Weekly Story/Comic
Pekudei:
We have presented a Shpy from a Purim Moshiach Times:
We have presented a Shpy from a Purim Moshiach Times:
A Shpy always thinks before he speaks and before he eats.He thinks, “Is this food kosher?” Then he says the right blessing, and then he eats!
That reminds me of the time that Feivel and I were preparing our mishloach manos baskets, special gifts of food that we send to people on Purim.
“Y’know what I want to get on Purim, Shpy?“ said Feivel, “I want peanut butter lollipops (the all day size of course), and caramel soaked bubble gum, and honeydipped brownies and...”
“Hold it! Hold it!” I interrupted.
“Hold what, Shpy?” Feivel replied.“What do you want me to hold.”
“I want you to hold your tongue.”
“Thure Thpy,” Feivel said, holding his tongue.
“Good.Now listen, one of the Mitzvos of Purim is giving two kinds of food to shomeone else, not getting. In fact, giving the food is all the fun!”
“It itthh?” Feivel said.
“Sure.There’s a new Purim candy store that just opened on the block. Let’s go there and shtock up on Purim treats, sho we’ll have plenty to shend to friends.”
“Great Shpy, let’s go.”
Fashter than you could shing,“Oh once there was a wicked wicked man, and Haman was his name, shir,” Feivel and I walked over to the new candy shtore.Over the front door was a shign that shaid,
Candy Heaven.
Sweets that you’ll be mad about!
As we entered the shtore, the sugary shmell of candy and chocolate made our mouths water.They had every kind of candy you can imagine. Shoft candy with hard centers. Hard candy with shoft centers. Candy that melts in your mouth, not on your hands. Candy that melts on your hands, not in your mouth. Chocolates, caramels, mint, butterscotch, fruit leathers, za-za shnaps, the works.
“Wow!” Feivel said.“This is a terrific store, Shpy.”
“Right, Feivel. But we have to be careful. Remember the whole problem began for the Jews in Purim when they went to the Feast of King Achashveirosh and ate food that wasn’t kosher.”
“This looks kosher, Shpy,” Feivel said.“It’s got a kosher label. See it says here,‘O-My Kosher.’”
“Hmmm,” I hmmmmed. I never heard of this company. O-My?” I took a candy and looked at it closely.“I’ll have to ask Agent 613 about this, Feivel.We wouldn’t want to shend a gift to anyone that wasn’t 100% okay.”
“Exactly,” Feivel replied.
“After all, Purim is a happy time.When you send gifts to people, it makes them happy and that makes you happy!”
Suddenly,we heard a loud sound, and it wasn’t a happy one! Two people were shouting at each other. “I told you I want the green candy there on the second shelf!” a lady said to her husband.“Why did you give me this red one?”
“They all look green to me!” the husband said.
“Are you color blind!” the woman snapped angry.“I’m color blind?” he shot back. “And what about the ties that you picked out for me!”
“Madam, sir.” the store manager interrupted. “You’re disturbing the other customers. Please control yourselves, or step outside.” The couple put their box of chocolates down and marched out of the store, leaving two half eaten pieces of candy on a table.
Quickly, I shlipped them into my pocket, sho that I could examine them in the Tzivos Hashem laboratory.
Suddenly,we heard a child crying loudly.“MAAAAAAAA! WHAAAAA!”
“What’s wrong?” I asked the child’s mother.
“I don’t know,” his mother answered.“He just tasted a piece of candy and all of a sudden he began yelling and crying, like he was upset. “WHAHAAAAA! MAAAAA!”
“Excuse me.” It was the store manager.“We ask customers not to eat any candy until Purim. I’m sure your child had some and he wants more. Please take him out of the store until he calms down.”
“Feivel, I’ve seen enough.” I said.
“But we didn’t even buy anything yet,” Feivel exclaimed.
“And I don’t think we’re going to,” I answered.“Let’s get out of here.We’ve got to get back to the…”
“Can I help you?” the store manager asked.
“Sure!” Feivel interrupted.“I want some gummy chews and some chocolate covered pistachio nuts, and some...”
“Feivel!” I whispered.“Let’s go!”
“You’re not going anywhere, Shpy!”
Feivel and I turned around. We knew that voice.
From out of the back room came Igor, growling and scowling.“The YH!” we both yelled at the same time.
“Jinx,” the YH said.
“I should have known that you were behind this, YH,” I shaid.
“How right you are! Only I could have invented a candy that makes people get angry and fight! HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAH! It’s guaranteed to ruin Purim for everyone, men, women, and children like!”
“You’ll never get away with this!” Feivel yelled.
