Yom Hakaddish Haklali Event Featuring R' Daniel Glatstein, R' Hayim Schwartz & R' Yoel Schonfeld

• published: 07 Jan 2015
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The annual Yom HaKaddish HaKlali observance took place at the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills on Wednesday evening, December 31, 2014. A large crowd of community rabbanim and community members joined together to observe a yahrzeit for the six million who perished in the Holocaust. The event was co- sponsored by Chazaq and the Margaret Tietz Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. Local shuls co-sponsored as well. Irene and Sam Russo spearheaded this annual program. Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld, of the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills, welcomed everyone. Rabbi Hayim Schwartz, Executive Vice President of the Rabbinical Seminary of America, told a story about a 91-year-old woman in Forest Hills who had lost her entire family in the Holocaust. “I have nothing tangible left of their lives except for me,” she said. She donated a window in the Chofetz Chaim building. She designated this window to be her parents’ matzeivah. He gave a d’var Torah from Pirkei Avos about greeting everyone with a cheerful face. He noted that the word sover means thought and that this is interpreted by the Meiri to mean that even if you do not have a good thought about someone because you dislike him, you should still greet him with a cheerful countenance. He then shared a story about Rabbi Sofer who lived during the Shoah. He would always greet an anti-Semitic German doctor who he passed on the street with the greeting, “Good morning, Herr Doctor.” He did this for two years and never received a greeting in return. At one point, when this rabbi was deported to a camp and was faced with being killed, the German doctor was the judge and this rabbi repeated his greeting, “Good morning, Herr Doctor.” This greeting saved his life, as the doctor sent him to the work line, as opposed to the death line. The audience viewed a short video from Yad Vashem, produced by Irene Russo. This poignant video showed photographs of children who were killed during the Holocaust. There were 1.2 million children murdered in the Shoah. Guest speaker Rabbi Daniel Glatstein, of Congregation Toras Emes, shared divrei Torah and personal stories from his grandparents who were in the Shoah. He related how his grandfather, Rabbi Mordechai Glatstein, who has been a rav in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, since 1951, survived death camps. His grandfather told how the older men in the camps all cried, “Who will say Kaddish for us.” Rabbi Glatstein’s grandfather took it upon himself to recite Kaddish for these men every day since 1940. Rabbi Glatstein read excerpts from a powerful article written by his grandfather about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: “I am the victim and the witness. No language could describe the enormity of the Holocaust.” He spoke of a gehenom of a gehenom. He wrote: “We suffered most when we saw children accompanied by their mothers or alone snuffed out. Their cries for mercy cry in my ears until this very day.” Rabbi Glatstein shared that after the war, when his grandfather was interviewed by the secular press, they wanted to know, after all he had been through, if he had lost his faith. His response was, “Yes, I lost my faith in mankind and humanity. How could a civilized society like Germany become barbarians? How could democratic countries like the United States and others turn their back on us? “Never did I lose faith in G-d or Torah. My faith became stronger.” Rabbi Glatstein acknowledged that no words could describe the unbending faith of these Yidden. He shared how his grandfather and his grandfather’s brother smuggled a pair of t’filin into the camp and woke very early every morning to put them on. One time, a vicious Nazi in charge of the camp caught them but miraculously he grew frightened and just left. His grandfather stated that Torah is what gave them the strength to carry on. Without it, they would have been lost in their suffering. It was the Gemara that they had memorized that kept them going. In 1945, when his grandfather was finally freed, the Allies handed him a gun and offered him the opportunity to take revenge on his enemies. His response was, “I leave revenge to the Ribbono shel Olam.” Rabbi Glatstein referred to an alliance of Eichmann and the Mufti that his grandfather had recounted. This is reminiscent of Eisav and Yishmael teaming together. He then quoted the Vilna Gaon that if the two galus perpetrators, Eisav and Yishmael, would join together, they would destroy the world. He shared powerful words from his grandmother’s book, Flares of Memory, followed by the reciting of Kaddish and the chanting of Kel Malei Rachamim. (By Susie Garber) For more information about upcoming events and programs, please call 718-285-9132 or Visit https://www.chazaq.org/