Kiruv Korner: A Sign of Love – by Rabbi Meir Goldberg

rabbi meir goldbergWe recently had a number of our Rutgers students over for a Shabbaton. It was an atypical gathering in that they weren’t coming over just to spend a shabbos. Rather, they came for a reunion of our trip to Poland with our parent organization, Meor.

The Meor Poland trip took students on a seven day whirlwind tour of such places like the Warsaw Ghetto, the Warsaw cemetery, the kever of Rav Elimelech of Lizhensk, Chachmei Lublin, Majdanek, Auschwitz, Lodz, etc. It was a way for our students to get a sense of what our forefathers were before the war and what their mesiras nefesh was during it.

As we danced and sang during the Carlebach minyan Friday night, I told them the following story and message, which is relevant to each and every one of us.

Rabbi Yosef Wallis, director of Arachim of Israel, tells the following story about his father, Yehudah Wallis, who was born and raised in Pavenitz, Poland.

While he was in Dachau, a Jew who was being taken to his death suddenly flung a small bag at my father, Yehudah Wallis. He caught it, thinking it might contain a piece of bread. Upon opening it, however, he was disturbed to discover a pair of tefillin. Yehudah was very frightened because he knew that were he to be caught carrying tefillin, he would be put to death instantly. So he hid the tefillin under his shirt and headed for his bunkhouse.

In the morning, just before the appel [roll call], while still in his bunkhouse, he put on the tefillin. Unexpectedly, a German officer appeared. He ordered him to remove the tefillin, noted the number on Yehudah’s arm.

At the appel, in front of thousands of silent Jews, the officer called out Yehudah’s number and he had no choice but to step forward. The German officer waved the tefillin in the air and said, “Dog! I sentence you to death by public hanging for wearing these.”

Yeudah was placed on a stool and a noose was placed around his neck. Before he was hanged, the officer said in a mocking tone, “Dog, what is your last wish?”

“To wear my tefillin one last time,” Yehudah replied.

“The officer was dumbfounded. He handed Yehudah the tefillin. As Judah put them on, he recited the verse that is said while the tefillin are being wound around the fingers: “Ve’eirastich li le’olam, ve’eirastich li b’tzedek uvemishpat, ub’chessed, uv’rachamim, ve’eirastich li b’emunah, v’yodaat es Hashem – I will betroth you to me forever and I will betroth you to me with righteousness and with justice and with kindness and with mercy and I will betroth you to me with fidelity, and you shall know God.”

It is hard for us to picture this Jew with a noose around his neck, wearing tefillin on his head and arm – but that was the scene that the entire camp was forced to watch, as they awaited the impending hanging of the Jew who had dared to break the rule against wearing tefillin.

Even women from the adjoining camp were lined up at the barbed wire fence that separated them from the men’s camp, forced to watch this horrible sight.

“Yidden, I am the victor. Don’t you understand, I am the winner!”

As Yehudah turned to watch the silent crowd, he saw tears in many people’s eyes. Even at that moment, as he was about to be hanged, he was shocked. Jews were crying! How was it possible that they still had tears left to shed? And for a stranger? Where were those tears coming from? Impulsively, in Yiddish, he called out, “Yidden, I am the victor. Don’t you understand, I am the winner!”

The German officer understood the Yiddish and was infuriated. He said to Yehudah, “You dog, you think you are the winner? Hanging is too good for you. You are going to get another kind of death.”

“Yehudah, my father, was taken from the stool and the noose was removed from his neck. He was forced into a squatting position and two huge rocks were placed under his arms. Then he was told that he would be receiving 25 lashes to his head – the head on which he had dared to position his tefillin. The officer told him that if he dropped even one of the rocks, he would be shot immediately. In fact, because this was such an extremely painful form of death, the officer advised him, “Drop the rocks now. You will never survive the 25 lashes to the head. Nobody ever does.”

Yehudah’s response was, “No, I won’t give you the pleasure.”

At the 25th lash, Yehudah lost consciousness and was left for dead. He was about to be dragged to a pile of corpses , after which he would have been burned in a ditch, when another Jew saw him, shoved him to the side, and covered his head with a rag so people didn’t realize he was alive. Eventually, after he recovered consciousness fully, he crawled to the nearest bunkhouse that was on raised piles and hid under it until he was strong enough to come out under his own power. Two months later he was liberated.

“I saw what you did that day when the officer wanted to hang you. Will you marry me?”

During the hanging and beating episode, a 17-year-old girl had been watching the events from the women’s side of the fence. After liberation, she made her way to Yehudah. She walked over to him and said, “I’ve lost everyone. I don’t want to be alone any more. I saw what you did that day when the officer wanted to hang you. Will you marry me?”

My parents walked over to the Klausenberger Rebbe and requested that he perform the marriage ceremony. The Klausenberger Rebbe, whose Kiddush Hashem is legendary, wrote out a kesubah [marriage contract] by hand from memory and married the couple. I have that handwritten kesubah in my possession to this day.

After finishing the story, I shared with my students the following thought. Tefillin are called an ‘os’ a sign of love between us and Hashem. Shabbos is also an ‘os’ which is why we don’t wear tefillin on Shabbos. If we keep Shabbos, we have that sign of our marriage to Hashem at Har Sinai.

The Shabbosim that we experienced on the trip and afterward in Lakewood were both beautiful osos, one which we hope to continue with our newly inspired students.

Rabbi Meir Goldberg is the director of the Meor Rutgers Jewish Xperience at Rutgers University.

[TLS]

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2 COMMENTS

  1. Although I have such a tremendous love for kiruv and I put my support behind this gevaldigeh initiative, taiyereh R’ Meir is in another league. Another masterpiece. You are the keser of the Goldberg mishpocha. Can’t wait for your next post on the scoop.

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