Rabbi Yehuda Lapianis former Rosh Kollel in Washington (2007–2012), currently a Ram at Yeshivat Kerem BeYavneh
Holocaust remembrance in Israel is observed on two different dates. The official date is the 27th of Nissan, set by the Knesset because it marks the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The date set by the Chief Rabbinate as the “General Kaddish Day” is on the fast of the Tenth of Tevet.
The reason for choosing a different date by the Chief Rabbinate is that mourning customs are not observed during the month of Nissan. I believe that beyond this reason, there is an additional one: opposition within religious circles to commemorate Jewish heroism in the Holocaust through the memory of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
In their view, the commemoration of the uprising and its centrality paints those who did not resist and died sanctifying God's name (without attempting to fight back) in a negative light. This is the point of contention:
Some claim that Jewish heroism during the Holocaust was expressed through the human courage of preserving human dignity and an unimaginable commitment to halakhic life under the conditions they were subjected to.Others argue that true heroism lies in the ability to resist and refuse to go to death without opposition.
This debate is especially painful because it revolves around the memory of a historical event unprecedented in Jewish history. Holocaust literature attests to unique acts of heroism of both types mentioned above.
On self-sacrifice through spiritual resistance, Prof. Yaffa Eliach, a historian and Holocaust scholar at Brooklyn College in New York, writes:
“At the Janowska camp, after the night shift returned from their work in the city, wounded Jews—some with still open wounds—gathered in Hut 12 and listened to the Kol Nidrei prayer recited by Rabbi Yisrael Shapira of Bluzhov.
The next morning, one of the camp's elders, a secular Jew named Schneiweiss, arranged for the rabbi and his followers to be assigned to work inside a protected building where they could pray. He gave them tasks that did not violate any of the 39 forbidden labors (melachot).
At noon, SS guards entered the building carrying trays with food not seen in the camp since the war began, ordering the prisoners to eat.
Schneiweiss refused, saying: ‘On this day, we follow orders from a place far higher than the Third Reich,’ pointing upward, ‘and that place commands us not to eat on Yom Kippur.’
He was immediately shot and killed.
'That day in Janowska,’ said Rabbi Yisrael Shapira, ‘I understood the Sages' words that even the sinners of Israel are full of mitzvot like a pomegranate.’”
In the Shema Yisrael Encyclopaedia, a documentation and memorial project by the Kaliv World Center, we find:
“SS men searched for the Rebbe, Rabbi Yehoshua Heschel Horowitz, to deport him to a death camp.
When the Hasidim found out, they rushed to him and begged him to cut his beard so the Germans wouldn’t recognize him.
The rabbi grasped his long white beard and said, ‘All my life I preserved every hair that fell from my beard, placing it in a Gemara or another holy book, and now you want me to cut it with my own hands? That will not happen!
If I am decreed from Heaven to perish, I wish to leave this world as a Jew with a Jewish appearance, with beard and sidelocks.’
Eventually, when the Rebbe was caught and boarded the death train, he held onto his beard and sidelocks.
A German soldier, seeing this, began pulling at his beard. The elderly Rebbe cried out, ‘Do not touch my beard with your defiled hands!’
The soldier was startled and stepped back, but then he shot him.
After the shot, the Rebbe’s cry was heard: ‘Shema Yisrael!’”
These chilling stories teach us about self-sacrifice for the sake of Judaism, not only among rabbis but even among those who, before the outbreak of the war, were not connected to Torah and mitzvot.
Leon Rodal, one of the fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto, from the Jewish Fighting Organization (ŻOB), said to his friend Richard Vaberski before the great battle:
“We will all fall here... But it is important that the memory of our battle be preserved, that the world knows there was a battle here—a fierce, bloody battle.
And if it so happens that between the two of us you survive... then at some place and time, please tell them what I said.
Tell them that not for a moment did I doubt that Hitler’s Germany would be defeated—not I, and not my comrades.
That we are fighting for our people and will die for them.
We believe that a Jewish state will arise after the struggle with our enemies, far away in that distant land...
Because in ancient times, when Roman legions trampled the known world and all nations bowed before them, only one small Roman province—Judea—took up arms to fight for freedom and human dignity.
And that is why Judea is etched in the history of humanity as a symbol of the fight for human liberty.
And maybe, someday, years from now, when the history of the resistance against the Nazi conquerors is written, we too will be remembered, and perhaps become, like the small Judea that fought mighty Rome, a symbol of the undying human spirit whose essence is the struggle for freedom—the right to live and to exist.”
These powerful words by Leon Rodal, spoken during the peak of the Warsaw Uprising, fill every Jewish heart with emotion. What pride lies in the words of this brave fighter.
One of the challenges in Israeli society is that each side tends to focus on the positives of its own group and the flaws of the other, rather than the opposite—recognizing the faults within its own group, fixing them, and learning from the other side’s strengths and virtues. If everyone would recognize the uniqueness in the other side’s form of heroism, we would be in a very different place.
Especially on the topic of the Holocaust, in which anyone with any Jewish connection perished—even those several generations back—we must respect and learn from the different types of heroism.
“Love truth and peace” (Zechariah 8:19)
Parashat Shemini:
Rabbi Zeev Roness is a former shaliach in Memphis (1998–1999), currently a Ram at Netivei Hatora in Beit Shemesh.
