“The baser a person, the harder for him to distinguish hatred of evil
from hatred for people who do evil…
The exalted trait of people with lofty souls
is their ability to make this distinction.
Their hatred of evil
is trained solely on the evil itself…
and thus the light of loving kindness
illuminates their wisdom.”

(Orot HaKodesh 4:497)

Read this on GoodNewsNetwork.org

A new memorial center in Berlin pays tribute to the thousands of German who risked everything to save Jews from Nazi persecution and documents the years these “Silent Heroes” kept their Jewish guests hidden from the authorities.

The permanent museum exhibition shows the persecution and the desperate situation of Jews facing the threat of deportation, how some of them decided to resist the threat to their lives by going underground, as well as the actions and motivations of the men and women who helped them. It documents not only successes in saving Jews, but also attempts that failed.
Some 5,000 Jews in Germany were able to survive the war in hiding thanks to an unknown number of people who were involved in helping them. Research suggests that for each person in hiding, around 10 people were involved in aiding them. They found the courage to help as far as they could, despite the risk involved. Else Ackermann, a retired teacher, and her brother Hans, a former municipal civil servant, were two of these.

In 1942, at the age of 53, Johanna Putzrath was compelled to work as a forced laborer in a firm in Tempelhof in Berlin. She knew that Else Ackermann and her brother Hans, who were devout Protestants and adherents of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual philosophy, had offered help to another Jewish worker at the firm. When this woman was unexpectedly deported, Johanna Putzrath turned to the Ackermanns.  Without hesitating, Hans Ackermann took the unknown Jewish woman into his two-roomed apartment in Tempelhof. His sister Else, who lived in Steglitz, joined him in helping the refugee Johanna Putzrath.

At the end of January 1943 Hans Ackermann also gave shelter for over a month to a married couple, Ines and Max Krakauer, until they found other places to stay in southern Germany. Even when the Ackermanns’ apartments were destroyed by bombs in 1944, they moved, yet they continued hiding Johanna Putzrath. After almost two-and-a-half years, the three of them witnessed the end of the war together.

Johanna Putzrath emigrated to the USA and lived in New York until her death in 1975. Else Ackermann died in the 1940s in Berlin; her brother Hans died in 1959.

Visit the Memorial’s English website at www.gedenkstaette-stille-helden.de/english
Read more about the Memorial’s stories in the UK Guardian.

(photo: Johanna Putzrath (left) with Else Ackermann, who helped to save her, Berlin 1946)

(Source: Nava)
translated from http://www.bhol.co.il/forum/topic.asp?whichpage=1&topic_id=876666&forum_id=771

My friend and I were sitting at a restaurant and out of nowhere my childhood friend Yossie Admoni shows up. He joined our table and tells us the most incredible story that recently occurred…

Tal Admoni recently ended his army duty; he was a commanding officer in combat engineering. Tal is 9th generation Israeli from his mother’s side, the Slonim family. Tal’s grandfather is Yaakov Slonim, one of the very few people that survived the Hevron massacre in Israel August 1929.

A few weeks ago commanding officer Tal was stationed in Hevron. His duty was to check all the Arab Muslims before allowing them entrance into the city; including men, women, seniors, and children. The barricade was placed on the main central road and every day he and his troop would regularly check for potential Jihads.

One evening the most remarkable thing happened. There were a few people that looked suspicious and they did not have permission to pass the barricade till their ID was checked to authenticate they are not potential suicide bombers. The Arabs were sitting on the side waiting while the soldiers were surveying them. One of the detainees, a 30-year-old Arab, requested to speak with the commanding officer. They bring him over to Tal while watching his every move with 70 eyes. The Arab tells Tal, ‘I have a document I want to show you but the document is inside my taxi.’

Together with his soldiers, Tal walked over to the taxi with the Arab and when they reached the Taxi, the Arab takes out of his glove compartment a document and explains that this certificate belonged to his grandfather. Tal takes the documents and as he reads it, he sees a list of people, all written in Hebrew. While Tal was glancing at this document, the Arab tells him, ‘my grandfather was in Hevron during the massacre of 1929 and he saved his Jewish neighbors.’ Tal continued reading the document and behold, he sees his grandfather’s name on the list, Yaakov Slonim.

