Behar-Behukotai - Mesiras Nefesh

Vayikra 26:42 v’zacharti et briti Yaakov I will remember My covenant with Jacob

v’af et briti Yitzhak and also My covenant with Isaac,

v’af et briti avraham ezkor and also My covenant with Abraham will I remember

v’haaretz ezkor and the land I will remember. 

Last week Miriam and I were privileged to hear a shiur by Rav Moshe Soloveichik on the parsha Behuchotai, also known as tochaha – rebuke.  Rav Moshe was saying how Hashem remembers Avraham and Yakov and the land, but he notes the word ‘remember’ is missing when he talks about Yitzhak.  This is because Yitzhak he always sees, because Yitzhak symbolizes the trait of mesiras nefesh that has always been present in Jews, whether we chose it this way or not.  The patriarchs were symbolized by different character traits, says Rav Moshe.  The notable trait of Avraham was his ability to stand alone and not be influenced by the nations of the world.  We did not preserve this quality as we always get influenced to greater or lesser extent.  The unique feature of Yaakov was that all twelve of his sons remained true to his faith, and that unfortunately has not always been happening even to the most righteous parents.  But the trait of Yitzhak, giving up one's life for being a Jew, suffering at the enemy hands just because of the Jewish blood, that trait has remained with us through generations.    

When I was twelve I saw mesiras nefesh performed by a ten-year-old girl.  Her parents applied for an exit visa to leave Russia for Eretz Yisrael, and as the rules were they had to get signed permissions from the human resources at their work and from the principal of the children’s school.  Usually such permission was followed by dismissal from work and disqualification from ever getting another job, meaning sure poverty in case of denied visa (hence the plight of refuseniks), but children were allowed to stay at school to complete the school year. 

In the heat of patriotism and anti-Zionist zeal against the subversive foreign forces robbing the Motherland of her much hated best and brightest minds, the principal called the full school assembly, about a thousand students from first to tenth grade, made the girl stand on the podium in front of the entire school, while he blasted a loud speech condemning her and her family as traitors and enemies of the people. 

This beautiful girl had creamy skin, rosy cheeks and shiny black eyes, just like my daughter, and also jet black wiry curly hair – a perfect target for anti-Zionist propaganda.  She did not cry and did not say a word in her defense, she was just standing there looking straight at the crowd, her pale face gravely serious and scared.  I did not know her and was afraid too, expecting grand party for school bullies.  A well-wishing classmate suggested to straighten my hair, ‘that way you’d look just like us’.  I snapped angrily ‘you mean I’ll look stupid like you?’  Needless to say that girl was not my friend anymore, nor were most other kids in the class.  Surprisingly, two Ukrainian girls remained my friends.  

The Jews who supported the Soviet regime never admitted their wrong.  After all, they were led by the dream of a better life for all mankind, a paradise on earth for the working class. Most Soviet Jews who survived the Holocaust owned their lives to the evacuation from Nazi occupied territories and resettlement in the Asian parts of the country, arranged by the Soviet government during the first days of the WWII.  The more traditional Jews who did not trust the Soviets and remained in Ukraine, Belorussia, Moldavia, western part of Russia, all perished at the hands of the ‘civilized Germans’.  The ways of Hashem are hidden and mysterious.

I did not tell my parents about the assembly, nor about how I felt towards the girl, as one of my own, the connection at the gut level, forget the ideology, the shared fear and pain, the shame of being exposed in front of so many people, who were applauding the principal, condemning her as a lowly traitor, cursing our blood. 

I remember her tiny fragile figure, standing ashamed on that podium, and I think about my son Yoni standing tall and proud on the bima at his Bar Mitzvah, looking regal in the tallit draped around his shoulders.  Hashem took us from such lowly state and raised us so high!  I don’t remember the girl’s name and don’t know where she is now, but wherever she is I hope she is enjoying her children simchas as much as I cherish mine.