said you know what my husband just said we really need to bring you to Australia and this was in the winter right and I think we made up that by January 1st we were going to have a fixed date of whether this is happening or not and then it was February 1st and March 1st and um it was happening it wasn't happening but the truth is this was this was happening the whole time we all know this was uh it was just a matter of time and uh Mrs Steen really put in tremendous efforts in making this trip possible um many weeks many months um many correspondents reaching out to different Shoals and different tourist centers and it's really been a thrill for me and the great cameraman Yehuda gladstein give it a big round of applause for your Huda but I I think it was all worth it um and I want to thank um my friend Gary Shapiro of the Ring moment advisory as well with Evan um who together they really put together a wonderful program and it's been such a honor to be in the community I want to welcome rabbi Klein right remember and um thank you so much for hosting me and there's this Hashem so it's 1946 the first Yom Kippur after the war they had just finished reading the Torah in a DP cam called felderfink which was a gathering of many of the broken shells those who had survived the terrible catastrophe and were groping to put the shattered pieces of their lives back together again and they had just finished reading the Torah on yomakipuram and they had received the word that General Eisenhower the supreme commander of the Allied Forces and later would go on to become the 34th president of the United States was going to come and visit this displaced person camp a few days earlier they had been told that Eisenhower was coming and they would have to appoint a representative or perhaps a number of Representatives who would greet Eisenhower they would have to speak maybe there would be a few speeches and the representative would have to give their message someone who could describe the feelings of the survivors to vent the storm inside of their souls and a dispute broke out in the camps who should be appointed to be the representative of the camp and the observant Jews in the camp the shomri Toro mitsoi said there is no one in the camp who could greet Eisenhower more appropriately than the closenberger rabba zechers although he himself lost the wife and 11 children he would go from one broken soul to the next breathing life into the Embers to reignite the spark of Judaism that had been dormant for so many years who could better represent us than the grand rabbi who lost his wife and 11 children and yet he became the father of all the orphans and widows in the camp and the more Progressive ones the more enlightened ones said no we're embarrassed of that type of Judaism we've forgotten about that type we don't want somebody who we're going to be embarrassed of we want a man of today somebody of progressive thinking and a big argument broke out who should appropriately represent the survivors tisenhower and there was a compromise that the rabbi would greet Eisenhower but there were three conditions condition number one he cannot mention the name of God condition number two he cannot give any Works any words of mussar any rebuke any correction any religious instruction and number three he has to speak very briefly because we want to have the last word so Eisenhower came and they sit up set up this big platform and there was a podium and Eisenhower was sitting there and the grand rabbi the closenberger rabba heads up the steers to greet Eisenhower and as he's going up the stairs he grabs his Talus and he dons himself into Talus and he says and so he manages to invoke the name of Hashem and he greets the general and he says general we will forever be grateful to the part that you played in saving the lives of a people persecuted hounded who were innocent of any crime we will forever be grateful to you and there are thousands of people standing in the audience and the grand rabbi turns to the survivors and he starts talking to them he says my dear brothers and sisters we must never forget we are the amashem we are the people of God we must never forget we have a purpose in this world we have a talk list that if God has saved our lives he selected us to accomplish something in this world we have to realize our job in this world is to sanctify the name of Hashem and as he's talking he's literally pulling on the heartstrings of all of these survivors and the people began to cry and the people said they hadn't cried in six years the Wellsprings of Tears had long ago dried up and the thousands of people listening to the closenberger Reba were crying tears were streaming through the crowd and Eisenhower is watching this he's looking out into at the survivors skeletons almost walking cadavers crying rivers of Tears pouring and Eisenhower was shaken to the Core and all the other Progressive Jews who had prepared speeches were stunned they couldn't say a word and Eisenhower walks over to the closenberger Reba and he says holy rabbi what could I do for you what can I do for your people it's the holiest day of the year the rabbi looks Eisenhower in the eye says general five days of circus we need dalid minim we need the four species the lulove the esrog the Citron the Myrtle the willow get us and Eisenhower is looking at this man who just lost his whole family who is looking at these survivors who haven't eaten in six years that's what you want dollar minimum on that day Eisenhower sent a Plane off to Italy to bring back daladminum to deliver a message to give