The second to last section of Parshat Va'etchanan contains words that comprise the foundation of the Jewish worldview: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is one” (6:4).
Jews repeat these words in prayer several times a day.
They are uttered by Jews before their deaths. Hundreds of thousands of Jews who did not want to betray the faith of their fathers went to the stake with those words on their lips.
In the Torah scroll in the word shema—“hear”—the last letter, “ayin,” is enlarged. In the word echad—“one”—the letter “dalet” is also larger than the rest of the letters. Why are these two letters highlighted?
The Book of the Prophet Yeshayahu and in the Baal HaTurim, a commentary on the Chumash by Rabbi Yaakov ben Asher each provide an explanation.
One of the most amazing phenomena is the existence of the Jewish people in spite of incessant attempts to destroy us.
Nations, many times stronger and more numerous than Israel, have long disappeared. Where are the former Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans? Not to mention the smaller ones—the Philistines, Amalekites, Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, and others. And if today there are people with such names, it is difficult to say who they really are. None of them have preserved the faith that they professed three millennia ago. The only nation which has not changed and has not changed their faith is the Jews.
The living conditions of the Jewish people have never been ideal. Everywhere they were despised, their sources of livelihood were cut off. They were often expelled, and yet they have continued to exist. But to find out any details about their sworn enemies, one has to go to the museum.
What does this mean? That there is a Ruler of the world, and He wants to preserve Israel. By their very existence, the Jewish people testify: there is one G-d, the Sovereign of the universe.
In Hebrew, the word ed—“witness”— consists of the letters “ayin” and “dalet,” the same ones that are highlighted in the verse “Hear O Israel…”
In the Book of the Prophet Yeshayahu (43:12) we read, “…you are My witnesses, the word of the Lord, and I am G-d.” That is why the letters that make up the word “witness” are highlighted. Hear O Israel … the Lord is One!” And who can testify to this? The Jewish people, by the fact of their existence.
The parshah goes on, “And love the Lord, your G-d, with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your resources…” (Devarim 6:5).
We have already analyzed this verse in parshat Emor in the Book of Vayikra and said there that one who loves G-d “with all His soul” in certain cases should be ready to give his life for the sake of keeping His commandments (compare with the Russian expression “Give G-d his soul,” that is, to die).
The meaning of “with all your heart” is not exactly clear. In Russian it is, in general, a synonym for the soul in one of the meanings of this word, and in translation it sounds like a poetic repetition. But in Hebrew, the soul and the heart are different concepts, if the soul is life, then the heart is feelings.
But love is already a feeling. So what does this mean? Feel the feeling?
It is not without reason that the Torah says, “with all your heart.” Because you can love in part. Our feelings are not necessarily whole. You can love, for example, but still harbor resentment in your heart. That is why the Torah says to “love with all your heart”—make sure that there is no bitterness in your heart against G-d.
Strange. The assortment of our negative feelings, unfortunately, is very rich. Resentment is just one of them. Why, then, exactly that feeling?
Because here we are talking about a very important, if not the main, part in our relationship to G-d; how we relate to our life that He gave us.
Are we satisfied with our share? There is no person in whose life everything goes completely smoothly. Do we accept our fate with joy? Do we understand the simple fact that what is given to us is given by the Creator for our good? In short, are we grateful to our Creator?
How should one understand the words “with all your resources?” That means that in keeping the commandments, a Jew should not be limited by expenses. This requirement is governed by certain rules.
It does not apply to the positive commandments. If, say, you need to purchase an etrog for Sukkot, you do not have to go to the limit and go broke. There are limitations to expenses to fulfill religious obligations that should not be surpassed.
But if a Jew is told, “Either eat pork, or pay a fine of ten thousand dollars,” he must pay, even if this sum ruins him. The only thing that should not be permitted is the danger of death by starvation. To avoid breaking the law, you should bear any costs, without restrictions. The limit here is only a threat to life (and, as we know, not in all cases).
In our age, people are used to thinking that money is omnipotent. Only the amount varies (what cannot be procured for a million dollars?) But the Torah says, if it is not allowed, then it is not allowed, regardless of any potential losses or benefits.
Life has repeatedly introduced me to people who have made all kinds of sacrifices, just to be able to observe the Sabbath: they changed their profession, moved from place to place, paid huge fines for absenteeism. I know hundreds of such examples.
