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Shabbat Shalom from Cyberspace February 11, 2012 18 SHEBAT 5772 Shabbat Shalom from Cyberspace February 11, 2012 18 SHEBAT 5772 SHABBAT SHALOM FROM CYBERSPACE YITRO Haftarah: Yeshayahu 6:1-13 FEBRUARY 10-11, 2012 18 SHEBAT 5772 DEDICATIONS : DEDICATION : In memory of Eliyahu ben Esther - Eli Bibi, and in memory of Sarina bat Victoria - Sally Azrak HAPPY BIRTHDAY MONIQUE and ELLEN HADDAD – HAPPY ANNIVERSARY ELLEN AND ISAAC To subscribe or to unsubscribe, shlit"a, and written by Moshe children, and I’m too old to have please reply to Kormornick posted at now. You take all the gold and [email protected] ShortVort.com. Its one of those silver and let me take the baby”. bright lights that came out of one The deal was agreed and the Daily Minyan on the East Side of the darkest periods in our Polish woman took her new 59th and Third Ave history. ‘daughter’ home to her delighted Monday through Thursday at husband . They raised the Jewish NEW TIME: 4:30 PM Sharp – During the Holocaust, a large girl as their own, treating her very Join us group of Polish women were well, but never told her anything Mincha followed by Arbit –Take rounded up to be sent to the gas of her history. The girl excelled in 20 Minutes out of your day chambers. As the group gathered her studies and became a Artistic Frame – 979 Third their possessions to take with successful pediatrician, working in Avenue – 1705 them into the camp the evil Nazi the top hospital in Poland. For more information please officers called out to all the speak with villagers who were standing by After some years the girl’s Rabbi Danny Greenwald watching, “Anything that these ‘mother’ passed away. A week 212-289-2100 or e-mail Jews leave behind you may take later, she received a knock at the [email protected] for yourselves, because for sure door. An old woman invited they will not be coming back to herself in and said “I want you to During winter break we spent a collect them!” know that the woman that passed day at the Holocaust Museum in away last week was not your real Washington. The designers, Two Polish women who were mother...” and she proceeded to curators and scholars who put standing nearby saw a woman tell her the whole story. this museum together did an towards the back of the group, The girl did not believe her at first incredible job. It was especially wearing a large, heavy, but the old woman said to her moving for Chantelle who studied expensive coat. Not wanting to “When we found you, you were for so many years under Yaffa wait to see if others got the coat wearing a beautiful gold pendant Eliach ( may Hashem grant her a before them, they ran to the with strange writing on it which refuah shelemah) to see one of woman and knocked her to the must be Hebrew, I am sure that her crowning achievements. Our ground, grabbing her coat and your mother kept the necklace, go daughter Mikhayla is going to walked away. and look” and with that parting Poland next week. And I was As the Jewish women were being advice she left. The girl went into thinking of our trip and her trip led away, these two Polish her ‘mother’s’ jewelry box and when I was handed a long note. women lay down the coat to found the necklace just as the divide the spoils of what was woman described. She had it It was a few weeks ago when I hiding inside. As they rummaged extended and wore it every day, received that note and in it, a through the pockets, they but thought nothing more of her version of the following story by discovered gold jewelry, silver Jewish roots. someone who noted they heard it candlesticks and other heirlooms, on the way to a wedding from a but still, as they lifted the coat it Sometime later, she went on cab driver who heard it from a seemed heavier than it should be. holiday abroad and saw two Slonimer Chasid who told him Lubavitch boys. Seizing the that he knew the two people After further inspection they found opportunity she told them entire involved personally. I recalled that a secret pocket, and hidden story and showed them the the story was printed previously inside the coat was a little baby necklace. The boys confirmed and I may have even told it over girl. Shocked at their discovery, that a Jewish name was inscribed in a newsletter. The version below one of the women insisted to the on the necklace but did not know was Told by Harav Moshe Kupetz other, saying “I don’t have any what to say about her status. 1 Shabbat Shalom from Cyberspace February 11, 2012 18 SHEBAT 5772 They recommended that she “You can’t buy such a necklace” people including a young man send a letter to the Lubavitcher he responded, “I am a goldsmith who recently arrived from Europe Rebbe explaining everything. She and I made this necklace. Actually and was heading off to work at a sent off the letter and received a I made two identical ones for kibbutz. When the Auerbachs speedy reply saying that it is clear each of my daughters. This is my moved in, the young man asked from the facts that she is a Jewish granddaughter from one of them, permission to stay for another girl and since she had a special and my other daughter did not week. The Auerbachs agreed talent, she should use her survive the war” ...And this is how provided that the man would invaluable skills in Israel, a place the Jewish Polish girl was abide by and respect Shabbat. in desperate need of talented reunited with her father! pediatricians. On Shabbat the Rebetzin walked CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? by the young man’s room only to She took the Rebbe’s advice and see him writing a letter. She was moved to Israel where she Yitro! Why is one of the most upset and asked her son Shlomo approached a Beis Din who famous portions in the Torah, the Zalman z’sl who would eventually declared her Jewish. She was one in which the Ten become a gadol hador to speak accepted into a hospital to work, Commandments are given and with the man. and she met her husband and listed named after a man who is raised a family. Some years bears the title of chief idol priest? Shlomo Zalman knocked on the later... door and explained to the man “Can you hear me now?” We that his mother was upset as the When there was a terrorist attack think its just a guy in a hardhat man agreed to observe the at the Sbarro cafe in the center of doing a Verizon commercial Shabbat and obviously was not. Jerusalem in August 2001, this asking that question, but is there The young man was puzzled. He woman was walking nearby with more to it? And what about the knew on Shabbat one did not her husband. When she heard of clichés, “went into one ear and work or light a fire, but he wasn’t the blast, she told her husband to out the other”, or “speaking to him doing anything wrong. Shlomo return home to the kids and she is like speaking to a stone”? Zalman explained that writing was proceeded to rush to the scene a creative act and was not where she treated the wounded In last week’s portion of permitted. and helped the injured to the BeShalach, we read that the hospital. “nations heard”. And this week we The man apologized for not begin by learning that Yitro heard. knowing explaining he never When she arrived at the hospital I recall discussing with Rabbi learned. But then looked at the she met an elderly man who was Abittan the concept of hearing Shlomo Zalman and asked. “Do in a state of shock. He was and listening. Although I wrote you think I don’t know G-d? I do. searching everywhere for his much of this a couple of years Come let’s take a walk and I’ll tell granddaughter who had become ago, I was reminded of the you a story”. separated from him. She calmed Rabbi’s advice and we spoke him down and went with him to about it this week. “It was during the First World War search amongst all the patients in in Europe. I was a soldier and the order to find his granddaughter. Sometimes we hear words but battlefields were bloody. We Asking how she could recognize they have no effect. Sometimes fought from trenches. We on one her, the frantic grandfather gave a we hear words and we think that side and those we were rough description of a gold we’ll act on them, but we don’t. combating on the other. Bullets pendant necklace that she was And sometimes we hear, we would fly and every so often there wearing. commit and we act on those was a brief pause to collect the words. wounded and the dead. In the After searching amongst the trench with me were two religious injured, they finally found the I recall a story that I heard many Jews and during those pauses granddaughter who was wearing years ago from Rabbi Mansour. It they sat together reading from the necklace. At the sight of this took place in Jerusalem in the small Psalm books they carried necklace, the pediatrician froze.
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