Dear Friend,
Tisha B’av reminds us of the burning of the two Batei Mikdash (Holy Temples). It also serves as a day of mourning over the expulsions, pogroms and all the other suffering that our nation has endured over the nearly two thousand years in exile. In our generation it brings to mind the still fresh memory of the Holocaust.
Yet, from every calamity, from the very ashes of destruction, and even though the painful questions of ‘why’, are still unanswerable, the Jewish people emerge to rebuild, physically and spiritually.
The covenant between Hashem and His people is irrevocable. The bond is immutable. G-d cannot change His people for another, just as His people cannot, and do not want, to sever their bond with Him.
Sometimes it looks like the connection is all but gone, the fire is totally extinguished, only to find that the embers, fanned by the right winds, burst into flames.
We have all witnessed situations where these embers of Judaism buried deep into what seems a ‘disenfranchised from Judaism’ heart, have burst into flames of passionate Jewish expression.
Our very own Synagogue in Bangkok is full of participants who didn’t imagine that they would be so involved in their Jewish observance. Sometimes the journey went through very perilous territory and the connection to Judaism was tenuously hanging on by a thread. When activated though, it revived and came to full bloom. Counterintuitive from our perspective, but from G-d’s perspective perhaps it is quite natural. The neshama is after all a ‘portion of G-d’ which can never be compromised.
I was recently blessed to engage with a Holocaust survivor and lay Tefillin with him here in Bangkok for the first time in his life at age 89.
When the email came in it was definitely not standard:
My Uncle, Ernest Hilton, is a holocaust survivor who is 89 years old and lives in Bangkok with his Thai wife. He has been going through a very difficult time and has lost a lot of weight and is yearning for the yiddish foods he remembers from his childhood. I am trying to find out if there is a way to order things like Cholent, or other Jewish foods to be delivered to his home, so that he can have some familiar comforting foods, as he seems to have an aversion to Thai food. I thought that maybe someone in the Chabad community might be able to help me help him. Shabbat shalom from Israel (where I live).
I reached out and Ernest filled me in on some more details.
Dear Rabbi Kantor, my niece probably told you that I am a Holocaust survivor starting with Westerbork, Belsen and the lost train to Trobitz where we were liberated by the Russian Army. I was close to famine but was taken to the local Russian field hospital and recovered. The reason that I am in BKK is that I have been married (in London) to a Thai wife for the past 43 years. Sadly, she is now battling an illness….
I have been very ill for weeks (at age 89) and have lost a lot of body weight. My Dr recommended "rehabilitation" via proper eating so that I can return to physical activity at the Condo where we reside.
For sentimental reasons I happen to suggest to Judy that I would like to eat cholent and latkes and anything else that provides a lot of calories.
…I am also hard of hearing so phoning each other is not practical. Better that you please use my email address … you bring things to my flat at our Condo. My address is:…
Thank you, Rabbi Kantor, to attempt to help me and if you wish to visit me within the next few days with some food items, we would be happy to get to know each other.
Thank you for dealing with my eating tzores!
Very kind regards,
Ernest
Nechama made latkes and chicken soup, and I made my way to Erenest’s condo to deliver latkes and meet him. Our discussion was lively, albeit hampered by Ernest’s hearing problems.
To my offer of putting on Tefillin, Ernest responded positively and shared that he had never donned Tefillin before in his life.
After sending him a picture of our encounter (included below) I received the following response headed ‘Late but not very much too late’.
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Ernest Hilton
Date: Tue, Jun 14, 2022, 9:29 AM
Subject: LATE BUT NOT VERY MUCH TOO LATE
To: <[email protected]>
Dear Rabbi Kantor, It has taken me almost 90 years to have such a very nice and loving discussion with a Rabbi. Then again, I had very few opportunities.
Thank you very much for not only visiting but taking such an interest in my life! If and when my book needs a title I have chosen "FROM HERZ TO HILTON". You may be upset that I also have a fallback title or additional title: "TO BE OR NOT TO BE A JEW"?
Under the circumstances, we might have another discussion and the issue of "to be or not to be" could be discussed?
I ate 3 of the potato cakes it is more than I have eaten for a while back!
The soup is waiting to be drunk for lunch today.
Thank you for your generosity as well as your interest in my being and the picture you took of the two of us is a great souvenir for me.
Very kind regards
Ernest
Later on Ernest gave me a copy of his short colorful autobiography.
In the Author’s Note to the book, Ernest writes as follows:
I was born Ernst Adolf Herz in 1932 with the world already in midst of the Depression and beginning the age of Hitler and the Nazi Party. In 1933 Hitler decreed that all German Jews were to be denationalized. That meant we had no identity in Germany or anywhere else… the Dutch in 1933 were accommodating and that is how we got to live in Aerdenhout…
… I am a survivor of Westerbork transit camp, a temporary collection point for Jewish in the Netherlands before we were sent to concentration camps. I am also a survivor of Berge Belsen. I was sent to these places because I am a Jew. I was only a child and had committed no crimes except to be born a Jew. ..
To tell you the truth I turned atheist after the war because I figured that G-d didn’t do anything of the six million jews who were removed from the earth….
But my atheism is separate from my Jewishness. In the camps I kept asking myself why my family and I were caught in this misery. I always got the same answer, and that was ‘you are a Jew’.
