By the Grace of G-d
Dear Friend,
When an NKVD (later known as KGB) document is marked ‘super-secret’ within an entire file that is marked ‘secret’ it attracts unique attention.
In the west, we are used to court records being accessible to the public. These days even the secret and classified documents don’t always remain private as there are data breaches, Wikileaks and whistleblowers. This was not at all the case during the dark and menacing days of Soviet communism under Stalin and his cohorts. The vast reams of documents that chronicled the sham court cases resulting in executions and forced exiling were out of public reach, locked behind iron doors literally and figuratively.
Even once the walls of communism came crashing down in the 1990’s, the archives did not immediately become declassified. It took many years for access to be possible and even then, only after an arduous process.
This Shabbat, the 20th day of the Jewish month of Menachem Av (August 24), marks 80 years since the untimely passing of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson, of righteous memory, father of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory.
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak was respected as one of the greatest Talmudic and Kabbalistic scholars of his generation. He served as chief rabbi of the city of Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, during the bloody Bolshevik revolution and the subsequent Communist oppression.
Despite terrible persecution directed at religious leaders in those days, he remained fearlessly defiant in strengthening Jewish learning and practice in his city and throughout the Soviet Union. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak was eventually arrested, tortured, and banished to near-solitude in a primitive, disease-infested village in Kazakhstan, where his body finally succumbed to life-threatening illness that resulted in his untimely passing.
Only quite recently were the documents chronicling the court proceedings of his interrogation made available.
In perusing the many hundreds of pages of this previously highly classified file, the story of the torturous methods of interrogation come to light. Interrogations were mostly scheduled for Friday nights or the eve of other important Jewish holidays. They were held at night for many long hours. Clearly, the intent was to break the person they were interrogating till he would provide them with the information they were looking for and sign a document that confirms his guilt.
These court proceedings were taking place in Kiev the capital of the Ukraine. When they saw that they were unable to break the indomitable spirit of the great rabbi and get the ‘admissions’ they were seeking, they proceeded to arrest the members of the Synagogue staff who worked closely with the rabbi back in Dnepropetrovsk.
The harsh tactics worked. Some of those close associates of the rabbi gave in to their captors and signed on incriminating statements that ‘admitted’ the ‘crimes’ of supporting Jews and Judaism that the communists were searching for.
Once those statements had been made, the interrogators brought the rabbi back from Kiev and brought him and his synagogue staff together for a joint interrogation. This was in an effort to have Rabbi Levi Yitschak ‘admit’ to and corroborate their charges once he realized that they had ‘admitted’ to ‘counterrevolutionary’ activities (i.e. Torah and Mitzvahs).
After that meeting there is a set of documents marked super-secret.
Those extra classified documents are the written and signed records of the synagogue staff revising their former admission as being false and made only under duress.
It would appear, that meeting their rabbi even while they were all hopelessly imprisoned, had the opposite effect than what the NKVD expected. It infused them with the inner fortitude needed to stand up for the truth.
Of course, the communist government wanted those documents reneging on their previous admission to be even more secret and locked away from unwanted scrutiny. If revealed, they would pull out the rug from under the central aspects of the prosecution’s case.
Now these documents and many other similar ones are out there in the open. The communist regime’s cruelty is well known. And we, humanity, need to learn the appropriate lessons of standing up for G-dly morality, respecting fellow human rights and freedoms.
As Jews, when we remember the life of someone who stood steadfast against all odds and gave his life for commitment to Hashem and His Torah, we are inspired us to deepen our own commitment to Hashem’s mitzvahs without yielding to the things that threaten to deter us.
Rabbi Levi Yitschak’s heroic example of steadfast and proud adherence to Judaism's ideals, serves as a shining beacon of inspiration for all of us today, and for all generations to come.
What grabbed me in a very powerful way is this detail about the ‘super-secret’ document.
Because I think that deep down, we all have that ‘super-secret’ part of our inner selves that has the tendency to remain hidden and undeveloped unless ‘prodded’.
