Burnt Soldier - A Mother’s Love

 A Mother’s Love

During the YK War, Chief rabbi of Israel, Israel Meir Lau, became the rabbi of the Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, which turned into a military hospital. The hospital took in 475 wounded soldiers, all of them from the Suez Canal, all of them in critical condition.

(One of the wounded, whose right arm had been crushed, was a young medical student, a religious boy named Naftali Rubinstein who wanted to be an orthopedist. He said to me, “My career is over. If I am ever able to lift a spoon to my mouth, it will be a miracle. I don’t dream of ever being able to perform surgery.” Today, Naftali Rubinstein is the head of the orthopedic department at Ichilov.)

One boy, Rabbi Lau shared, was stuck in a tank that the Egyptians burnt. The soldier was brought into the hospital, burned from head to toe and could not stop screaming in pain. All the morphine in the world could not calm him. With his crying from pain, none of the other patients could sleep. The nurses begged him to calm down, his roommates nudged him, I tried to speak to him, but nothing helped. The pain was harrowing. His body was all charred, so if you tried to touch him, he would yell. One day, his mother came to the ward, sat down beside him, and found a tiny patch of natural skin on one of his legs. It was, sadly, the only natural skin he had left on his poor body. She placed her finger on that pot, and stroked it slowly, lovingly, and murmured, “Calm down, my sweetheart. Rest, my love, you need to sleep so that you’ll have the strength to become healthy. It’s Ima speaking to you; sleep, my child. You’re not alone. I am here with you,” a whole time caressing that single tiny patch of natural skin.

Three minutes later, the boy fell asleep for the first time since the war, and there was silence in the ward. All of us were in tears.

Rabbi Lau said: I then understood the verse in Isaiah (66:13), “Like a man whose mother comforts him, so I will comfort you.” We marveled at the instinct of a mom to tune-in to that single spot in his charred body that she could hold and caress.

What a profound lesson. You sometimes encounter someone who may be emotionally forlorn, burnt by life, by the system. But there is always one spot, maybe tiny spot, in the soul that remains uncharred. Caress it, and he will return to life.

And it’s so true about our nation. People are sometimes pessimistic about our future. They say that Jews are too indifferent. The truth is: In every Jew there is a patch of holiness and passion that no fire and no water can ever destroy. Every Jew is sacred, every Jew is eternally connected. Our job is to “caress” that spot—and help every one of our brothers and sisters rediscover their truest and deepest self.

"Do you think it's easy being an optimist

 A group of elderly Jewish men meet every Wednesday for a

coffee and a chat.  Usually, their discussion is very negative.

One day, Moishe surprises his friends by announcing, loud and clear, "You know what? I've now become an optimist."

But then Sam notices something isn't quite right and he says to Moishe, "Hold on a minute, if you're an optimist, why are you looking so worried?"

Moishe replies, "Do you think it's easy being an optimist

Story: Hope in Auschwitz

Rabbi Hugo Gryn. Hugo Gryn (1930-1996), was a Holocaust survivor, a community
leader, educator and broadcaster for the BBC, was born in Berehovo,
Czechoslovakia in a home filled with great warmth.
Hugo Gryn was 13 years old when he, among 10,000 Jews confined to the
Berehovo ghetto in April 1944. All were sent to Auschwitz on May 28, 1944.
He and his father were sent to work; his brother and grandfather were sent to the
gas chambers.
Hugo Gryn and his father, together with 2,600 Jews were later sent to the death
march from the Lieberose camp to Mauthausen. Less than a thousand survived that
march. Hugo was freed in on May 4, 1945, but his father died a few days later from
typhus and exhaustion.
Rabbi Gryn once related: When I was a young boy my family was sent to Auschwitz. For a while my father and I shared a barrack.
In spite of the unspeakable horror, oppression and hardship, many Jews held onto
what scraps of Jewish religious observance as they were able.
One midwinter evening one of the inmates reminded us that tonight was the first
night of Chanukah, the festival of lights. My father constructed a little Chanukah
menorah out of scrap metal. For a wick, he took some threads from his prison
uniform.
For oil, he used some butter that he somehow obtained from a guard.
Such observances were strictly “verboten,” but we were used to taking risks.
Rather, I protested at the “waste” of precious calories. Would it not be better to
share the butter on a crust of bread than burn it?
“Hugo,” said my father, “both you and I know that a person can live a very long time
without food. But Hugo, I tell you, a person cannot live a single day without hope.
This Menorah is the fire of hope. Never let it go out. Not here. Not anywhere.
Remember that Hugo.”