Tal was stunned and thrilled, when he spoke to his mother a few hours before she told him that her father, Yaakov Slonim, is very ill and might not live much longer. Everyone in the Admoni/Slonim family knew the famous story of how his grandfather Yaakov Slonim was hidden by an Arab neighbor during the 1929 Hevron massacre and thus, saved his life.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Tal gave the Arab taxi driver permission to go home, much to the dislike of the other detainees.

Less than 24 hours later, Yaakov Slonim, one of the few survivors of the 1929 Hevron massacre, passed away, zs’kl.

I am humbled by such courage…

A 23-year-old Dutch military policeman who refused to obey the orders of his superiors to arrest Jews in a Dutch village during WWII and then deserted the police force to join the resistance was awarded the State of Israel’s highest honor for non-Jews on Monday at Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.

Henk Drogt was one of 12 Dutch military policemen who refused orders to round up the remaining local Jews in Grootegast, Holland on March 9, 1943, in a rare case of open police resistance to the arrest and murder of Jews of Europe during WWII.

The policemen were pressured and threatened by their commanders with incarceration at a concentration camp themselves, but steadfastly refused to carry out the orders.

The group was subsequently arrested and taken to the Vught concentration camp in the Southern Netherlands, but Drogt managed to evade arrest.

Following his escape, Drogt deserted the police force and joined one of the Dutch resistance groups, where he took part in the smuggling of downed Allied pilots to the Belgian border as well as helping to keep Jews out of the hands of the Nazis.

In August 1943, Drogt, along with others in the resistance group, were betrayed, and they were all arrested. He was taken to prison and sentenced to death.

Drogt was killed on April 14, 1944, eight months after his arrest, at the age of 24.

A day before his execution, he was allowed to write a letter to his family and his pregnant girlfriend, whom he had been planning to marry.

“Dear all, I have to tell you the worst - today I and my friends got the death sentence,” he wrote.

“It is terrible that we have to part from all those who are so dear to us in this way… I always had hope that I could be with you for one more time, but the Lord wanted differently.”

After the war, Drogt was posthumously decorated by US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the Dutch Government for his actions in the resistance movement.

His 11 colleagues had been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem two decades ago, although Drogt’s name had previously been missing from the list of honorees submitted to Yad Vashem in the 1980s due to his initial escape from arrest.

Drogt’s story was uncovered anew with the help of an El Al pilot, Mark Bergman, who heard it from Drogt’s son, Henk Brink, on a visit to South Africa, where Brink lives, and contacted Yad Vashem with the story.

“It is a long-time dream for me to set foot on Israeli soil, and something which has become a reality on my 65th birthday,” Henk Brink recounted at the ceremony in the Garden of the Righteous at Yad Vashem, which coincided with his own birthday.

Brink, who was born a month after his father’s arrest by the Nazis and never got to meet him, broke down in tears as he spoke of a young man about to be married who paid “the highest price” for his values and courage to save people who were probably total strangers to him.

“Your decision to honor my father sends a strong signal to the world that Israel never forgets its friends,” he said.

More than 22,000 non-Jews have been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, including nearly 5,000 from Holland.

“At a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise again it is all the more important to draw attention to those who refused to stand by and look the other away, and took concrete action to save Jewish life,” Dutch Ambassador to Israel Michiel den Hond said at the ceremony.

“It is an inspiration to us all for the future,” he said.

Drogt, who never lived to see his son, is buried in Holland.

The entry in the official death books at the infamous Dutch prison states dryly: “Policeman, refused to arrest Jews.”

I spent Shabbat at my friend’s house.

So there I am, lying in my bed getting comfy and close to dozing off when my friend (we’ll call him Ploni) enters the room quietly and slips into his bed in the guest room that we are sharing.

Ploni had a long drive that day, so he fell asleep within a couple of minutes.

I could tell he was asleep because there was a sudden explosion from his side of the room that sounded like a tank engine stalling.  I’ve never heard such snoring in my life!  It was actually startling at first.

My previous experience with snorers is that:

A) It’s not their fault
B) They can’t control the snoring
C) Even if you nudge them or tell them to turn over, the snoring comes back relatively quickly

So instead of pushing, tapping, nudging, shoving, kicking, or calling my friend to stop snoring, I simply rolled up my sheets, blanket, and pillow and went downstairs to sleep on the couch.

The next morning, Hashem choreographed things in such a way that Ploni had no idea I had left the room, and thus was not embarrassed by my leaving due to his snoring.

