Holocaust PeSach Seder Story For The Ages

0:07To finalize tonight, I'll share a story that, in my opinion, makes it worth coming into the world just to hear. It's Pesach, 1945. The Holocaust is nearing its end, but nonetheless, people are still being murdered. And in Bergen Belsen, the Rebbe of Bluzhov is in the camp, and he is a tzaddik who is so precise with his Avodat Hashem that he's counting the days and the hours to ensure that he knows when to pray, when to tell people it's Shabbat, and when to tell people it's Pesach.

1:39And he starts getting everybody together, and they start gathering supplies, they make matzah. I mean, miracle after miracle, the whole week everybody's grinding up a grain here, a grain there, a grain here, a grain there, they make matzah. The night of the seder, a German general, yimach shemo vezichro, comes into the place. He sees there's matzah. He says, who's responsible for this? The Rebbe? Everybody looks at the Rebbe. He takes one of his bats and starts literally breaking all of his bones. He starts hitting him with the intention to kill him. The fact that he didn't kill him is a pure miracle, no different than Har Sinai. He starts hating him and hating him and hating him. But just to make sure that everybody gets the point, he takes all of the matzah, ruins it, and defecates on it to ensure no one's eating matzah. After he leaves, there's blood everywhere. Some weren't even sure if the Rebbe is still alive. But after some time, he wakes up, and the first question he asks is, "Is it still night?" Meaning it's still the same day. And I say, "Yes." He says, "Okay, let's have the seder." What? "Let's have the seder." I respond, "Rebbe, you look like you just got hit by a train." He says, "It doesn't make a difference. We're still not absolved from the mitzvah of doing the Leil HaSeder."

3:03wakes up, first question, is it still night? Meaning it's still the same day. And I say, yes. He says, okay, let's have the seder. What? Let's have the seder. He goes, Rebbe, you look like you just got hit by a train. He goes, it doesn't make a difference. We're still not absolved from the mitzvah of doing Lail HaSeder. We have to have a little seder. Rabbi, we don't have anything. "No, no, we'll do the seder. Okay. What are they going to do? Fine, let's do the seder. What are we going to do? Everybody gets together. Let's start off with what? Kadesh. Do Kiddush. Oh, wine. Okay, wine. We don't have wine, Rabbi." "Oh, wine. It's like our blood. Look, Baruch Hashem, I have a lot of blood over here, all over the place. That is symbolic of the wine." U'rchatz, wash. Oh, look, also the Egyptians, Baruch Hashem, the Nazis, same thing. Baruch Hashem, all of us have blood on us. That is symbolic of U'rchatz. Karpas. Karpas, oh, we're slaves right now. Same thing, symbolic of that. They get all the way to matzah, they call the Rav. Okay, what about matzah? He ruined everything. He defecated on everything. There's no matzah.

4:32He takes his hand. He opens his hand. He says, before he started hitting me, I took a small little piece. A small little piece, and I have it in my hand. This is the matzah. Everybody said, wow. So they're waiting for him to eat it. He said, no. You're Jews too. We're going to have a lottery. We're going to have a lottery to see who is going to eat the matzah. They said, Rebbe. You're the one that toiled for it. You're the one that had the idea for it. You're the one that almost died for it. Well, I'm more of a Jew than you. No, we're going to have a lot of disputes; whoever wins will get the matzah. At that moment, A lady comes from the back and says, "Rebbe, Rebbe, please, please, please, let me through." He lets her through. It's a woman with a four-year-old kid, a little boy. She says, "Rebbe, you see, my son, his whole life he's been here in the concentration camp. He's never celebrated Pesach. This is the first Pesach he is ever celebrating. Now, if you let him eat the matzah,"

5:49Then he will have something to remember during Pesach. This is part of the mitzvah of teaching our children. The Rebbe says: "You're right. The four-year-old little boy, he gets the matzah." And that's what happened. Some time passed, and the Rebbe of Golozov left. went to the United States, started a small kehillah, grew little by little. One day, a woman comes to the Beit Midrash. She's asking to speak to the Admo"r, to Rabbi Bezalel. He said, "I'm sorry, ma'am. He doesn't speak to women one-on-one." She starts hysterically crying. She says, "I need to speak to him. I don't have anybody else. I went through the Holocaust and lost my husband. Please, please, please." They go to the Rabbi. "I don't know this woman," he says, "but if a Jewish woman is crying, bring her up right away. Bring her up right away."

7:01She says, "Rabbi, I went through the Holocaust. It was a disaster. And after the Holocaust, for those who don't know, the disaster didn't end there. There were a lot of problems. Germans were pretending to be Jews. You didn't know who was Jewish or not, and many Jews were just trying to survive in difficult circumstances. There were a lot of problems after the Holocaust." So she's saying to him, "Rabbi, all I have, I have..." my kid, I lost my husband. And now I need to get married and start a new life. But I don't know who I can trust. I don't know if I'm going to get somebody who has some type of trauma from the Holocaust, and then I'm going to, you know, I don't know what he's going to do to me. Or if he's Jewish or he's not. Can the Rabbi please help me? I can't take any more suffering. He says, sure, sure, I'll help you. He says, I have a list of people that they’re offering me. And I don't know who these people are, but can the Rabbi review the list and maybe just tell me, verify who these people are? He says, "Yeah, do you have any of the names?" He says, "Yeah, I have one name here." He says, "Yisrael Lipschutz." So, I know him. I know him. "No, Rabbi, what do you think?" "Oh, he's a good person. He's a good person. He's reliable. And, yeah, you should go on a date with him." "Really?" "Yeah, you should go on a date with him. He's reliable. He's a good person."

8:30Thank you, Kvod HaRav. I said, listen, meet him at a place where there are other people. You know, a quiet place. And get to know him. See where it goes. Thank you, Kvod HaRav. I really appreciate it. They set up a shidduch meeting. She shows up to the meeting. What does she see? He's the Rebbe of Belz. He says, no, no, no, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for you to come to the meeting and oversee it that way. No, I know the Rabbi is very busy. I know the Rabbi is very busy. I don't know. You're going out of your way. You don't have to do it. He says, no, no, I need to be here. Why? I'm Yisroel Lipschitz. I'm Yisroel Lipschitz. Who's the woman? The one with the four-year-old. They got married, and today, the admor, the leader, is that four-year-old. It's that four-year-old. He's the leader. He's the admor. That's Hashem being sweet. That's Hashem being sweet. When the salvation comes, it's as sweet as can be.

9:57But on the way to salvation, there may be some bones crushed. There may be some tragedy. It may look as ugly as can be. Pesach is a time that we're reminded that, as ugly as it can be, Hashem is driving the wheel. Hashem knows what He's doing. As ugly as certain things in our life look, Certain tragedies, certain issues that are happening, fighting, whatever it is. As long as you're connected to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, you need to know rule number one: He is the one doing all of it. All of it. As ugly as it is, He's in it with you. And He'll get you out of it also. Pesach is a time for us to connect to HaKadosh Baruch Hu on the highest level. Through the traumas that our brothers and sisters went through, the traumas that our forefathers went through, and the traumas that we're going through, we connect to Him through those experiences. Why? Because if you connect to Him through the tragedy, you'll also connect to Him through the salvation. Overcoming these obstacles is what builds our Emunah.