We live our lives with a personal ‘truth’ that we adhere to. An outlook on life that defines how we make our life choices.
There is, however, a more essential and ‘truer’ truth that we have.
Our soul. The innermost part of our spiritual identity which is a ‘part of G-d’ and is perfectly aligned with G-d’s will.
Under the duress of peer pressure, societal norms and expectations, we profess ‘truths’ that are not G-d oriented. Just like the staff of the Rabbi Levi Yitschak.
In a moment of clarity, when our exterior is peeled away and we ‘meet’ G-d, the truth comes out.
As the aphorism goes ‘A Jew neither wants to sever his connection with G-d. Nor is he able to disconnect from G-d’.
Every Jew has his or her ‘red line’, which he will not cross even if he has to pay for it with his life.
This is the essential truth of a Jew.
The super-secret.
In our parsha this week of Eikev Moshe tells the Jewish people:
And now, Israel, even though you rebelled against God all those times, what does God, your God, demand of you? Only that you exercise your free choice to revere God, your God, to walk in all His ways
Moshe makes it sound easy. What is G-d already asking of you? nothing unattainable, simply to revere G-d and do what He wants.
Sounds challenging to me.
The Talmud indeed asks, ‘is revering G-d so simple a matter’? and the Talmud answers ‘yes, for Moshe it is quite a small matter’.
The Tanya asks, how did the Talmud answer the question? Moshe is speaking to the people and telling them that it’s easy for them.
The Tanya answers that there is a manifestation of Moshe’s soul in the soul of each and every Jew. In that deepest space of the soul, it is easy to revere G-d and make the right life choices.
One doesn’t have to create a new reality; it is just about declassifying the ‘super-secret’ dimension of your innate truth and revealing your true self.
Wouldn’t it be a shame if we lived our lives in ‘surface level peer pressure mode’ and only achieved true clarity moments before we leave the world?
Let us access our true ‘inner soul’ dimension and live our lives according to that truth.
Let me give a practical example.
You are in a remote location and it’s Yom Kippur.
Of course, a Jew fasts on Yom Kippur by default. Usually, he would be surrounded by fellow Jews in the Synagogue who are also fasting.
Now you are all alone, no one will ever know if you ate or not.
Perhaps you even have a headache. A little voice niggles at you ‘certainly G-d won’t mind if I take a dispensation just this one time’.
Dig a little deeper.
Your inner self knows that G-d is everywhere, and you truly care about your relationship with him.
Kivi Bernhard, whom I remember from Yeshiva days, is a sought-after public speaker, the author of Leopardology™ – The Hunt For Profit In Tough Global Economy. He was booked to speak at a small high-powered event which was being hosted by Microsoft. His agent accepted the speaking engagement but when Kivi looked at the calendar and saw that it was on Shabbat, he said he couldn’t accept the engagement. The Microsoft staff had already fixed the topic of the meeting and really wanted Kivi to be there. They figured it was solvable by money. They bypassed the agent and reached out to Kivi offering twice the usual fee. Kivi stood steadfast to his keeping of Shabbat and declined. In the end that part of the meeting was rescheduled, and he gave the talk on Sunday morning.
Later, a senior VP at Microsoft shared with Kivi that when he was with Bill Gates on a private jet, this event came up. The Microsoft executive mentioned the unusual experience and the phenomena of having to work with the speaker bureau to reschedule the start date of the meeting to accommodate “a Jew’s observance of the Sabbath,”
He said to me this made quite an impact on Mr Gates who remarked “there are some things that just cannot be bought with money… I guess the Sabbath is one of them.”
Listening to Hashem and His instructions for life as communicated in the Torah, allows one to align with their deepest core self.
It leads to a deeper sense of happiness. For the soul can only be truly happy when one lives according to the ‘super-true’ truth.
Living this way puts on the direct path to being truly wholesome and happy as G-d has in mind for us.
When we all live this way Mashiach is here.
May this be a reality NOW.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yosef Kantor