My year as a shaliach in the "Torah MiZion" Kollel in Memphis, Tennessee was filled with unforgettable experiences. Some of these experiences are connected to the figures in the local Jewish community whom we were privileged to meet.
One of the figures who left a profound impression on me was Rabbi Nota Tzvi Greenblatt zt"l, who passed away about three years ago at the age of 97.
Rabbi Nota was born in Jerusalem and was blessed in his childhood by Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook zt"l. Due to various circumstances, he traveled as a young man to the United States, where he studied Torah from Rabbi Yechiel Michel Feinstein, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, and Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, Zecher tzadikim levracha.
One Torah insight that I remember well from Reb Nota is connected to this week's Parsha, Parashat Shemini.
After the list of forbidden foods, the Parsha states: "For I am Hashem your God, and you shall sanctify yourselves and be holy, for I am holy" (Vayikra 11:44).
Rashi comments on this: "Just as I am holy, for I am Hashem your God, so too 'you shall sanctify yourselves' - sanctify yourselves below."
But one may ask: How can the Torah demand of us to be holy like the Hashem? After all, Hashem is separate and exalted; He is "Holy" by definition, by virtue of being beyond our comprehension. But we human beings are "formed from matter," created from "dust of the earth" with base desires, and thus we are so far from Hashem. How can we be commanded "and you shall sanctify yourselves... for I am holy"?!
Reb Nota explained that surely one cannot demand that a person be holy like Hashem, but if the Torah nevertheless commands "and you shall sanctify yourselves and be holy for I am holy," it implies that to some extent, we are indeed capable of emulating Hashem.
Reb Nota explained it thus: Hashem is so far beyond human beings that "no thought can grasp Him at all" - we cannot even begin to understand Hashem's essence. Yet along with the great distance between Hashem and us, simultaneously Hashem is the closest to man, to the extent that Hashem knows not only every action a person does and every word he says, but Hashem even knows every thought that I think to myself. And even in places where I am most alone, I am not really alone, "for You are with me." Thus, we find an interesting phenomenon: on one hand, Hashem is the furthest from man, but at the same time, He is the closest to him.
Similarly, Moshe Rabbeinu ascended and elevated himself to such a lofty level of holiness that he spoke with Hashem face to face. He was on Mount Sinai for forty days and forty nights, "he did not eat bread and did not drink water." These are things that an ordinary person is incapable of doing, and indeed the Rambam writes that Moshe transcended the human species to the point that he was "included in the rank of the angels" (Commentary on the Mishnah, Chelek chapter).
Yet despite the great distance between Moshe Rabbeinu and the average person, Moshe felt so close to every Jew that he himself wanted to hear and solve everyone's problems. Only after Yitro said that this method was inefficient did he agree to appoint judges to assist him.
Reb Nota related that during one of his travels, he happened to visit the ancient Jewish cemetery in Altona, Hamburg, and ascended to the grave of the "Urim V'Tumim," Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz zt"l. He noticed that at the top of Rabbi Eybeschutz's tombstone appeared the inscription "Rabbeinu HaKadosh" (Our Holy Teacher). This title caught Rabbi Nota's attention because he had never observed such a title on any tombstone of the great sages of Israel. After all, "Rabbeinu HaKadosh" is a title for Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, so why did Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz specifically merit this title on his tombstone?
After some time, Reb Nota read in the "Community Records" of the AHU communities (Altona, Hamburg, and Wandsbek) that throughout all the years of the terrible dispute between Rabbi Yaakov Emden and Rabbi Eybeschutz, Rabbi Eybeschutz continued to teach his students, deliver his lectures, and write Torah novellae as if nothing was happening and as if the entire dispute concerned someone else entirely, despite the fact that the controversy severely affected him on a personal level.
Perhaps it was for this that Rabbi Eybeschutz merited the title "Rabbeinu HaKadosh" - this amazing ability to detach from all the turmoil raging against you outside and to concentrate on learning Torah in depth. This is holiness, and therefore he merited the title "Rabbeinu HaKadosh"!
Reb Nota zt"l related that he himself studied with Rabbi Moshe Feinstein zt"l in New York during the years of the Holocaust. Only at the end of the war did the Jews in America learn of the terrible calamity that had befallen our people in the countries of Europe. Reb Nota told us that the students in Yeshiva found it difficult to learn; they were broken and crushed. The entire world of Torah they had known, all the Torah giants and the great yeshivot of Europe - everything had disappeared. They were in absolute shock. Studying a sugya (Talmudic topic) in depth was almost impossible for them in those days.
But when they looked at the Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein zt"l, they saw that he continued writing his responsa, he continued delivering his lectures, and in general, his learning schedules continued as usual. One might have thought that he was completely unaware of what was happening in the world!
Yet during prayer, they saw that the Rabbi's siddur was soaked with tears, as if each of the six million kedoshim (holy martyrs), Hashem yikom damam (may God avenge their blood), was his only son!
We learned here what true holiness is. To be 'holy' means that on the one hand, like Hashem, you are most involved and personally connected to what is happening. But at the same time, during Torah study, you are able to detach and concentrate with full intensity on the subject being studied.
This idea is important for every person, and especially for the shlichim of 'Torah MiZion'. The shlichim are busy connecting with the community and spreading Torah and Judaism, but at the same time, the shaliach must find time to 'detach' himself from his surroundings and invest in his personal Torah study.
Just as Hashem is simultaneously close and distant, so are we required to be close and distant - "and you shall sanctify yourselves and be holy, for I am holy."
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