The concluding Ne'ilah prayer on Yom Kippur represents the final chance, through fervent and impassioned prayer, to appeal to the mercy of the Almighty. One short prayer on one Yom Kippur at Ne'ilah encapsulated a tragic era in Jewish history, and moved an entire congregation to tears. Abraham Lewin, the author of a book in Yiddish entitled

The children were literally stolen from the streets and their homes.

Kantonisten ("Cantonists"), relates an incident on Yom Kippur involving a drafted Czarist soldier in an unnamed Russian city.


The Cantonists were child recruits in the Russian military. The Russian Czar, Peter the Great (1682-1725), had devised a system in which boys were drafted to serve in the military for prolonged terms.


Czar Nicholas Pavolovich (1825-1855) used this system as a vehicle to force Jewish children to accept baptism. The children were literally stolen from the streets and their homes in the shtetles (small villages) and forced to serve extended terms as trainees and then as soldiers when they reached the age of eighteen. They faced severe pressure by all means, including torture, to accept baptism. Prior Czars may have failed to induce the Jews of the Pale of Settlement to abandon their faith, but Nicholas was determined to enforce his will upon the children.


The fact that Abraham Lewin's Cantonist entered a synagogue on Yom Kippur indicates that he most probably had not succumbed to the pressure of baptism. Had he done so, he would have been officially listed as a Christian and prohibited from entering a synagogue during the reign of Nicholas.


Levin relates that the congregation appointed the Cantonist to lead the Ne'ilah prayers - the most hallowed moment of the year. This was a great honor, which demonstrated great admiration for the man who tenaciously held on to his faith at all costs.


The soldier of Czar Nicholas made his way to the front of the synagogue. Having forgotten almost all the religious training he had received as a child, including the ability to read Hebrew, he could not recite, nor lead, Ne'ilah. However, he expressed a powerful

He could not recite, nor lead, Ne'ilah.

prayer from his heart.


He proclaimed, "Father in Heaven, what should I pray for? I can not pray for children, for I never got married and have no hope to raise a family and I am too old to start anew. I can't pray for life, for what value is such a life? It would be better for me if I died. I can not pray to make a living since Nicholas provides for my daily provisions. The only prayer I can offer is, yisgadal veyiskadash shmei raba ('may Your name be blessed forever,' from the mourner's prayer)."


Upon hearing these words, the congregation wept. They wept over the unfortunate individual's plight and his difficult life of travail. They also wept for the tens of thousands of other Cantonists who were forced to endure similar hardships. Many Cantonists had died from the rigors or had accepted baptism, others were simply lost in Siberia, far from their homes.


Jewish communities were given quotas of recruits to be provided for the army. Most leaders of each town's Kahal (Jewish communal organization), under great pressure, provided them. The khapper (kidnappers) did the dirty work of the Kahal for a fee. The recruitment decree caused divisions and resentment within the Jewish community, as it exempted the sons of those among the wealthy merchant classes while the very poor were generally the victims.


Then, there was the betrayal of turning in children. Kahal leaders could not sufficiently argue that they had no choice, since many profited from payments by the government for providing recruits and also from those who had sufficient funds to buy their sons'

A congregation was confronted with the agony of that era.

exemptions. How demoralizing and traumatic that era was for the Jews of Russia! That, too, was no doubt part of Nicholas' strategy. All Jews who lived under the Czar's rule were affected by this brutal decree.


On Yom Kippur, at the moment of Ne'ilah, a congregation was confronted with the agony of that era by the heartfelt words of a true hero - one of multitudes who stood up to Czar Nicholas and displayed a type of heroism unusual for adults, let alone children. He reminded the congregation of the trials and tribulations, as well as of the sinners and the many heroes of that era. On that Yom Kippur day, the moment of Ne'ilah was truly one of introspection and reckoning for all present.