Today’s Auschwitz

“And every terumah, all the sacred gifts of Bnei Yisrael…” (Bamidbar 5:9) 

Bodies and Souls 

The world speaks endlessly about the need to save Jewish lives. And so it should. 

But there is something we speak about far too little — the need to save Jewish neshamot (souls). For in our times, to our great anguish, many neshamot are slipping away from Klal Yisrael (the nation of Israel). 

The Brisker Rav’s Vision 

The Brisker Rav once watched Jewish children being led off to a secular school, run by those who sought to uproot the Torah in the Holy Land. 

He turned and said: “Were it not that the Satan blinds our eyes, every Torah-observant Yid would look upon those children the way he would look upon trains carrying children to be killed in Auschwitz — and he would do everything in his power to save them!” 

These are staggering words. But they lay bare a truth we are far too quick to forget. 

Why the Neshamah Comes First 

Why should saving a neshamah be even greater than saving a body? 

Chazal teach (Bamidbar Rabbah 21:5) that one who causes another to sin, commits a graver crime than one who kills him. A murderer destroys the body. But one who draws a Yid into sin wounds the neshamah itself. 

And the neshamah is the person. The body was fashioned only to serve as a vessel for the neshamah, for the brief span of years it dwells in this world. The body passes. The neshamah is eternal. 

So the one who rescues a Jewish neshamah performs the highest act of ahavat Yisrael (love for one another), the greatest gemilut Chassidim (act of kindness) there is. 

The Tzedakah (Charity) of the Soul 

The Zohar (2:128b) teaches something remarkable. A person must labor to give a different sort of “tzedakah” altogether — to offer guidance and understanding to a fellow Yid who is poor in daat (wisdom) to teach him Torah and yirat shamayim (fear/awe of heaven). 

And this, says the Zohar, is a greater obligation than giving tzedakah to one who lacks money. For the reward for saving a neshamah far outweighs the reward for saving a body. 

“Do Not Hate” and “You Shall Surely Rebuke” 

Look closely at the single verse (Vayikra 19:17): “Do not hate your brother in your heart; you shall surely rebuke your fellow.” 

Why does the Torah bind these two commands together in a single breath? 

Because they are truly one. To watch a fellow Yid drift away from avodat Hashem and feel no stirring to draw him back — that itself is a breach of “do not hate your brother in your heart.” One who truly loves another will do everything in his power to bring him to his real happiness: a life of Torah and mitzvot, the life that opens the gates of Olam Haba (the World to Come). 

The Sin That Brought the Churban 

Rav Yonasan Eybeschutz writes at length (Yaaros Devash, Drush 10), that this was the very sinat  chinam (baseless hatred) that destroyed the Beit Hamikdash (Second Temple). 

The people of that generation failed to fulfill ahavat Yisrael in its deepest form — to guide one another in ruchniyut (spiritual matters, spirituality). And from that failure flowed the many aveirot (sins) that brought the churban (destruction) upon them. 

And then he turns to our own day. There is no shortage, he writes, of tzedakah and chessed for the needs of the body. But for the needs of the neshamah? There we fall silent. Yet this is the greatest ahavat  Yisrael of all — and it is precisely this that we are called to repair. 

“I Care Only for My Own” 

Some imagine that a person bears responsibility only for the members of his own circle. 

This is a mistake — and it has a history. 

It took root in the generations before the Baal Shem Tov, when deep walls divided Klal Yisrael: between Sephardim and Ashkenazim, between Jews of one land and another, between the world of the  lomdim  (Torah scholars) and the world of the working man. Each looked after his own and felt nothing for the struggles of the rest. 

And so Heaven sent the Baal Shem Tov. He breathed new life into a forgotten truth, that all of Israel are responsible one for another, that every single Yid is a child of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Jews began to care for one another once more. And above all, they began to care that every Yid — even the simplest among them — be drawn close to Hashem and to His Torah. 

Tzaddikim Who Transformed Whole Lands 

So it was with his talmidim (students), and with their talmidim, down to our own generation. They gave themselves over to saving every Jew from sin, drawing no line between one shevet (tribe, sector) of Klal Yisrael and another. 

Some of our own forebears threw themselves into this avodah with everything they had — the Rebbe Reb Elimelech of Lizhensk, the Mahari”a of Kalov, and others like them. They labored so mightily that they transformed entire lands, turning coarse and earthbound men into bnei Torah (those learned in Torah)  and yirei Hashem (those who fear Hashem). 

A Land That Was Once Barren 

Here in America, too, Yiddishkeit once stood at a desperate low. 

I saw it with my own eyes when I arrived from Romania in 5708. In all of Boro Park there was but a single small mikvah. 

And then the gedolim (Torah leaders) and tzaddikim (righteous) came, together with those who followed in their wake. They built mosdot haTorah (Torah institutions). They revived the neshamot. 

One example is the Satmar Rav. His care reached even the Sephardim of Argentina and far beyond. He labored without rest to save the children of Morocco from shmad (heresy). So deeply did their fate weigh upon him, that when he awoke from a grave illness, the very first words on his lips were a question about the children of Morocco. 

And If You Cannot Teach? 

What of the Yid who cannot himself teach Torah and Yiddishkeit to others? 

He too has a full share in this avodah — through his money. By opening his hand to those who can do the work, he becomes their partner in every neshamah they save. 

The Chofetz Chaim writes precisely this in his sefer Chomas HaDas (Chizuk HaDas 3). Picture a man drowning in a river. Even if you cannot swim a single stroke yourself, you are obligated to hire those who can, to pull him from the water before he is lost. And so it is when you watch others drowning — not in a river, but in the raging sea of taavot (desires, physicality) that destroys a person in this world and the next. You must pay out of your own pocket for those who know how to draw Jewish hearts back to their Father in Heaven. 

The one who funds the rescue, shares in the rescue. 

***

The Kalever Rebbe is the seventh Rebbe of the Kaalov Chasidic dynasty, begun by his ancestor who was born to his previously childless parents after receiving a blessing from the Baal Shem Tov zy”a, and later learned under the Maggid of Mezeritch zt”l. The Rebbe has been involved in outreach for more than 30 years and writes weekly emails on understanding current issues through the Torah. Sign up at www.kaalov.org.