Once Again: Am Yisroel Chai

This isn’t a new message but it’s an important one. A message that I’ll tell over and over again as long as I’m able to do so. This time I heard the message in a kibbutz up north where our family had gathered to celebrate our oldest grandson’s Bar Mitzvah. We had a small minyan made up of relatives and a couple of close friends. Right before the Torah reading my son stopped the service with an announcement.

“The Torah scroll we were given to use is very special.”

He then read aloud the inscriptions on the Torah mantle. On the front was the declaration that the Torah had survived the Holocaust. On the back was the explanation that it had been saved following Kristallnacht.

His words brought tears to my eyes for back in Wichita, my birthplace, is the Torah scroll my uncle rescued from his synagogue on the morning of November 10^th, following the evil night of destruction.

That Torah scroll, deemed unusable according to Jewish law, has been relegated to a display case in the reform Temple where I grew up. I long to bring it to Israel, to repair it, and have my grandsons’ read from it but that hasn’t happened.

Somehow, though, HaShem had arranged for this Torah scroll for my grandson. It felt almost as if it was a cousin of that Torah scroll back in America. It gave me comfort.

And as I looked around the little synagogue I felt more comfort. For I was seeing my children and their children, almost thirty souls. If Hitler, may his name be blotted out, had had his way none of those souls would exist. If Hitler had had his way my father wouldn’t have escaped Nazi Germany in 1937, married my mother, and have given birth to me.

But he did escape. Hitler had his plan but the Holy One had His. Over and over they may try to destroy us but they’ll never succeed. The Jewish people will continue forever. Am Yisroel Chai!  

My novel, Growing With My Cousin, a good summer read, is available at Jewish bookstores and on line at  http://www.feldheim.com/growing-with-my-cousin.html or https://www.amazon.com/Growing-Cousin-Ester-Katz-Silvers/dp/194635113X/