over the feelings of the Jewish people the agony of our history and the Triumph of our survival to give it over to Dwight Eisenhower we needed someone at least as great as the closenberger rabba children to our families and to the Jewish people today I want to share with you a statistic a recent Gallup poll in America revealed the following American Jews were asked to your mind what defines being Jewish what is the definition of being Jewish and the answer that topped the list at 73 percent was remembering the Holocaust meaning the majority of American Jews consider Holocaust Memorial as the very definition of being Jewish and on the one hand this response is quite heartening that means the American Jewish Community instinctively realizes the importance of remembering the Holocaust but this is a devastating and depressing depressing statistic because while 73 percent of Jews consider Holocaust Memorial the defining Mark of being a Jew only 19 of American Jews consider being Jewish as observing the law which puts into very sharp Focus that the concept of a Holocaust Memorial is grossly misunderstood what do we need to memorialize what do we need to remember what do we need to commemorate yes 73 of American Jews value Holocaust Memorial but more than 73 percent of American Jews have succumbed to intermarriage I mean seven out of every 10 weddings that happened in the United States among Jews are due to Gentile which means we have to understand what is the purpose of remembering the Holocaust yeah speak about assimilation when my grandfather was in the death camps so he would have his to heal him with him his Psalms and he would recite the Psalms and I have I heard from an eyewitness that he saw my grandfather praying and a Nazi came and clubbed him over the head he fell unconscious woke up a day later and continued saying the sons exactly where he was up to and the Nazi would say Rabbi why do you pray the Jewish people are finished we Germans will destroy the Jews of Europe the Arabs will decimate the Jews of Palestine and the Jews in America the Jews in America will take care of themselves and that was the one fact that they were correct about Jews of Europe they killed maybe 50 or so or more than that Jews of Palestine they never got to the Jews of America already more than six million Jews have gone lost the silent Holocaust so to deliver the message of what Holocaust Memorial is all about we need true Torah greatness something that I'm completely empty of and I stand before you as we say on the musaf of the Yaman naram hinene Mass but to borrow to borrow the analogy and would say we're like a who stands on the shoulders of a giant the experiences I would like to share with you this evening are not my own I'd like to share with you the experience experiences of a giant of spirit Majestic personality a great Sonic like to share with you some of the stories of my grandfather Hashem he should live and be well Gladstone who has been a rabbi in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania in the states for over 70 years he's now on to his second century he's a survivor of all the camps Auschwitz radam and in 1945 when the Russian and American armies were approaching the Germans had to make a very important decision should they divert all of their resources to the warfront to try to win the war or should they try to exterminate whatever Jews were still left in Europe and they chose the latter so they rounded up whatever Jews were still left in the camps my grandfather included onto a cattle car on this cattle car there were more than a hundred yiddin in this small compartment where they were headed to the Terrell mountains where they would dig their own Graves and be shot so I chanced upon a book that describes the conditions on one of these cattle cars and as I was reading it I discovered a historical treasure that's very meaningful to my family the name of the book is called a brush with death written by a survivor of Polish survival Survivor Morris wissigrad and I read there are more than 100 men stuffed into our car it was so crowded that no no one could sit the doors shut immediately after the car was full the car did not move for three hours finally the train began to move but then it stopped at gedansky Terminal where it stood for an hour and a half in the unbearable Heat we started to scream Through the Windows water water and as bad as the Germans were who was worse than the Germans ukrainians the Ukrainian said you give us your valuables we'll give you water after receiving them though many guards simply splashed the water and the faces of the victims cursing and laughs laughing sadistically people had to perform bodily functions right in the car the stench became unbearable we could not react to anything around me death was imminent there was one Rabbi on the car Rabbi Mordechai gladstein about midnight when we were all about to die Rabbi gladstein called out Jews let us say vide let us confess before we leave this world and then in a fanotic rights Rabbi gladstein and his brother somehow survived the war a few years ago went to visit my grandfather myzeda in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania my brother came in from Israel and this was really one of the first opportunities he had to see his grandchildren and great-grandchildren together and that moment that my great grand my grandfather sold the whole family together he had a flashback going back 70 years he remembers the first day in Auschwitz when the Nazis came in and the first thing they did was they took all the old people and