Stories Of Greatness

As twins, Yaakov and Esav shared the same DNA, the same nature, and yet they emerged as radically different people. One became a patriarch of our people and the other a great villain of Jewish history, the progenitor of Edom, the exile in which we remain until this very day.

Soon after the one-year commemoration of the deadly October 7 attacks in Israel, one man conducted 38 interviews focusing on the rebuilding efforts of the Israeli communities in the Gaza envelope. Among those he met was a woman named Dafnah from Kibbutz Re’im. She had been the cultural director of the kibbutz and one of the organizers of the Nova Festival. Touring the kibbutz, she showed him her charred house and the room in which her mother and children were found murdered together. She is the lone survivor of her family.

Raised in Brooklyn, Rochel grew up appreciating that she was Jewish, and that was about it. Her only connection to Orthodox Judaism came through deeply religious relatives who, later in life, had a profound influence on her. After meeting her husband at Harper College, their journey together led them around the world. In 1971, after being married for seven years, Rochel and her husband were living in Taiwan due to a Fulbright Fellowship, and it was there that their lives took an unexpected turn.

On May 3, 1982, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin hobbled into a crowded Knesset chamber, tense with expectancy. He was in pain, recovering from a severe hip injury, and it was with heavy, purposeful steps that he arrived to deliver his El Al speech. He began quietly, factually, declaring that the government had finally decided to halt all El Al flights on Shabbos and festivals – a revelation that sent leftist eyes glaring and hatred flashing in the public gallery where the El Al union men sat.

Chazal teach: “Hovei mis’avek b’afar ragleihem” (Avos 1:4) — Attach yourself to the dust of the feet of Talmidei Chachamim.

There was once a chasid of the Rebbe, R’ Shlomo of Karlin, zt”l, who lived in a small town near Karlin, in a small broken-down house. This chasid did not have much of anything, but nonetheless he was happy with his lot. Every year, when the festival of Sukkos arrived, the chasid would wait until everyone else had built their sukkos, and he would then go around and ask for whatever they had left over. People would offer him a rotted board or a rusted nail, and it was from these leftovers that he would build his sukkah. For seven days, the chasid would sit in his sukkah and sing with great joy.