Mendel Ehrenreich, son of Rabbi Tzili and Chaya Ehrenreich, on mivtzoim at the JCC of Rockland in West Nyack. Close to 100 people made a bracha on the daled minim with the Ehrenreich children at the JCC over Sukkos so far.
Happenings of the Chabad Lubavitch אנ"ש community of Rockland County, New York
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Route 306 Closed at South Parker Blvd.
UPDATE - The road has been reopened.
Route 306 is now (Tuesday at 6:30 PM) closed in the area of Mariner Way and South Parker Boulevard due to a fatal shed collapse at 332 Route 306. You may want to avoid the area.
Route 306 is now (Tuesday at 6:30 PM) closed in the area of Mariner Way and South Parker Boulevard due to a fatal shed collapse at 332 Route 306. You may want to avoid the area.
A Simchas Torah Thought
By Rabbi Yisroel Shusterman, Dean, Cheder Chabad of Monsey
Simchas Torah – the holiday being celebrated by thousands of Jews the world over this weekend – comes as the culmination of the current Hebrew month of Tishrei. This is the month in which we celebrate Yiddishkeit with the entire kaleidoscope of Jewish observance – intense prayer, fasting, thanksgiving, and now coming to the holiday of unbridled joy and happiness - dancing with the Torahs and showing our appreciation and pride of being a Jew.
Simchas Torah – the holiday being celebrated by thousands of Jews the world over this weekend – comes as the culmination of the current Hebrew month of Tishrei. This is the month in which we celebrate Yiddishkeit with the entire kaleidoscope of Jewish observance – intense prayer, fasting, thanksgiving, and now coming to the holiday of unbridled joy and happiness - dancing with the Torahs and showing our appreciation and pride of being a Jew.
As the Rebbe explains, we dance with the Torahs as they are
wrapped up and closed; not an open scroll allowing for a showing a pride of
scholarship or depth of Torah knowledge, but as the Torah is at its most basic
and essential level – available to and therefore, encompassing all Jews and
Jewish backgrounds. And this essential level of Torah, as it relates to every
Jew, is the motivation and reason for the intensity of the joy and dancing.
And it is particularly the Jewish children,
who are the symbol of our eternity, and their
Jewish education, which have kept our people alive, as reflected in the following
true story (excerpted from chabad.org) :
Henryk
was very young in 1945, when the War ended and solitary survivors tried
frantically to trace their relatives. He had spent what seemed to be most of
his life with his nanny, who had hidden him away from the Nazis at his father's
request. There was great personal risk involved, but the woman had readily
taken it, as she loved the boy.
All
the Jews were being killed, and Henryk's nanny did not think for a moment that
the father, Joseph Foxman, would
survive the infamous destruction of the Vilna Ghetto. He would surely
have been
transferred to Auschwitz -— and everyone knew that nobody ever came back
from Auschwitz. She therefore had no scruples about adopting
the boy, having him baptized into the Catholic Church and taught
catechism by
the local priest.
It was Simchat Torah when his father came to take him. The
heartbroken nanny had packed all his clothing and his small catechism book,
stressing to the father that the boy had become a good Catholic. Joseph Foxman
took his son by the hand and led him directly to the Great Synagogue of Vilna.
On the way, he told his son that he was a Jew and that his name was Avraham.
Not
far from the house, they passed the church and the boy reverently crossed
himself, causing his father great anguish. Just then, a priest emerged who knew
the boy, and when Henryk rushed over to kiss his hand, the priest spoke to him,
reminding him of his Catholic faith.
Everything
inside of Joseph wanted to drag his son away from the priest and from the
church. But he knew that this was not the way to do things. He nodded to the
priest, holding his son more closely. After all, these people had harbored his
child and saved the child's life. He had to show his son Judaism, living
Judaism, and in this way all these foreign beliefs would be naturally abandoned
and forgotten.
They
entered the Great Synagogue of Vilna, now a remnant of a past, vibrant Jewish
era. There they found some Jewish survivors from Auschwitz
who had made their way back to Vilna and were now rebuilding their lives and
their Jewish spirits. Amid the stark reality of their suffering and terrible
loss, in much diminished numbers, they were singing and dancing with real joy
while celebrating Simchat Torah.
Avraham
stared wide-eyed around him and picked up a tattered prayer book with a touch
of affection. Something deep inside of him responded to the atmosphere, and he
was happy to be there with the father he barely knew. He held back, though,
from joining the dancing.
A
Jewish man wearing a Soviet Army uniform could not take his eyes off the boy,
and he came over to Joseph. "Is this child... Jewish?" he asked, a
touch of awe in his voice.
The
father answered that the boy was Jewish and introduced his son. As the soldier
stared at Henryk-Avraham, he fought to hold back tears. "Over these four
terrible years, I have traveled thousands of miles, and this is the first live
Jewish child I have come across in all this time. Would you like to dance with
me on my shoulders?" he asked the boy, who was staring back at him,
fascinated.
The
father nodded permission, and the soldier hoisted the boy high onto his
shoulders. With tears now coursing down his cheeks and a heart full of real
joy, the soldier joined in the dancing.
"This
is my Torah scroll," he cried.
Abe
Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League -- the Avraham in
our story -- remembers this as his first conscious feeling of a connection with
Judaism and of being a Jew.
As the month of Tishrei comes to a close and we look back on
the most powerful month of the Jewish year – accepting G‑d's sovereignty on Rosh Hashanah, being
forgiven on Yom Kippur, uniting
with G‑d and our fellow Jews on Sukkot, dancing our
souls and soles out on Simchat Torah – it is now the time to declare our pride
in our Jewishness: I am a Jew and I'm
proud !
Footnote:
Avrohom later immigrated to the USA
and attended Yeshiva in NY. On April 9,
2010, after 65 years, Avrohom and the Soviet soldier were reunited.
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