Later I changed my name from Herz to Hilton… but it was never to escape my Jewishness. Irrespective of my new name I was a Jew from a family with a very long Jewish history…
As I write this at eighty-eight, I am in good physical and mental condition…the gnawing issue I struggle with is why Jews were being picked on and thus ended in camps or far worse destinations for those multitudes who were killed in gas chambers Nazis built to eradicate Jewishness in Europe. After much tinkering with my Jewish question, my issue can be expressed in a n nutshell, as : ‘To be or not to be a Jew?’
Today I still am not ready to answer that question’.
On June 13, 2022, I had the blessing to facilitate Ernest’s inaugural Tefillin laying.
In my mind this was his answer to that question that he had left open in his autobiography.
He chose to ‘be a Jew’. Not just by name, but by performing a uniquely Jewish ritual act.
Ernest knew what Tefillin were when I asked him if he wanted to lay them.
He shared with me that the fact that he was knowledgeable about what Tefillin are, is because he had seen Jewish men wrapping Tefillin in airports and airplanes.
The fact that Ernest wanted to put them on, and did so several times afterwards, including when I visited him on his 90th birthday, is a statement of faith.
It is akin to a declaration ‘I am a Jew’.
Notwithstanding the unanswerable questions of faith that he had to live with ever since the Holocaust.
Ernest told my wife several times that he would now not have used the same title for his book. To be a Jew was no longer a question.
The last time I saw Ernest was during Pesach this year. He was in hospital.
Sadly, he passed away a few weeks later on the first day of Shavuot. One week shy of the first-year anniversary of our meeting.
I tell this story to share the final statement that Ernest has made, one that indicates that a Jew is a Jew is a Jew. And that regardless of all travails, the core identity of the Jewish soul emerges unscathed and wholesome.
May Ernest’s memory fuel our renewed commitment to G-d and Jewish observance. Thus, any mitzvahs that are done inspired by Ernest’s story, will be ‘credited’ to him in the Garden of Eden.
And now a word about ‘culinary Judaism’ and the power of Jewish traditions.
Did you ever realize what kind of potential is contained in ‘latkes’ and other traditional Jewish foods that are served in our homes in connection to the Chagim/Holidays.
Especially when we make the effort and take the time to make them ourselves in our own homes.
I won’t share all of the many emails that Ernest wrote me on the topic of latkes, but interestingly, when we didn’t have time to make them personally in our home and had our restaurant kitchen prepare them, he picked up on it.
It’s not that they weren’t tasty, I enjoyed some myself. But Ernest noticed a missing ingredient. The love that is inherent in home cooking.
Perhaps when we refer to chicken soup as ‘Jewish penicillin’, it’s not just the chicken soup that was therapeutic, it is the love and care of the elderly ‘Bubby’ that made the soup….
Ernest picked up on it and was not shy to share his observations:
Dear rabbi the latkes from the current production line aint anywhere near from the home producing line. Yes, indeed the current ones were a big distraction from what i had learned to eat prior to that. Obviously, the homemade latkes have grown better and better for the home and not for the masses. May I agree with you rabbi that what comes from what comes out of your home ovens is bound to be enjoyably good while the other lot are only quantity and therefore not enjoyable quality!!
There is also something else I would like to point out.
The connection in this story between Latkes and Tefillin?
What connection is there between them?
The love that fuels the providing of them.
When someone reaches out for help with nutrition that can only be filled by latkes, it is the love of one’s fellow that motivates and drives the fulfillment of this request.
It is a Mitzvah of the highest degree to express your love for someone else by filling the needs that they have. Tzedaka is the most important mitzvah of all. In this case it was not money that was needed but a traditional food that is not easy to come by in Bangkok.
The Rebbe taught us that we ought to apply that same love to the spiritual spheres as well. If you love your fellow Jew, you will share Mitzvah doing opportunities with your fellow Jews.
If it’s Chanuka you will share donuts, latkes and candles. If it’s Pesach you will offer hospitality at a Seder and Shmura Matzah. If its Rosh Hashana you will offer an apple and honey and Shofar blowing.
Try to remember this the next time you are offered by someone to take Shabbat candles for kindling before Shabbat, the opportunity to put on Tefillin, attend a Seder or affix a Mezuzah to your door. Look at the core motivation and recognize that this comes from a deep loving place in the heart of the one who is offering it.
The Rebbe launched the pragmatic ‘mitzvah campaign’ based on the core principle of love - Ahavat Yisrael.
For in the spiritual spheres, giving a Mitzvah to a ‘hungry soul’ is like offering hot soup to a shivering person on a wintry day.
Wouldn’t you knock on the door to alert a stranger if you saw a fire in their house and they were sleeping?
If you knew of an irresistible opportunity that was expiring, would you not share it with your acquaintance?
This is the motivation behind the offering to help a fellow with performing a mitzvah.
On a personal note, I find it important to meditate every so often on the loving ‘why’, on the compelling compassionate rationale behind my offering others Mitzvah opportunities. It helps to be in the right loving mind frame when you do outreach.
When one projects love and caring to another, the love will be reflected in the heart of the recipient.
King Solomon (Proverbs 27:19) says it “As water mirrors the face to the face, so does the heart of man to man.”
Let us bring more love and peace into the world by projecting love and heartfulness emanating from our inner core to those around us.
Give warm soup, mitzvahs, monetary help, attention, whatever is needed. Give it with love. And may Hashem treat all of us with His unlimited Love.
May G-d bless the soul of our dear Ernest and comfort his loved ones.
How fitting a blessing for this Shabbat which is called ‘Shabbat Nachamu’ the Shabbat of Comforting.
May Hashem console and comfort us by bringing Mashiach and rebuilding the Third Beit Hamikdash.
Rabbi Yosef Kantor