I remember how one talented engineer from Bobruisk, having suffered plenty because of the difficulties with keeping the Sabbath, became… a chimney sweep. On Saturday, with the agreement of clients, he did not go to work, but always came to them exactly at the appointed time Saturday evening, and no one had any complaints about him. Thus, he lived in peace and quiet.
I also knew a tailor who sewed at night in order to keep a six-day work week, and then he gave part of the money he earned to doctors—for the sake of receiving sick leave on Saturday. In order not to starve, he occasionally brought something to the marketplace to sell, at the risk of ending up in prison.
Many people have changed their place of residence in order to live in a Jewish environment where they could work without transgressing the holy Sabbath day.
In 1951, I remember well my first Saturday at a Soviet labor camp. When I was brought to the camp, my thoughts were occupied solely with how to avoid working on Saturday. I was lucky and immediately upon arrival, two prisoners asked me: “Du bist a yid?” Are you a Jew? How can we help you?” I said, “Yes, I am Jewish and I do not want to work on Saturday.”
One of them, Semyon Semyonovich Lukatsky, promised, “Okay, this Saturday I will help you. You come on Friday at 6 p.m. and you will have sick leave for the whole day.”
I was moved. But, thank G-d, that Saturday, I did without sick leave. Rather, I did not need the paper, because I was already in the hospital.
On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I was carrying logs — I was unaccustomed to the difficult work, and on Thursday, I fell. Miraculously, I survived, but I seriously injured my hand.
I was transporting the logs with a guy who really liked to bully newcomers, and moreover a Jew. He was already an experienced loader and came up with the idea of walking ahead of me on the gangplank, while dancing and swinging. I followed along the narrow shaking board, barely keeping my balance. On Thursday, I collapsed and spent three weeks in the hospital. I do not know if I would have been as happy to have earned a million dollars, as I was at that time to have been relieved of work on Saturday.
But three weeks ended, and I was discharged, and it was just before Saturday. I tried to lie that I still had pain. The foreman went to the doctor, who told him, “If I discharged him, it means that he can work.” The brigadier began to beat me. But I ran away and hid among the boats on the river bank, which was quite high.
About 12:00 noon I heard voices, “Someone is hiding from work in the boats! This is sabotage!”
From above, I saw that a group of prisoners were going on lunch break and Lukatsky was amongst the group. I must say, he was simply obsessed with Marxism and always spoke only on such topics. I spoke quietly in Yiddish in the hope that he would hear, “Farclap zey dem kop!”— “Turn their heads!”
Semyon Semyonovich immediately turned to his companions, “Guys! Here in the newspaper”—here he shook the newspaper that was rolled into a tube—“there is an article by Comrade Stalin, Economic Problems of Socialism. What depth of thought! Maybe we can read it?”
Who would dare to refuse such an offer? Lukatsky began to read aloud, explained something and suddenly uttered a very mysterious comment, “As the famous Latin proverb says, Bahalt zich in a tzveitn ort!”—which in Yiddish meant, “Hide somewhere else!”
I went down, crawled a hundred meters—there were boats in that place too—and took refuge among them. I laid there until the end of the day. It was in the fall and was raining. I tried not to be seen by anyone and hid myself so well that I did not hear the signal announcing the end of the workday.
The signal sounded at a quarter to five, the verification began—and one prisoner was missing! People were kept in line, no one was dismissed—they were looking for the missing prisoner. They found me at 5:25 p.m. People were ready to tear me to pieces! Because of my antics, everyone had stood in the rain for 45 minutes and now they were late for the dining room. Even if it was only water with rotten cabbage, it was hot and now everything had cooled down!
Before this incident, I can recount that I prayed only once in my life with all my soul about ten years prior to the aforementioned incident, in the year 1941. The frosts were terrible— 50 below zero Celsius. I lived and taught in the village of Stolbishchi (25 kilometers from Kazan), and on Saturdays and weekends I went to my parents who lived in the city. On Monday at five in the morning I left the house to be in time for my lessons by eight running 25 kilometers in three hours! One terribly cold Monday, I came to school—and the lessons had been canceled: the frost was about 40 below zero. But since the Soviet Union did not like providing teachers with “extra” leisure, we were immediately sent to nearby villages to record the names of children for the next academic year. I was sent to a village five kilometers from Stolbishchi. The road there went along a frozen lake with an ice-hole hidden under the snow, so it would have taken nothing to fall into it.
