By Rabbi Baruch Lederman
SAN DIEGO–It is customary for children to begin their Torah study with the parsha of Vayikra. Vayikra teaches about the pure offerings in the Tabernacle. We let the pure children engage in the
purity of Vayikra. The purity and devotion of the Jewish people is beyond measure as the following true story illustrates:
The Bluzhover Rebbe, Rabbi Yisroel Spira (1889-1989), was in the Lemberg Ghetto, also known as the Ghetto of Lvov. Jews were taken to the Klepariv railway station and deported to the Belzec extermination camp.
One day the Rebbe was summoned by Nazi police and ordered to stand on a train platform to oversee the arrival of a transport of women and children being brought to the Lemberg Ghetto. The women and children on the train had been subjected to horrendous crowding with no food or water.
A woman came off the train holding a package in her hands. She walked with her head down. Instinctively the women understood that this place was not good and that soon some of their worst fears would come true.
The Rebbe, was guiding them along gently. The woman with the package saw him, stopped and asked him if he had a knife?”
The woman had been warned not to talk to anyone but she violated the rule. The Rebbe saw the desperation in her face. It was clear to him that she intended to kill herself. “My daughter,” the Rebbe pleaded with her, “Why should you lose both worlds?”
It was bad enough that she would soon lose her life at the hands of the despicable Nazis, why should she commit suicide and thereby lose her share in the world to come as well?
An SS Nazi soldier who watched this short conversation approached the Rebbe and demanded, “What did she say to you?”
Afraid of what her punishment could be, the Rebbe did not reply. The officer was not satisfied. He turned to the woman and commanded him to tell him, “What did you request from that man?”
“I wanted a knife,” she stammered.
The Nazi thought it would be amusing to watch her take her life. He took out a bayonet from his chest pocket, handed it to her and said, “Here is what you asked for.”
Surprised, she took the knife from the German’s hands and got down to the floor where she laid down her bundle. She unwrapped it quickly and carefully. The Rebbe was stunned to see that it was a baby! She opened the child’s diaper and with tears in her eyes and conviction in her throat, she cried out: Baruch Ata Ado- noi Elo-heinu melech haolam asher
kidishanu bimitzvosav vitzivanu al hamilah, (Blessed are You Hashem, our G-d, King of the Universe, Who has sanctified us with His commandments, and has commanded us regarding circumcision – The blessing by a Bris).
She raised the knife and cut the child’s foreskin as she performed a bris on her infant son!
Everyone who saw it was speechless. The words she uttered afterward, though, seared the hearts of all who heard it. She looked up to heaven and said, “Ribono Shel Olam (Master of the Universe), you gave me a healthy baby. I am returning to you a kosher Yid (Jew).”
Neither the child nor his mother survived that day. However the Rebbe kept her memory and courageous act alive until his dying days as he relived and repeated the incident, often crying with emotion, at every bris where he was asked to speak. To the Rebbe this was as sacred as the bris that Avrohom Avinu (Abraham our forefather) performed on
himself and the bris that he performed on his son Yitzchok (Isaac).
(The foregoing true story is documented in “Spirit of the Maggid,” By Rabbi Paysach Krohn)
Dedicated by Dr. Yehuda & Debra Trestman in memory of his mother Friedel bas Shlomo.
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Rabbi Lederman is spiritual leader of Congregation Kehillas Torah in San Diego