KabbalaOnline.org "Tipping the Scales of Justice" Story #1308
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From the desk of Yerachmiel Tilles< editor@ascentofsafed.com>
Story #1308 (5783-15) 9 Tevet 5783 (Jan. 2, 2023)
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TIPPING
THE SCALES OF JUSTICE
The phone rang in Ben Meed’s office;
Ben picked up the receiver. A restrained, sorrowful voice asked to speak to the
president of WAGRO (Warsaw Ghetto Resistance Organization). “Speaking,”
responded Mr. Meed.
The gentleman’s voice continued: “My
father, Mr. Abraham Bachner, asked me to call you. The name won’t mean anything
to you; you didn’t know him. My father just passed away. During one of my last
visits to the hospital, he requested of me that when his time came you would
attend his funeral.
“You see, Mr. Meed, my father
attended all the annual Warsaw ghetto memorial services, the ones that your
organization sponsors. It was his wish that you attend his memorial service. My
father was a Holocaust survivor.” He gave Meed the place and time of the funeral.
Just as Ben Meed entered the funeral
chapel, he met Rabbi Fabian Schonfeld of Young Israel of Kew Garden Hills, who
addressed him, “I didn’t know you knew the deceased,”
“I didn’t,” answered Meed, and told
Rabbi Schonfeld about the telephone conversation with Bachner’s son. The rabbi
responded, “Ben, I am really grateful that you came. You don’t know how
meaningful it is to all of us who knew Abraham.”
The casket was brought in, covered in
black with a Hebrew inscription saying “He makes death to vanish in life
eternal.” Rabbi Schonfeld began to officiate.
“As you know, it is prohibited,
according to Halacha (law), to deliver a eulogy on a holiday and we are
in the midst of Hanukah. Instead, I will share with you a conversation I had
with Abraham Bachner during one of my visits to the hospital.
“‘Rabbi,’ he said to me, ‘I have been
a member of your congregation for the past thirty years. I tried to be an
honest, observant Jew. I attended services regularly on Shabbat and weekdays,
no matter what the weather. I know that my time is up and I will soon be
summoned before the heavenly court. I want to be buried not in tachrichim
(white burial garment), as required by Jewish law, but rather in my
concentration-camp uniform, the one I wore in Auschwitz, the one in which I was
liberated.’
“I could not understand his strange
request and asked for an explanation. Abe said to me, ‘You see, Rabbi, when I
reach the seat of justice on high, the heavenly prosecutors probably will have
a list of grievances against me upon which they will base my guilty verdict.
“‘But, when they place my
transgressions on one side of the scales of the heavenly court, I will place on
the other side my concentration-camp uniform. The hunger, the fear, the
humiliation I suffered each minute for years while I was a katzernik
(inmate) will surely tip the scales of justice in my favor. I hope, Rabbi, that
you understand. I must be buried in my uniform. It is my defense case, my melitz
yosher (righteous intercessor).’”
At the conclusion of the services, as
the casket was being taken out of the chapel, Ben Meed walked over to Rabbi
Schonfeld and asked him, “And what was your decision, Rabbi?” “The
concentration-camp uniform is there with him, in the coffin,” responded Rabbi
Schonfeld.
When the thirty-seventh commemoration
of the uprising of the Ghetto Warsaw took place on May 3, 1981, Ben Meed told
the story of about Abraham Bachner’s last request.
“In this gathering, here on earth,
there was no doubt that the scales tipped in favor of Abraham Bachner when he
stood before the heavenly court. For there is nothing more holy in this world
than a broken Jewish heart in a concentration-camp uniform.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Source : Adapted by Yerachmiel Tilles from “Hasidic
Tales of the Holocaust” by Yaffa Eliach, Based on the story Ben Meed told
her on April 3, 1981, and also on a letter by Rabbi Fabian Schonfeld in
“Martyrdom and Resistance,” March-April 1981, p. 8.
Connection: The Fast of the Tenth of Tevet (this year: Jan.
3), in addition to commemorating the start of the siege of Jerusalem which culminated in the destruction of the Temples
on Tisha b’Av, has also become the day on which Kaddish is
recited for all those whose death day is unknown.
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