A Light In The Dark
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A Light In The Dark We have a custom on the night
of the Seder to eat eggs.[1]
Among the various reasons offered is that the more an egg is cooked the harder
it gets. The same can be said of us Jews that the more we have been persecuted
and the like, the more firm we have been in our service of Hashem. Indeed, this
is what is meant in our title עם קשה ערף, a stubborn nation.[2]
In this light, we can grasp וכאשר יענו אתו כן ירבה וכן יפרץ[3]—the more we are
afflicted the more we increase in our service of Hashem and the like. A Russian boy who had his Bris performed at the age of 14
desired for his 12-year-old brother to follow suit. His father who was
extremely anti-religious threatened his 14-year-old son that he would
physically harm him if he would do the same to his brother. This 14-year-old at
the time was learning in a Yeshiva which was a one day travel from his house.
He asked a Mohel to let him know when he would be in the neighborhood of the
home where his brother was. A few months later, he received the call from the
Mohel that he will be there. The boy, unknown to anyone, left Yeshiva that day
to go home. Upon arriving, he smuggled his brother out the window followed by
the Bris being performed. With this we can grasp why we
are compared to stars—ככוכבי השמים[4]—since in dark times, we
truly see the light of our people, just like a star that shines at night. It was on Shabbos in a
Siberian camp, when a guard approached the Zvhiller Rebbe who was with an older
Jew and said that if he agrees to sign a paper, he will be let free. The Rebbe
refused as he said for the older Jew he would sign since he wouldn’t be able to
survive in such a camp, making the situation life-threatening for him. The
Rebbe himself who was younger felt he had enough energy to survive and thus
didn’t want to desecrate Shabbos. What was the outcome? The guard was so
impressed that he released them both!
Rabbi Alt merited to learn under the tutelage of R’
Mordechai Friedlander Ztz”l for close to five years. He received Semicha from
R’ Zalman Nechemia Goldberg. Rabbi Alt has written on numerous topics for
various websites and publications. He lives with his wife and family in a
suburb of Yerushalayim where he studies, writes and teaches. The author is
passionate about teaching Jews of all levels of observance. [1] Orach Chaim 476:2, Rema. [2] Shemos 34:9. [3] Shemos 1:12. [4] Breishis 22:17. Also 15:5. The Baal Shem Tov (Lech Lecha,
27) says that just as stars appear small but in the heavens they are very big,
so too we Jews in this world seem small
(oppressed and downtrodden) but in the upper world we are big. [5] He was the Mashgiach in the Yeshiva of R’ Elchonon Wasserman in Baranovich. He was a
student and son-in-law of the Alter of Navardok. In Tamuz of 1941, he was
murdered by the Nazis. [6] Miraculously, he survived the war while his wife and
children were murdered. He later remarried to a survivor of Auschwitz. For
those seeking the Torah’s answers for their heart-wrenching questions during
the holocaust, he was the address. When asked a question, he would write the
details on scraps of paper, along with the responses he provided. He then hid
these papers in cans which were buried in the ground of the concentration camp
near Kovno. After the war, R’ Oshry unearthed the hidden cans, and then
reviewed each question with Torah texts, as his original answers were based
solely on memory. Once properly researched, he then compiled a five-volume work
in Hebrew of the responses titled שו"ת ממעמקים. This was later translated in English
into a one-volume work titled Responsa to the holocaust. After the holocaust,
R’ Oshry founded the Yeshiva Me’or HaGolah in Rome for orphaned refugee
children who had survived the Holocaust. [7] Hamoros Hagdolim, p. 401.
