It’s been a very hard week, a week that had me turning to Hashem many times demanding some answers. No, I am not a heretic. I love Hashem with every fiber of my being, I believe in Him, and I am beyond grateful to Him for all the kindness He bestows on me and on my family. I am honored to be an active member of His marketing team, spreading the beauty of Hashem and His Torah wherever I can, especially in Montana. But boy, did He test me this week.
I remember during my yeshiva years, while spending a yom tov break at my beloved Chabad of Oklahoma City, I came across the “Yossel Rakover” letter and it penetrated my heart. As a grandson of a Holocaust survivor, I understood the inner conflict, the gut-wrenching back-and-forth, the love and disdain, the faith and myriad reasons not to believe, and the struggle to retain our relationship with Hashem despite what we’ve endured.
I later discovered that the letter wasn’t actually written in the Warsaw Ghetto; yet, it was a heartfelt work of fiction, written by a Jew as only a Jew can, with the intent of conveying the complicated relationship we have with Hashem, especially when He hides from us.
In the letter, the author writes:
I, Yossel, son of Dovid Rakover of Tarnopol, a chassid of the Rebbe of Ger and a descendant of the righteous, learned, and G-d-fearing families of Rakover and Meisels, am writing these lines as the houses of the Warsaw Ghetto go up in flames. The house I am in is one of the few still not burned … I am 43 years old, and when I look back on the past I can assert confidently, as confidently as a man can be in judging himself, that I have lived an honest life and that my heart was full of love … After everything I have lived through, I cannot say that my relationship to G-d remains unchanged, but I can say with absolute certainty that my belief in Him has not changed a hairsbreadth.
…I still have three bottles of gasoline, and they are as precious to me as wine to a drunkard. After emptying one over my clothes, I will place the paper on which I write these lines in the bottle and hide it among the bricks of the half-walled-up window of this room. If anyone ever finds it and reads it, he will, perhaps, understand the emotions of one of the millions of Jews who died forsaken by the G-d in whom he believed unshakably … I am proud that I am a Jew not in spite of the world’s treatment of us, but precisely because of this treatment. I would be ashamed to belong to one of the peoples that spawned and raised the criminals who are responsible for the deeds that have been perpetrated against us … I am proud to be a Jew because it is an art to be a Jew, because it is hard to be a Jew. It is no art to be an Englishman, an American, or a Frenchman. It may be easier, more comfortable, to be one of them, but not more honorable. Yes, it is an honor to be a Jew!
…I am happy to belong to the world’s most unfortunate people, whose Torah represents the loftiest and most beautiful body of law and morality. This Torah has been made even holier and more immortal by the degradation and insult to which it has been subjected by the enemies of G-d. I believe that to be a Jew is an inborn trait. One is born a Jew exactly as one is born an artist. It is impossible to be released from being a Jew. A Divine attribute within us has made us a chosen people … I believe in Israel’s G-d even if He has done everything to stop me from believing in Him … You say that we have sinned? Of course we have. And therefore, for that we are being punished? I can understand that, too. But I would like You to tell me whether any sin in the world deserves the kind of punishment we have received …
Death can wait no longer, and I must finish my writing. On the floors above me, the firing is growing weaker by the minute … And these are my last words to You, my wrathful G-d: Nothing will avail You in the least! You have done everything to make me renounce You, to make me lose faith in You, but I die exactly as I have lived, an unshakable believer!
I thought about this letter for the first time in a very long time, because on Sunday morning, at 5:30 a.m., I woke to unfathomable news, news that broke me. My second cousin Eli Baitelman, a devoted husband and amazing father of seven, just 40 years old, had a sudden heart attack and passed away. Eli was a solid friend, a super-funny individual, inspirer of many young Jews in Southern California including in the community of Pacific Palisades, who served as a shliach for many years and was presently an honest, hardworking businessman and ba’al tzedakah, a lover of humanity and all-around good guy, and, just like that, gone.
I can’t. It can’t go on like this. It’s just not OK.
The heart aches, the mind swirls, the lips are sealed tight; there is nothing to say, no thoughts that can comfort, no amount of meditation that can calm the stream of tears. Why? Lamah asah Hashem kacha? I don’t understand Father in Heaven, I just don’t! Ayeka? Where are You? How much more do our people, does Am Yisrael, does humanity, need to endure? You told us that the galus, the exile, would be “b’rega katon,” a short moment, and that after that short moment “B’rachamim gedolim akabtzech—with great mercy you will gather us back together. When will this happen already?
As we celebrated Lag B’Omer with a hakhel barbecue and community gathering in Bozeman, as many Jews said l’chaim together and the men donned tefillin, my mind drifted to Rebbi Akiva and his beloved students who died during this era. Of course, we’ve all heard the Talmudic teaching that they passed away because they didn’t respect each other properly, they didn’t treat each other with dignity, but seriously? Those 24,000 holy neshamos needed to die, we needed to lose the finest and brightest of Klal Yisrael who were striving for Torah light after the destruction of the second Beis HaMikdash, because they dropped the ball?
