Posted on 12/13/2010 4:43:25 PM PST by Ari Bussel
And They Will be a Nation to Me by Ari Bussel
There once was a synagogue where a very old man prayed. He had escaped Hitler’s rise to power, leaving his parents and siblings behind in Poland where soon after they were slaughtered.
He started his life in America as an expert tailor, raised a family and became a Baal Torah, an expert in the Jewish Books of Wisdom. He taught many boys for their Bar Mitzvah.
With his wife, they raised two daughters and saw them marry and have children of their own.
His wife departed before him, and so he remained in their apartment, nearing 100 years of age. He could not hear very well any longer, but his other senses were as sharp as ever. Walking was hard for him, but still he came to synagogue, dressed meticulously, and refused to become bedridden.
Religious observance, from eating Kosher food to keeping the Shabbat, was paramount for him. There were no discounts or allowances.
Every Shabbat he would attend services. He rarely acceded to the request of the other congregants to read the Torah, lest he would embarrass the chazzan. He, who taught others how to read the Torah, who was careful with every dot and mark, and for whom the pronunciation was crucial, thought about others.
The congregants insisted that his reading was a blessing for them to hear. Imagine the world’s most famous opera singer performing for you personally; for you and for the Almighty. But the very old man, always with a bashful smile on his face, adamantly refused: “My health prevents it,” he would tell the pleading congregants.
Health? He looked great. And even if looks are at times deceiving, the congregants yearned to hear him read the Torah, a very special blessing that would engulf all present, as if carried to ancient times and to Heaven itself.
At times they succeeded in convincing him to read, but not too often, It was as if someone from above was looking down and saying: Too much is also not good. All in good measure.
How would a man who every week for half a century or more read the Torah be treated? That, my friends, readers and listeners, was decided long ago. When his time came, he was to be escorted by an angel in his ascent. During the last few years he yearned for his parents, his mother’s touch and shelter, his father’s study of the Torah and harsh hand so that his sons will become learned and productive. Were they chosen to welcome him?
The old man approached the podium, where the chazzan was standing. He was blessed with an Aliyah (reading), where the person recites a blessing, the chazzan reads a section and then the person ends with another blessing.
The segment talked about Joseph who brought his 130 year old father, Jacob, to Egypt. Jacob thought Joseph died so long before, eaten alive by a wild animal, until he learned that his son now rules Egypt, second only to Pharaoh.
Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel, had fathered twelve sons who became the twelve tribes of Israel. Each possessed a different character and traits. It was from Jacob’s family of seventy who went to Egypt that the nation of Israel was to become a great nation among all nations.
As the old man approached the Torah Scroll open on the central podium, he kissed the opening and closing words of the section about to be read, touching them, as is the practice, with the corner of his Talith (prayer shawl).
Suddenly, it was as though he was hit by a lightening, an enormous electric force that sent him flying backward landing on his back. It was as if he saw something he should not have with eyes wide open. Something holy, possibly?
The congregants were shocked, but the old man was given a blessing. His life of just over a century overwhelmed him in an instant, carrying his soul up and beyond, where he would be hugged and welcomed, feeling his “old bones” no longer. Now he was a spirit free to return to the parents of his young childhood, all his other family members who perished in the Holocaust, and his nation.
The old man waited, refusing to depart with the angel, until the additional portion was read at the end of the seven Aliyot (readings), concluding the weekly portion from the Book of Genesis.
Suddenly the material and the spiritual, melded as one. The congregants were shocked and worried, the old man’s presence, the firefighters and paramedics. All was frozen, time stood still, as the chazzan read:
And it is the word of God, the Almighty: Here I take the Israelites from among the gentiles to where they have departed. And I will collect them from all around and bring them to their land. And I will make them one … and they will be a nation to me and I will be their God. And my servant David will be a king unto them, and one shepherd will be for all. … And they will settle the land that I gave my servant, to Jacob, where your forefathers sat before you, and you will be there, they and their sons and their sons’ sons to the end of day, and my servant David a president to them for eternity.
And I will enter into a covenant for them, a peace covenant, and a covenant for all times for them. And I will give them and multiply them and will give my temple inside them for all times.
And my dwelling will be upon them, and I will be a God to them, and they will be a nation to me.
And all gentiles will know that I AM GOD WHO SANCTIFIES ISRAEL for my dwelling is in them for all times.
So are the words of God to Ezekiel (37:15-28) – the old man relaying this message to us, ensuring our full attention is on the directive – unity and a return to the land of our forefathers, where God dwells with His people, the Jewish People.
As he was welcomed to the angels, after seeing the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty first century, the ancient message and promise carry forward and remind us with an intensity and a force unlike any other: Forget not, know your past, know where you are standing and where your future will take you. For there is only one future for the Jewish People, dwelling with God in the Land of Israel for all times.
### The series “Postcards from America—Postcards from Israel” by Ari Bussel and Norma Zager is a compilation of articles capturing the essence of life in America and Israel during the first two decades of the 21st Century.
The writers invite readers to view and experience an Israel and her politics through their eyes, Israel visitors rarely discover.
This point—and often—counter-point presentation is sprinkled with humor and sadness and attempts to tackle serious and relevant issues of the day. The series began in 2008, appears both in print in the USA and on numerous websites and is followed regularly by readership from around the world.
© “Postcards from America—Postcards from Israel,” December, 2010 Contact: aribussel@gmail.com
First Published December 11, 2010
Beautiful.
How beautiful!....Lord how we need your presence!
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