they picked them up they put them in wagons and they taking them to the gas Chambers and these old people were crying who's gonna say coddish for us who's gonna say cottage for us and my grandfather heard that and he remembers thinking who's going to say kadish for you who's going to say kadish for me he wasn't married at the time he didn't have children and now 70 years later he sees grandchildren and great-grandchildren my grandfather took it upon himself when he was a teenager when he heard those cries who's going to say Kadesh for us that he would never let a Fila go by where he doesn't say the Kadesh for the kadoshima he's been praying the Katniss for the martyrs of the Holocaust for the last 75 years I came across a book entitled theological and halachic Reflections on the Holocaust and there was an article in it written by my grandfather about his first hand eyewitness account of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising again I read he writes I am the man who saw the afflictions of my people I am the victim and I am the witness I saw the war so ghetto with thousands of skeletons extending their bony arms as if begging for life and mercy I saw the ghetto littered with Corpses their face is distorted and swollen their eyes open wide skulls crushed blood flowing everywhere the blood of our children of our brothers and sisters our fathers and mothers no imagination no matter how daring could conceive of anything we've seen and lived through no language has been created to describe the enormity of the Holocaust you know I saw an interesting question the official Liturgy of the kinos that we say on Tish above we don't have a Kenna for the Holocaust some some survivors some great rabbis composed echina for their congregation an optional cannot but we don't have anything legislated and I saw a very interesting thought by the nasiva Shalom one of the reasons we don't have a formalized Kenneth for the Holocaust is the nasiva Shalom says the Holocaust was so tragic these exact words no language has been created to describe the enormity of the Holocaust sometimes the proper reaction is only silence the aftermath of the uprising the hell of all Hells on that day when we first saw men women and children being led into the house of death I shed bitter tears of despair we suffered most when we looked at the children accompanied by their mothers or walking alone and within a few minutes their lives were snuffed out the yells of the women the Weeping of the children their cries of Despair and misery still ring in my ears until this very day I want to share with you a few stories about another great historical figure someone very dear to me the daughter of one of the great robundum of pre-war Europe the name of Israel was my son Yehuda is named after him was the Wrath of the city of my great-grandfather his daughter my grandmother my grandmother she published her memoirs in a book entitled flares of memory published by University of Oxford press and her story is a different story took a different path but also a very powerful and compelling story she's the daughter of the rabbi the city and today what is the job of a rabbi Rabbi is a jack of all trades right back in the day in Europe my grandmother writes our home was open to everyone Jews did not go to secular courts in Europe Jews came to the rabbi people came with their questions people would come in with their chickens with their animals emotional problems economic problems here's a big one dream interpretation the black man I know is an expert in that I come to him all the time dream interpretation and for dinner us what are din tairas then Taurus is when the talmud is consulted as a the final source of legal ruling my father would listen carefully patiently with an open analytical mind to what was claimed by the litigants after which he consulted the Tamar opposite our home lived a Polish attorney Mr tarnovsky who was enamored with my father's analysis and after my father would adjudicate a case Mr tarnovsky would come and discuss it with him and try to understand the talmud my father considered him a friend but in 1939 it all changed one afternoon Mr tarnovsky barged through the door followed by an SS officer the officer was carrying a huge bowl of blood with the liver of a pig and and Mr tarnovsky took the ball slammed it down on the table the blood spilled all over the white tablecloth and Mr tarnowsky asked Rabbi is the liver of the pig kosher or traf you know I can't answer that question you have to do if you don't answer you'll be hearing from USA my father realized things were changing fast forward 1942 my grandmother all of her siblings and her parents were taken to the Warsaw Ghetto when my family was in the worst of ghetto 1942 the Gestapo came and took away my 15 year old brother we never saw him again my father realized it was the beginning of the end he turned to me and my sister he said the golden chain of Judaism which had lasted for three and a half Millennia must continue my dear daughters maybe you could do this polish passports had been secured now the Escape through the sewers was abhorrent to me there was only one option at the moment of The Changing of the Guard a group of us made a Mad Dash through the great the gates an alarm was sounded lights made us highly visible bullets flew overhead only Hashem could guide us to the forest for three and a half years my grandmother masqueraded as a Polish Christian peasant girl her name was not Cena anymore her name was lucinka Xmas 1942. the air is festive Xmas is approaching I must not be an outsider