By: Yaakov Rosenfeld
“Was there a particularly moving moment during your last meeting?” – the Russian rabbi was asked in an unusual interview he gave to “Der Yid,” a Satmar chassidic newspaper in Williamsburg (New York).
“Yes”, the rabbi answered, revealing a touching story he experienced about two weeks ago, the day after International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Courtesy of the newspaper “Der Yid”, we bring the story, translated into from Yiddish to Hebrew by Yaakov Rosenfeld and then from Hebrew to English by Ricki Prince.
“There was such a moment,” the rabbi replied. “Our meeting, which took place about two weeks ago, was the day after International Holocaust Remembrance Day. We sat and talked, and then Putin told me about the tragedy of the Holocaust: For me, it’s a story I’ll never forget. I think about it all the time – I wonder and don’t understand: how did the Nazis get to such a state, to do such a thing… I think about how many victims fell as a result, I ponder, how did the world get to such a state?”
This matter touches the president’s heart and doesn’t let go of it, says the rabbi.
“Suddenly, during the conversation, the president started saying that he had watched a Holocaust film yesterday, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the boy in that film got into his head and wouldn’t leave. “He’s one child out of six million Jews, but his story touched my heart so much.”
All the Jews are gathered, the film shows, and lined up. There are gentiles who try to break in and help, but the Nazis don’t let them.
The line turns into a procession, and then you see a father, mother, and child walking in a procession, on their last journey… They are walking to their death. All around, armed Nazis do not let anyone escape. The weapons aimed at the sad Jews do not give them any chance.
Suddenly, the mother pushes the child hard, throws him out. The child cries, wants his mother, but the gentile who has caught him tries to calm him down and talk to him. The child tries to free himself from his hands and return to his mother, and the gentile tells him: “No, no! Everything is fine.”
He takes the child to his house, and the child stands at the window, looks out and says: “Shem Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad” (Hear, Oh Israel, the L-rd our G-d, the L-rd is One).
The child stood at the window for a long time, and he repeated the entire prayer orally (i.e. the Shema prayer -Y.R.).
“The child really moved me, the child at the window who thinks of his mother and says Shema Yisrael.”
In the film, we see the gentile looking at the child and saying: “Yes, I understand…”
The rabbi continues and describes:
Then the gentile says, “You know what? Better yet, stop talking altogether, you will be mute from now on. It’s better that they don’t hear your voice at all.” And the boy nods his head like that and says, “yes.”
So the president stopped and said to me: “Of course there is a sequel to the movie. I saw it yesterday, but this moment – thinking about this boy, this family, these parents and how these people saved the boy…”
The President, after a silence, asks me, do little children really know this prayer, “Shema Yisrael?” In response, I told him how they found children after the war, scattered and lost children who had not seen their parents for years and had forgotten what Judaism was, they called “Shema Yisrael” out to them and they jumped up!
I told him at length about the rabbis who entered places where there were many children and to know who was Jewish they called out “Shema Yisrael.”
“This is the point of every Jew – I explained to him – ‘Shema Yisrael’ is the prayer that is said every day, morning and evening, and it is the prayer that is said when going out with devotion, because it is the prayer that expresses faith in G-d. From a young age, a child already says ‘Shema Yisrael.'”
The child seen in the film, this was his connection to his parents – the words of “Shema Yisrael”.
The words made a very strong impression on the President: a three-year-old child already understands the matter of the unity of G-d, faith in G-d, and devotion to G-d. He responded, “now I understand even more why this story touched my heart so much.”
It was very important to him that we watch the film together, which was projected on his desk in the office.
(Thanks to my friend Rabbi Shia Deitch from Moscow for the story.)
