OUT FROM OPEN JAWS
As a child growing up in the 1960’s every Shabbos I thought of the Jews of the Soviet Union. Our family always sang the Shabbos zemer of Ko Ribon Olam. The third stanza forms a prayer to HaShem in which we plead with Him to please save the sheep from the mouth of the lion, and take out Your nation from their exile.
What a picture! The lion’s jaws are already open and the sheep is in his mouth. Once the lion closes his mouth there will be no more sheep. That is the illustration of HaShem’s people in this exile. This picture was certainly not an accurate description of the exile I was experiencing in Baltimore. It was, however, a perfect illustration of the plight of the Jews of the Soviet Union.
In all fairness, the physical and material situation in the Soviet Union was not that dreadful. However, when contemplating what the future held for the Soviet Jews in terms of their Judaism, it was a most accurate depiction. After World War II the surviving European Jews immigrated to Israel and America building tremendous institutions of Torah study. Communities were built, schools and Yeshivos began to sprout up. The Judaism we have today which the young folk take for granted was planted and developed by those survivors.
However, while the survivors built up Judaism in America and Israel, the Jews of the Soviet Union were enveloped in a blanket of darkness. Before the War, the Jews of the Soviet Union practiced bris milah. People went to shul for holidays. By the end of the War, bris milah was no longer practiced in the European side of the Soviet Union. Shul was attended only by older folks who were not working. Any other Jew who would dare attend shul feared losing his job or worse. The notion of a Jewish community was not comprehensible. While every Jewish person had their small circle of Jewish friends, to actually organize as a community was impossible.
Effectively, the Jews of the Soviet Union were placed in a religious crematorium. What a perfect picture was drawn by the author of that Shabbos zemer.
It was no wonder therefore that in 1989 when America opened her doors to allow 400,000 Jews from the Soviet Union to enter this blessed country, I leaped with excitement. What a miracle! HaShem listened to our prayers! The lion released the sheep!
It is now over 30 years since that miracle occurred and as we look around at the Jewish communities in America and in Israel we are finding more and more members of this population involved in the growth of the Jewish communities in which they live. The Jews of the former Soviet Union are producing great talmidei chachomim who contribute to the growth of Torah and mitzvos.
How appropriate it is to use this space of TableTalk on this Shabbos Chanukah to express our hodaa and halel to HaShem for never forgetting His people.
Consider how many generations passed since the Torah and her mitzvos were grabbed from their hands. And yet, once they are exposed to Torah and mitzvos they spring into life. How did that spark survive three and four generations in total darkness? Ha-Shem instilled in the neshama of the Jew a very deep and protected spark of Torah that is ready to jump to life once it is exposed to the Torah. We must not take for granted our debt of gratitude to HaShem for instilling within us such a deep inextinguishable connection to His Torah.
Have a wonderful Shabbos and a lichtige Chanukah.
Paysach Diskind