Today we count the 11th day of the Omer with “Netzach Shebe Gevura” (Endurance within Discipline).
Literally it means “NEVER GIVE UP!”
In remembrance of Yom HaShoah, which begins tonight the 27th of Nissan I want to tell you a story that can explain this combination of “Netzach Shebe Gevura.”
One day two older gentleman began to attend services at our Shabbat Minian. They didn’t speak to anyone and we found it odd that they walked twenty minutes to get to us, when they had services in their own building. Izzy and David loved to stay for kidush and when once asked why did they make the effort to come to us they answered with a spark in their eyes: “ we love to be amongst young people and children, in our building they are all old people.”
Once some community members traveled to Europe and visited “Teresienstad” in the city of Terezin in German-occupied Czechoslovakia. They mentioned the name of this concentration camp and how it had impacted them. At that moment, for the first time, David said:”the way you say it it’s not the right way, you say it like this …., and I know because I was there.” So he continued to tell us the horrors of his youth and how he had lost his father in the train. By this time everyone in the Shul couldn’t stop crying. Suddenly someone asked him:”how were you able to survive? How did you do it? How can you keep smiling and praying after that?” To which our dear David Z”L answered:”When I thought this was it, and I could not take it any more, I would say to myself ‘David, tomorrow will be a better day, this is how I did it. Day after day, year after year, this is how I did it!”
This lesson of tremendous resilience and faith has accompanied me since then.
My friends, as hard as it might seem, when it has gotten so dark that you can’t fathom anymore that there is a way out, remember this precious lesson:”tomorrow will be a better day.”
#neveragain#nevergiveup
#countingoftheomer
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