That afternoon, I went back to the same couch to do some Torah study while everyone else remained at the dining room table discussing politics.  It was difficult for me to leave the dining room conversation because we had a staunch Democrat with a huge brain and a staunch Republican who works in Washington.  Yet I needed to read the parsha.

So I’m sitting there studying Torah when the hostess walks in to have a nap in the room in which I was studying. Despite the hostess’s manners in not interrupting my learning, I kept losing focus because I could still hear the fascinating political discussion taking place in the dining room.

Every time I started getting focused on what I was reading, I would be drawn back into their political debate.  And I thought, “Hashem!  I pulled myself out of the political conversation so that I could learn Your Torah.  But even here on the couch I can’t seem to focus.”

That’s when the hostess started snoring.

Except that this time instead of getting up and leaving, I smiled and started chuckling at G-d’s kindness.

You see, now I was being given white noise that drowned out the political debate in the other room, but was gentle and quiet enough to let me study!

And THEN I realized that not only was Hashem doing me a kindness by giving me white noise to help me study, Hashem was teaching me a lesson in emunah (trust in Hashem)!

The lesson, I think, is that just as the hostess’ snoring was a gift for my benefit in the afternoon, so too was my friend Ploni’s snoring a gift for my benefit the night before - even though at first glance I may have been slightly frustrated that I had to sleep on the couch.  So retroactively, Hashem taught me to have more emunah next time something doesn’t go as planned.

Usually we hear stories of a person who was late to work on September 11th, and thus spared the terrorist attack, or other such miraculous stories of Divine Providence.

Yet, I think it crucial to recognize that Hashem is guiding our life every moment!  Not just in times of trauma and great peril.

And furthermore, if we put in our effort (like pulling out of the political debate in order to study Torah) then Hashem is right there to assist us along the way.

This story had me laughing and crying, and sometimes at the same time. It’s about an hour - well worth the time!

We Are Never Alone: The Unbelievable Story of a Child’s Birth

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Dear Friends,

According to Jewish tradition, a human being who fulfills the teachings and
precepts of the universal moral code of the Torah has achieved a very high
spiritual level, and Maimonides writes: “Anyone who accepts upon himself the
fulfillment of these Seven Mitzvos (The Seven Precepts of the Children of
Noah) and is precise in their observance is considered one of the ‘chassidei
umos ha’olam’ - the righteous among the nations - and will merit a share in
the World to Come” ( The Laws of Kings 8:11). Maimonides adds that humanity
must also recognize that the Seven Mitzvos were reaffirmed with the giving
of the Torah at Mount Sinai.

The Talmud teaches that a Gentile who studies the Torah in order to
understand and fulfill this universal path “is like a Kohen Gadol - a High
Priest” (Sanhedrin 59a). The noted commentator on the Talmud, known as “the
Meiri,” explains that the Talmud is calling on us to honor such a person as
we would honor a Kohen Gadol. In this spirit, we find the following teaching
regarding a Gentile who is diligent in his fulfillment of the laws and
principles of the Seven Mitzvos: “Honor him more than you would a Jew who is
not involved in the study of Torah” (Sefer Chassidim, 358).

The Meiri, in his commentary cited above, adds that most of the principles
of the Torah are contained within the Seven Mitzvos. The Meiri does (more…)

Hashem is your keeper; Hashem is your shadow upon your right hand. (Psalms 121: 5)

Hashem acts with us midah kneged midah - measure for measure. Like the shadow of your hand, which follows the movements of your hand perfectly. When we are kind, Hashem does us kindness. When we act strictly, and harshly with others…r”l.

This can be observed in great matters, and in small matters. I have a small matter to share:

The other day we had a repairman working on our house around 10:00pm. He worked really hard, and still had another home to work on before he could go back to his home for the night.

So before the repairman left, I made him some pizza on challah bread and gave him a slice of watermelon. He was very grateful.

I was happy to do a chesed (a kindness), which is it’s own reward.

But the next day, a family from our synagogue baked us a homemade pizza from scratch! (because my dad was in an accident, so they wanted to do a chesed for us)

Hashem tzilcha al yad yeminecha - Hashem is your shadow of your right hand.

Here’s a mind-blowing story about Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen that blows reciprocal pizza dinners out of the water:

We Are Never Alone (stream)
We Are Never Alone (download)

This week’s parsha is parshat “Balak.”

