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Weekly Chasidic Story# 1358 (5784-15) 6 Tevet 5784 (Dec.18, 2023) "A Small Kindness Repaid with a Big One" World War I. A young Jewish soldier from Minnesota was stationed in a small German town. Having some free time and feeling out of place, he decided to explore what the local Jewish population was like. Connection: This Friday is the "Fast of the Tenth of 10 Tevet." It commemorates the onset of the siege outside the walls of Jerusalem that led to the destruction of the Holy Temple on the Ninth of Av. In addition, in our times it has become the date to say Kaddish for those martyrs of the Holocaust (and all the others through the centuries) whose date of death is unknown. Story in PDF format for more convenient printing
A Small Kindness Repaid with a Big One
America had finally entered World War I. Troops poured into Europe to put an end to the war. The war was in its final stages. American troops were dispatched throughout Germany. The year was 1917. A lone Jewish soldier from Duluth, Minnesota, Alex Lurye, found himself in a small German town called Seldes. It was Friday night. Being far away from home was lonely. Having some time on his hands and feeling out of place, the young Jewish soldier decided to see what the local Jewish population was like. His entering the local village synagogue must have created a stir. An American soldier in uniform! The Americans had fought the Germans in bitter combat. The lone soldier felt apprehensive. Almost immediately, however, he was greeted by a kind German Jew by the name of Herr Rosenau, who made him feel at home in the synagogue. What's more, after the services, Herr Rosenau invited the serviceman to his house for kiddush and the traditional Friday night meal. Seeing the beauty of a traditional Shabbat together with the warmth and kindness of this German-Jewish family made a deep impression on this young soldier. He was a stranger, a foreigner, even an enemy; yet because he was Jewish he was invited to another Jew's home, given a delicious warm kosher home cooked meal, complete with wine and accompanied by the traditional Shabbat songs. Herr Rosenau's family, together with his teenage daughter, gave the soldier the feeling that he was not alone, certainly not an enemy, even in such a far and distant land. The soldier was never able to come back to see this kind family again. However, the warm impression that he had received, the experience of the Shabbat in a warm and caring Jewish home did not leave him. It meant so much to this young soldier that when he finally returned to Duluth, Minnesota, his home town, he took time out to sit down and write a letter to the German Jew who had touched his life with such kindness. This was in 1917. For some unknown reason, although Herr Rosenau received the letter it was never answered. It was placed in a desk drawer and there it rested for twenty-one years. Time moves on. Ruth, the teenage daughter of the German Jew, had grown up and was married to a German Jew by the name of Eugene Wienberg. They had three small children. In the year 1938 their oldest was a boy of eleven. It was a terrible difficult time for the German Jews.. The dreaded Adolf Hitler had taken hold upon Germany and anti-Jewish proclamations were being contrived and enforced on a continually regular basis. One day, Herr Rosenau was hosting the family. While ruminating about the dark and dismal future for himself and his fellow Jews in Germany, he wasn't paying much attention to his eleven-year-old grandson, Sigbert, who was rummaging through his desk looking for something of interest. Suddenly a foreign postage stamp caught his eye. He pulled out the envelope with the stamp from America. "Grandfather, can I have this?" Twenty-one years had passed since he received the letter. "Yes, take it," the grandfather replies. The old forgotten envelope makes his grandson happy. He takes it home to his mother. "Look, look what grandfather has given me!" The mother and her husband, Herr Wienberg, eye the envelope with curiosity. They remove the letter inside and read it. It was the thankyou letter from the American service man, from twenty-one years ago. The mother remembered the young man. "Let's write to him! Maybe he will remember us and sponsor us, enabling us to immigrate to America." (In those years, the U.S.A. did not let refugees come to its shores freely. However, if an American resident citizen would sponsor you, there was a chance.) "We have no future in Germany, we must get out before this mad man, Hitler, begins to do worse things to the Jews." Looking on the envelope, they saw that there was no return address--only the
name, Alex Lurye, and the city and state, Duluth, Minnesota. So they wrote a
letter addressed only as follows: Can you send a letter to a person in a large city without a street address and expect it to be delivered? Of course not. You would have to be foolish to think that it would get to its destination. But sometimes it works out. In this case, Alex Luyre had become a wealthy businessman who was well known in Duluth, even though it was a city of more than a hundred thousand people. The postmaster delivered the letter. When Alex received it, he quickly sent a return letter acknowledging his receipt of their letter and pledging to help bring the Wienberg family to Duluth. Indeed, the entire Wienberg family arrived that same year, in May of 1938. Shortly thereafter, the Rosenau family were also able to reach America. In Duluth, the Wienberg family began working hard to make life bearable through the depression era. Sometimes both the father and mother had to work two jobs in order to make it through the week. Yet in Duluth as in Seldes, Germany, the family made sure that the Shabbat would be joyously honored. The rest of the family were fortunately brought over to the States before the horrors of World War II swiftly came. Most of German Jewry was destroyed. The kindness that Herr Rosenau had given to a stranger twenty-one years earlier had come full circle. Because of their kindness, without any thought of personal gain, Herr Rosenau and his family were spared from the horrible fate of their fellow German Jews. The chessed that they had so warmly given to others without desiring a payment in return had come back to them with dividends. The entire clan was saved. And they sprouted and grew--a family blessed with many children and grandchildren and great-grand-children (as of the first writing of this report in 1997). All of whom took upon themselves always to honor the Shabbat. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Source: Edited by Yerachmiel Tilles from an article by Yisrael Nathan (as told to JewishMag.com staff and posted in Nov. 1997.). Submitted by Micha Roos of Tzefat, Israel. Connection: this Friday is the "Fast of the Tenth of 10 Tevet." It commemorates the onset of the siege outside the walls of Jerusalem that led to the destruction of the Holy Temple on the Ninth of Av. In addition, in our times it has become the date to say Kaddish for those martyrs of the Holocaust (and all the others through the centuries) whose date of death is unknown.
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Yerachmiel
Tilles is co-founder and associate director of Ascent-of-Safed, and chief editor
of this website (and of KabbalaOnline.org). He has hundreds of published stories
to his credit, and many have been translated into other languages. He tells
them live at Ascent nearly every Saturday night.