I left the house hungry; in Stolbishchi, where I received my bread ration, the bakery did not work—because of the frost, they did not have firewood, so I set off on a new journey without eating. The snowfall that started when I was leaving Kazan did not cease. Snow covered the road, I lost my way off the beaten path, and immediately found myself in snow almost chest-high. I was completely exhausted, and a passionate desire began to overcome me—never in my life there was such a thing again—to take a nap, to rest for even a minute. I remembered that that is how people freeze to death, and I began to pray to G-d: “Please pity my parents because I am their only son, and I am still young! I want to do something good in life!”
Then I was convinced from my own experience that there is a “Shomea Tefilah,” a Hearer of Prayer! (This does not mean that G-d does everything we ask right away—maybe part now, maybe part later, or maybe all of our requests later, or even all now—but the prayer does not disappear!) I thrust my hand deeper into my pocket and pulled out… a piece of halva! For six months at that point (and for several years later, until the year 1944), we neither ate real food nor saw butter or sugar. And here, I suddenly had halva! I ate it, regained some strength, and after fifteen minutes, moved on out onto the road…
I got bread only the next day at the end of the day, and I redeemed my food coupons a few days in advance. As I remember it now, I ate two loaves at once—and without salt, because there was no salt, and even without water.
But where did that halva come from?
It turns out that our friend Rafael Moshe Friedman had gotten a job in a school cafeteria, where he had been given halva. He then sold 750 grams of halva to my parents at the state price. So, when I went out to work my mother had nothing for me, so she put some halva in my pocket.
Now the evening of that same day, when I incurred the wrath of my fellow prisoners for being late for a checkup, the reading of Selichot began—the prayers for absolution before Rosh Hashanah. That night, for the second time in my life, I prayed with all of my soul. After all, I had only managed to hide for one Saturday. What would happen next? What would happen on the holidays of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot?
And again, I was convinced: There is One Who Hears Prayer and answers it!
At about two o’clock in the morning I left the barracks—and who did I see? Kolya, the attendant who drove everyone to work. I must say that I was “advised” to undertake, single handedly, the supply of water to the entire camp for the washing of the floors in the washrooms—work for five or six people. There was no running water in those places; water was carried in buckets from the river—and there were 3,000 people in the camp.
“Kolya,” I said, “I cannot do it on the work logs. But I undertake to supply everyone with water.” He understood, and asked, “What do I get for that?” “Twenty-five rubles,” I promised, and immediately gave him an advance of ten. “Good!” he said.
So I became a water carrier, and until the end of my stay in that camp, I carried water.
However, carrying two full buckets from the river to the camp was not easy. I would start at half past six in the morning and finish at about half past seven in the evening. But on the other hand, I was now my own boss.
On Friday, before sunset, I would bring water for Saturday, and there would be enough water to last until 12:00 noon. At that point, I would turn to all sorts of crooks who would regularly shirk work skillfully, and for food and money, they would bring in the needed water—which was enough to last until the end of Saturday.
Now, here is a story from my life in Tashkent.
One Chabadnik, Reb Mendel Garelik, invited a former KGB officer, Alexander Dmitrievitch Yudin, to head a small workshop in which 15 people were ready to work—all honest, conscientious people. The idea was to let him help them open a shop and then become its head. Half of each of our salaries went to him and to “whomever necessary,” but only on one condition: on Saturday, the employees would come to the shop—but do nothing.
I “worked” there for seven years.
Interestingly, as soon as the majority of those working in the shop got permission to emigrate, Comrade Yudin fell ill and died. Perhaps it was for the sake of his last role that he was in the first place sent to this world.
Copyright© 2023 by The LaMaalot Foundation. Talks on the Torah, by Rabbi Yitzchak Zilber is catalogued at The Library of Congress. All rights reserved. Printed in China by Best Win Printing, Shenzhen, China.
By Rav Yitzchok Zilber ztk"l
Founder, Toldot Yeshurun
Parshat Va'etchanan: Shomea Tefilah
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