We are meant to internalize the vital importance of treating humanity with dignity; I get it, I preach it, and I certainly strive to live it, but are we supposed to be OK with it? With this amount of death? For 1,800 years we’ve been commemorating their loss, but hasn’t the time come yet for the joy that follows the mourning? Haven’t Jews sung for long enough the yearning of their soul: “Zol shoin zein dee Geulah?” I know we are an amazing people and can survive through it all, but my heart is really aching with Ad masai—until when will we have to suffer? Another seven yesomim, orphans, were added to the list, and we are just going to head back to our sushi and l’chaims?
This Shabbos we will read the double parashah of Behar and Bechukosai, in which we read the klalos, the curses with which Hashem forewarns the Jews if they choose sinfulness. I recall reading the episode shared by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin of Efrat about the time he attended the Brooklyn shul of the Klausenberger Rebbe, a man who lost his wife and 11 children to the Nazis, y’s. He writes:
“And so, one summer morning in 1952 on the Shabbat of Ki Tavo I set out from my home on Hart Street to the world of black gabardines and round fur hats, eager for the opportunity to be in the presence of a truly holy man and to experience a Hassidic prayer service.
“Now, the Torah reading of Ki Tavo is punctuated by 53 verses which catalogue the punishments in store for Israel when they forsake G-d’s teaching: ‘If you don’t obey the L-rd your G-d and all His commandments and statutes, then these curses shall come upon you … G-d will smite you with consumption and with a fever and with an inflammation and with an extreme burning and with the sword … G-d will turn your rain into dust, and it will come from the skies to destroy you … And your corpses shall be meat for all the birds of the sky and for beasts of the earth. G-d will smite you with madness and blindness and a confusion of the heart. G-d will bring a nation from afar against you, from the end of the earth, swooping down like an eagle, a nation whose language you don’t understand. A haughty arrogant nation that has no respect for the old nor mercy for the young” (Deuteronomy 28:15- 50).
“It’s easy to understand why Jewish custom mandates that these verses be read in a low voice. The Tochachah (Warning) is not something we’re very eager to hear, but if we have to hear it as part of the Torah cycle, then the hushed words, without the usual dramatic chant, are shocking.
“Then came the Torah reading. In accordance with the custom, the Torah reader began to chant the Warnings in a whisper. And unexpectedly, almost inaudibly but unmistakably, the Yiddish word ‘hecher’ (louder) came from the direction of the lectern upon which the Rebbe was leaning at the eastern wall of the synagogue.
“The Torah reader stopped reading for a few moments; the congregants looked up from their Bibles in questioning and even mildly shocked silence. Could they have heard their Rebbe correctly? Was he ordering the Torah reader to go against time-honored custom and chant the Tochachah out loud? The Torah reader continued to read in a whisper, apparently concluding that he had not heard what he thought he heard. And then the Rebbe banged on his lectern, turned to face the stunned congregation, and cried out in Yiddish, with a pained expression on his face and fire blazing in his eyes: ‘I said louder! Read these verses out loud! We have nothing to fear; we’ve already experienced the curses. Let the Master of the Universe hear them. Let Him know that the curses have already befallen us, and let Him know that it’s time for Him to send the blessings!’
“The Rebbe turned back to the wall, and the Torah reader continued slowly chanting the cantillation out loud.’
The Klausenberger Rebbe got it right. Hashem, please pay attention to Am Yisrael and see that we’ve suffered enough.
Today’s musings may give off the impression that I am a broken man; I assure you that I am not. Yet, this week I feel severely broken. I am tired of the “BDE” announcements, I am scared to look at WhatsApp for the fear of reading another “Urgent Tehillim” message, I am sickened from the amount of tragedy engulfing Klal Yisrael and the world. Hashem, enough is enough. You’ve tested us for long enough, and we’ve passed the tests with flying colors; it’s time to end the insanity and send us Mashiach.
I am comforted by the consoling words of Reb Asher Mizrachi, the famed poet, in his song “Habibi.”
My dear, my dear L-rd
The G-d, the King, Merciful Father
Will send His true anointed.
Merciful Father, hear our voices.
Send the descendant of David to save us.
We will return to Zion, our holy city.
And we will rule it proudly.
We will gather in the capital city.
And the voice of singing will be heard anew.
Then we will light the Menorah
In the house where G-d’s Presence rests
O, see the hardship of Your people Yisrael.
And return them please to Your borders.
Then all will appear before You
Three times a year, as You commanded.
Rabbi Chaim Bruk is co-CEO of Chabad Lubavitch of Montana and spiritual leader of The Shul of Bozeman. For comments or to partner in our holy work, e-mail rabbi@jewishmontana.com or visit JewishMontana.com/Donate.