after all I am not Cena I am lucinka I must do whatever any other young Polish Girl will do it's not easy but Hashem will be with me like all the other girls I dressed in my holiday finest we're going to midnight mass I must be careful any difference would Mark me immediately the mass is over I pass the hurdle satisfactorily thanks to Hashem Xmas day is another stumbling block we have to go from home to home singing the Xmas carols while we drink now the feast were invited to the mayor's house the tree is Ablaze food is plentiful liquor more so now they start peppering me with questions forcing me to drink more and more and more why was I forced to drink liquor loosens the tongue now the game begins believing me drunk they shower me where were you born what farm are you from who's your priest what church did you attend my answer satisfy them with the help of Hashem the Gestapo came to the Farms of Poland and rounded up all able-bodied villagers for work we were taken to Warsaw to have our papers checked and checked and checked because they sniffed out that some of us were Jewish girls and boys in the morning we lined up for ourations but I heard through the grapevine that another transport had come this time bringing friends of mine from my hometown soccer after the inspection I felt like someone was staring at me I remembered him he was an old classmate of mine he was now 13 years old but with the same polish upturned nose and the same blue eyes I braced myself for the worst the worst happened in front of the Nazis he pointed at me and he said aren't you the rabbi's daughter the group was horrified they braced for the worst somehow Hashem put into my mouth I looked him straight in the eye and I said you're the rabbi's son aren't you I said oh I'm sorry I must have mistaken you for the wrong person I never saw him again 1944. I'm working for Mrs Schultz for more than a year and now we get word that Mr Schultz is coming home he was a high-ranking Gestapo who had been an absence for two years notoriously called the one-eyed monster because he wore a patch on one of his eyes as she runs out of the home to greet her husband they walk back into the house arm and arm accompanied by his Shepherd by his dog and he looks at me and he tells his wife who is this girl so this is for our best polish made but her nose she has a Jewish nose she has a long nose check her papers make sure check again and again one evening and share exhaustion my grandmother was out in the fields milking the cows and she just collapsed and she had a dream and in Her Dream she saw the image of her Holy Father and her father said to her my entire doctor my holy daughter my dear daughter you are not lucinka you are Cena the daughter of rabbinic royalty until now you not you have not been able to find kosher food you haven't been able to celebrate Jewish holidays but soon the war will be over and you will continue the less the golden chain of Judaism and it was the image of her Holy Father that stayed with her and carried her for the rest of her life can we offer reasons can we offer explanations for what happened in Europe for the Holocaust it's very difficult to do that but if you're searching for meaning what do we take out of the Holocaust I have an important thought I would like to share going back one more chilling story about my grandfather my grandfather writes from radham we were transported to Dachau dachos the valley of weeping of the Germans killings every day total humiliation the eyes of the Germans my grandfather was together with his brother heinach throughout all the camps my dear brother henoch and I were kicked and chased to the crematoria where tens of thousands of Jews were convulsing in the most shocking way and my brother turns to me and he says my dear brother Martha please give me some water I'm gonna die of thirst even before I get into the house of Fire and my grandfather said no we can't drink now if we drink now death will be more agonizing we were moments from the next World we were about to be shoved into the crematoria and a Heavenly Miracle occurred out of nowhere an SS officer came pulled us by the hair yanked us out said you're still young you could work and he dragged us out this Godly wonder will remain in our Memories Forever where was God he was at the threshold of the crematoria and he pulled my grandfather out and his brother out she was at the gates of the Warsaw Ghetto protecting my grandmother as the bullets flew overhead we know that when the temple was destroyed it was the time of the greatest darkness in the world where Hashem was behestar he was hidden we didn't see him but yet at the time of this great Hester and this great cloud the gemara tells us that when the Gentiles peered into the temple they saw the Embrace of the two cherubs indicating that in a time of the greatest Darkness it's also the greatest revelation of divine intervention and the following thought occurred to me that it's not only my grandfather that Hashem saved from the Holocaust because had Hashem not saved him I would not be here today I would not be that means God saved my grandfather he saved my father he saved me he saved my children I don't know I guess God wanted us to be around he must have wanted us and you know something if you're in this room today God wants you he's looking out for you he's been looking out for you for the last 3 300 years so that you could be here tonight 3 300 years ago your ancestors were in Egypt 80 percent of the Jewish people perished in Egypt but not your direct ancestors they were saved so you could be here