Moments That Shape our Lives
Adapted from Rabbi Braun’s sermon in 5777
One day, the suffering Elie Wiesel and his bunk mates were experiencing was beyond endurance even by concentration camp standards. Starvation. Atrocities. They were in a state of despair. Some of the Russian prisoners got rat poison and a line formed waiting to take it and commit suicide. Every adolescent in that section of the camp decided to do it, Elie Wiesel as well. He fully intended on making it his last moment on life. However, there was one Vizhnitz chossid from their bunk who retained his Emunah (faith) even then. He went to the side of the line and broke into the ancient Vizhnitz niggun for ani maamin be’emunah shleimah (I believe with perfect faith). And that song broke Elie Wiesel and the others out of their spell. One by one they left the line and joined him in singing ani maamin. Not a single one of them ended up committing suicide there. He had given them hope, ani maamin – he had given them life.
Another story on the same theme.
From the desk of David Luchins:
On the morning after Yom Kippur in September 1993, Senator Moynihan and I had a private meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, He had just been in town for a public appearance at the Park East Synagogue.
Senator Moynihan had requested the meeting at the behest of my Rebbe Rav Ahron Soloveichik, who had a number of questions about the newly signed Camp David Accords. Mr. Peres was eager for the Rabbi’s support for this undertaking and gave us detailed answers to every question (alas, everything he predicted could “go wrong” did so in short order)
At the end of the meeting Senator Moynihan thanked Mr. Peres for his “strong support of the Jerusalem Fellowships “, a project of Yeshivat Aish HaTorah (the Senator was a Founding Honorary Chairman of the program).
Shimon Peres grew animated.
“Senator, let me tell you why I support The Jerusalem Fellowhips and Yeshivot. Over 60 years ago, when I was 8 years old, I was already an ardent Labor Zionist. I had a religious uncle who was upset by my lack of faith and dragged me to the village of Radin to meet the venerable Yisroel Meir Kagan,”
Mr Peres then turned to me and asked “have you heard of him?”
I assured him that I even had many of his books in my home.
He then continued “The Old Rabbi and I had quite a talk. He quoted Maimonides. I responded with Marx, He quoted Talmud, I quoted Ushkushkin, Eventually, then he began to cry and put his hands on my head and blessed me:
“The Aibeshter gave me long life. He should give you the same. You should go as you wish to Eretz Yisroel. Become a great leader of the Jewish people. But remember meiner kind [my child], that you can’t have a Jewish State without the Aibeshter and the Aibesher’s Torah’.”
Mr. Peres then grew quite emotional
“Senator” he declared , “Yesterday was Yom Kippur. I do not fast all day. My wife does. I do not spend the day in Synagogue. But every Yom Kippur night I think of that old Rabbi and realize how true his words were…and that’s why I support the Jerusalem Fellowships and Aish HaTorah.”
The moral of the stories is that there are moments that shape our lives, try and have one this week and on Yom Kippur.