The evil prophet¹ Balaam is summoned by Balak to curse the Jews.

Against Hashem’s desire, Balaam saddles his she-donkey and journeys to the land of Moav to curse the Jews. Hashem sends an angel to impede Balaam’s way.

If we pay attention to the order in which things happen here, we can get a sense of the infinite love Hashem has for all of His creations - even donkeys.

1. Hashem sends an angel with a sword (i.e. ready to kill them), but only reveals the angel to the donkey; Balaam doesn’t see the angel.

2. The donkey moves out of the angels way - Balaam strikes the donkey - the angel closes in.

3. The donkey moves out of the angels way again - Balaam strikes the donkey a second time - the angel closes in further.

4. The donkey moves out of the angels way once again, but is now cornered - Balaam strikes the donkey a third time - the angel closes in further.

5. Hashem causes the she-donkey to speak to Balaam, and the donkey says:
“What have I done to you that you have struck me these three times?”

Balaam answers her:
“For you have mocked me. If only I had a sword in my hand, I would right now kill you.”

The she-donkey:
“Am I not the she-donkey that you have rode upon me from your youth until this day? Have I been accustomed to do such to you (i.e. to mock him)?

Balaam:
“No.”

And only now - after Balaam admits to the she-donkey that she did nothing wrong, does Hashem reveal the angel. And furthermore, the rest of the story revolves around Hashem defending the donkey before Balaam, the self-centered.

6. Hashem reveals the angel to Balaam, at which point Balaam becomes terrified and bows down on his face.

7. The angel of Hashem says to him, why have you struck your she-donkey these three times? Behold, I have come to impede your way because you have journeyed (to curse the Jews) against Me.

8. And the donkey saw me and moved out of my way these three times. Unless she had turned aside from me, surely now I would have slain you and saved her!

9. Balaam finally repents, and only afterwards does Hashem commences with instructions for Balaam’s journey.

Hashem cares for the well being (and apparently the honor and respect) of all of His creations. Clearly, mankind who is made btzelem elokim - in G-d’s image - is paramount, which is why we use animals for food, medicine, clothing, or sacrifices.

But nonetheless, Hashem loves all of his creatures, for they are His creations. Therefore, we should act as Hashem does in whatever way is appropriate to each of us on our own situations.

Shabbat Shalom.

A friend of mine once gave me a bumper sticker that says:

At the time I saw it as an inspirational message. But the more I thought about it, the more this bumper sticker caused questions in my mind.

I found a response to “random acts of kindness” that expresses my thoughts exactly (source: Aish.com)

For what our society needs more of is not random kindness, but sustained and dependable kindness…Of course a random kindness is better than no kindness at all. But it is the ethical equivalent of sitting down at the piano to bang out “Chopsticks”: quick, easy, and not very serious.

Not only does human society require “sustained and dependable” kindness - as the next step after random kindness - but an individual person who wishes to grow spiritually cannot grow from doing random kindness alone. You can’t grow a house plant if you water it at random intervals - it just won’t grow.

However, for the individual who wishes to grow spiritually - to refine his or her character - there is value in doing random acts of kindness if you do them often. That is to say regularly.

How so?

The great sage, Rabbi Moses Maimonides, answers the age old question:

Is it better to give $1,000 in charity to one person or $1 in charity to 1,000 different people?

He answers (in my own words):
Better to give $1 to one thousand people; for after giving charity 1,000 times, a person is completely transformed.

My own experience in performing random acts of kindness, is that they can lead a person to make kindness a habitual part of his life. And that is the ultimate goal.

I would just note that the Creator has a greater “record” of sustained and dependable kindness compared to His “record” of R.A.K.

Think about it.

1. Designate time at an Old Folks Home
2. Do regular Neighborhood Cleanup
3. Volunteer as a Neighborhood Guardian
4. Volunteer as a Big Brother/Sister
5. Teach Skills for People returning to the Job Market
6. Visit/Call your grandparents every week

1. Leave a Thank You note for the mailman in your mailbox
2. Offer free hugs
   
3. Add money to someone’s parking meter
4. Leave a tip for the flight attendant(s) in the seat-pocket
5. Cut flowers from your garden and leave them in a “Free Flowers” bucket out front
6. After purchasing your groceries, place the coupons from your grocery receipts into the grocery carts on the wait out

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