destruction of the first temple the death toll was enormous but your ancestors were spared destruction of the second temple Josephus writes the death toll was staggering 1.1 million Jews were massacred and then the Romans hunted down every last year they could find but your ancestors somehow made it through 1391 200 000 Jews were forcibly baptized in Spain three hundred thousand Jews were expelled in 1492. kamenitsky pogroms Holocaust but God's been saving and rescuing your family so you could still be here you know for Jew to be here tonight it's not highly unlikely it's not improbable it's downright impossible it's an open Miracle of the highest proportions in his introduction to his sither how can the heretic one who does not believe in God's Providence not be utterly ashamed by analyzing our situation in the world we the exiled people the scattered sheep of arolino after everything we've endured tomorrow is of all the vicissitudes says I swear that when I contemplate these miracles foreign that they surpass any Miracle God did for the Jewish people in Egypt people say you know what my problem is it's so hard to believe in God if only he would show me an open Miracle like the splitting of the sea then I would believe in God you want an open miracle look at the face of a Jew in 2019 you will never see a greater miracle if from Yakov emden said that the existence of a Jew is the greatest miracle that ever occurred 250 years ago what would he say if he saw a Jew today in Sydney Australia one of the great Jewish personalities today as a rabbi rosh hashiva producer historian writer Rabbi Barrow wine 1946 he was 11 years old he was learning in the Skokie Yeshiva in Chicago and his father tells him Beryl today is an important day we're all going to the airport we're all going out to greet a great personality the chief Rabbi of Palestine of Isaac halevi Herzog we're all going to greet him all the rap on him or the Yeshiva students or the lay leaders we're all going to greet Rabbi Herzog Rabbi Herzog was a a very aristocratic and Regal personality he wore a top hat he had a cane he carried his Bible with him and Rabbi wine says we all went to the airport we accompanied rev Herzog back to the shul where of Herzog delivered a 45-minute 45 minute complex talmudic analysis in Yiddish that I'm going to save for you now just talking and after he finishes his 45-minute Russia he turns to the young man he turns to the bahram so I want to tell you something and rep Herzog came from Dublin so he had an Irish brogue he said just returned from Rome I went to visit Pope Pius XII I had with me a list of 10 000 Jewish boys and girls with their families and their parents placed them with Catholic families during the Holocaust hoping that one day they would see their children again or at least their children would would remain alive and Roberta came into the pope and he said Pope I have the list of ten thousand children they're our children give us our children back you've kidnapped them and the pope said no he flatly refused he said we've already baptized all these children and the law is once a child is baptized he will never return and if Herzog had the door slammed on his face rev Herzog looks at the crowd he looks at these young boys in Chicago and he puts his head down on the lectern and he cries and he weeps like a baby and then this great Rabbi defiantly lifts his head and he Roars like a lion and he cried out there's nothing I could do for these ten thousand Jewish children but if you're still in the room and you're still part of the Jewish faith what will you do for the future of the Jewish people and that's a very important question we need to ask ourselves if we're still around today and we have the opportunity to come to a shul and come to a sheer and to learn hashem's Torah and to observe the mitzvos thinking about how God has been cherry-picking us for 3 300 years through Egypt through pogrom through Inquisition so that we could be here today we need to ask ourselves what does God want from me what could I do how can I help the Jewish people so how did my grandfather survive with the help of the almighty he was in the cattle car headed to the turtle mountains and the American Army led by Brigadier General Henning Linden bombed the railroad tracks and they landed and my grandfather would say many times that when the Germans realized that the American Army was coming they quickly took off their Nazi uniforms put it on the inmates and put on the prisoners uniforms but the Nazis were not duped by the scheme because the Nazis were khazarum they were Pigs and the Jews were walking cadavers and the general came over to my grandfather and he handed my grandfather his pistol and he said Rabbi here's the gun take revenge against the enemy to which my grandfather responded Revenge I leave Revenge to God it's been five years since I've been able to be reunited with my talmud babli my Gomorrah I was in the middle of Baba Basra now I could come back to myself that is my freedom and I leave Revenge to God and upon Liberation my grandfather because he had actually besides he was a student of one of the great rabbis in Poland Menachem Zumba but he also had a degree before the war he had studied in University and he knew English and he became the chief chaplain of the joint distribution Community Committee the jdc no relation to the JD jlc and he was given an Army jeep in an army uniform and in the capacity of the head of the religious Department Of The Joint he was able to ship into the survivorsim philan build mcvoice build yeshivas and all the DP camps when General Eisenhower visited felda Fink to meet the kleisenberg my grandfather was Eisenhower's translator to the closenberger Reba and the closenberg Rebus translator to Eisenhower when Eisenhower consented to ship in the dollar minim these doll adminim arrived at my grandfather's desk and I'm very proud to say that my grandfather was the agent the messenger of God to deliver the very first talent meaning to these holy survivors and I'm not telling you stories I'm very proud to share with you the original photographs of my grandfather handing out these doll adminim to the survivors right after the war foreign father commissioned the baking of matzos Sim in the army uniform right after the war and here we have the closenberger Reba speaking to Eisenhower right after the war on that Yom Kippur so I meant to my grandfather was together with his brother all the years in the dark years in the camps and he wouldn't miss putting on filling so he smuggled a pair of filling into the camps in one particular Camp named radham which was a random had a very brutal lager fuhrer by the name of Ficus and if you're caught putting on film in in radham they shoot you on the spot and every single morning they would wake up at the crack of dawn and my grandfather would put on the fill in and then give it to his brother to put on the phone and one fateful morning my grandfather put on the throne show Yad he put on the tone show Rush he then hands it to his brother puts on the till in shoyad he's about to put on the head to fill in Ficus barges in he sees him putting on the thrill and he lifts up his gun to shoot but when he sees the tillen shall Royce perched on the head of this Sadiq he was gripped with Terror and fear he put the gun down and he ran out and in trembling my grandfather said it was an open Miracle this is what the gemara says when the nations of the world see that God is upon your head they will tremble this the gemara says refers to the Head filling and who could have imagined that 72 years later my grandfather would have the privilege to put fill in on the fourth generation of my son Yehuda only last year 72 years later earlier he had risked his life to fulfill the midst of filling and now Hashem gave him the privilege to see the continuity of our heritage One Last Story written by my grandmother it's called Under The Canopy under the um glowing are we really going to have an honest and goodness wedding here in the DP camps in felderfing we must life must continue we are told that Rabbi Mordechai glad scene will be available to officiate the very first wedding in the DP camps the wedding day arrives the canopy is up the rabbi is waiting the ceremony is about to start and suddenly the bride breaks down I can't get married without my mother I want my mother and everyone at the wedding began to cry we also want our mothers but the rabbi calms us down he says there's no looking back we have to rebuild our lives let us all reside in unison foreign I thought the rabbi took notice of me he came to me and he asked me my name I said see no woman he said woman there was a great Rabbi in sakhav Walman I said yeah that was my father of blessed memory a week later I received a telegram that someone in Munich wanted to speak with me it was Rabbi Gladstone he came he wanted to visit I was excited but I was nervous what would we be talking about did I dare to think he was serious the talmud teaches ush that there's a special Divine Providence in making couples in Claus Israel Where was the rebina he was in the fell to think in the DP camps these two holy survivors who were able to restore and rebuild the of the golden chain of Judaism who built a home in Cloud Israel and were together for 70 years after the war was over my grandfather was interviewed by the secular media and they said Rabbi you witnessed you witnessed the brutality of the Germans the massacre of your people you saw the decimation of your brothers and sisters Rabbi we want to ask you a candid question did you ever lose faith in God did you ever lose faith did you ever lose faith in the promises of your Torah and my grandfather responded did I lose faith yes I lost faith I lost faith in mankind I lost faith in humanity how could civilized human beings become barbarians and animals How could a society like Germany who one moment they're listening to Orchestra and play and theater and the next moment they turn into barbarians how could the United States of America who knew full well what was happening in Auschwitz were they bombed around Auschwitz and they stuck their heads in the sand and pretended not to know what was going on inside so did I lose faith I lost faith in man but never even for a moment did I lose faith in my God never for a moment did I lose faith in the Torah my faith in God only became stronger here we are August 2019. we're almost at the finish line we're almost at mashiach we have a tradition we're living we're living in the footsteps of the coming of mashiach it's us we're almost there God shows us he chose me and you we don't know why but he wants us to finish the job there is no end to how great we could make ourselves how high we could Elevate ourselves how high we could Elevate our families how high we could Elevate our communities and how much we could contribute to the Jewish people a Jew never loses faith faith we're almost there may we Merit to see the Redemption very speedily in our times I wish everyone thank you so much for listening you've just experienced another Torah class brought 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