“I already have!” the YH replied.“I’m producing candy and putting it on the shelves. And you can’t stop me because all my ingredients are 100% kosher, with the O-MY Seal of Approval. HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!” Then, turning to the back of the room, he yelled,“Igor! Get rid of our guests!”
From out of the back room, Igor came, growling and scowling. “Yes, boss!” he answered. Igor was huge-- at least seven feet, eleventeen inches tall.
“Sh-Shpy,” Feivel shivered,“I-I-I-I’m scared!”
“Me too, Feivel!” I shaid.
“D-did you bring your attaché case, Shpy? Feivel asked.
“No, Feivel. But don’t be afraid.We learned in Shpy Shchool not to be shcared of anyone or anything except Hashem.”
“I know, Shpy. ‘In the beginning Hashem created the Heavens and the earth -- Beraishis Bara Elokim eis HaShomayim v’eis Ha-aretz.’”
“You can shay that again, Feivel,” I shaid.
Meanwhile Igor came closer and closer. Just as he was about to crush us like two potato chips, I remembered the candy I had in my pocket, and threw it into his BIG mouth, which was WIDE open! As he tasted the candy his eyes lit up with pleasure! Then shuddenly he began to get angry! Very angry!
“Boss!” he yelled. “How come I always get stuck doing your dirty work? I’m tired of this, you know!”
“Igor! I order you…”the YH ordered.
“You order me? Why, I can tear this place apart in one second! And that’s what I’m going to do!”
And Igor began throwing chairs and tables around the room and ripping shelves off the walls. CRASH! BANG! Panic-stricken, the YH ran out of the store into the back room where all the candy was being made.We chased after him.“There he is,” Feivel cried, pointing to theYH running on a metal walkway above vats of whirring, stirring chocolate! “Shpy! He’s getting away! Do something!” Feivel shouted.
I took the other piece of candy from my pocket and threw it just in front of him. Shuddenly he shlipped and fell,splooooooshhhh, right into the vat of chocolate!
He must have been too sour to mix with the chocolate because it shpit him out with a giant PITOOOOIEY that shent him flying through the roof!
Meanwhile, Igor had totally destroyed Candy Heaven and all its contents.
Like I always shay,“You don’t need candy to have the shweetest holiday!”
That reminds me of the time that Feivel and I were preparing our mishloach manos baskets, special gifts of food that we send to people on Purim.
“Y’know what I want to get on Purim, Shpy?“ said Feivel, “I want peanut butter lollipops (the all day size of course), and caramel soaked bubble gum, and honeydipped brownies and...”
“Hold it! Hold it!” I interrupted.
“Hold what, Shpy?” Feivel replied.“What do you want me to hold.”
“I want you to hold your tongue.”
“Thure Thpy,” Feivel said, holding his tongue.
“Good.Now listen, one of the Mitzvos of Purim is giving two kinds of food to shomeone else, not getting. In fact, giving the food is all the fun!”
“It itthh?” Feivel said.
“Sure.There’s a new Purim candy store that just opened on the block. Let’s go there and shtock up on Purim treats, sho we’ll have plenty to shend to friends.”
“Great Shpy, let’s go.”
Fashter than you could shing,“Oh once there was a wicked wicked man, and Haman was his name, shir,” Feivel and I walked over to the new candy shtore.Over the front door was a shign that shaid,
Candy Heaven.
Sweets that you’ll be mad about!
As we entered the shtore, the sugary shmell of candy and chocolate made our mouths water.They had every kind of candy you can imagine. Shoft candy with hard centers. Hard candy with shoft centers. Candy that melts in your mouth, not on your hands. Candy that melts on your hands, not in your mouth. Chocolates, caramels, mint, butterscotch, fruit leathers, za-za shnaps, the works.
“Wow!” Feivel said.“This is a terrific store, Shpy.”
“Right, Feivel. But we have to be careful. Remember the whole problem began for the Jews in Purim when they went to the Feast of King Achashveirosh and ate food that wasn’t kosher.”
“This looks kosher, Shpy,” Feivel said.“It’s got a kosher label. See it says here,‘O-My Kosher.’”
“Hmmm,” I hmmmmed. I never heard of this company. O-My?” I took a candy and looked at it closely.“I’ll have to ask Agent 613 about this, Feivel.We wouldn’t want to shend a gift to anyone that wasn’t 100% okay.”
“Exactly,” Feivel replied.
“After all, Purim is a happy time.When you send gifts to people, it makes them happy and that makes you happy!”
Suddenly,we heard a loud sound, and it wasn’t a happy one! Two people were shouting at each other. “I told you I want the green candy there on the second shelf!” a lady said to her husband.“Why did you give me this red one?”
“They all look green to me!” the husband said.
“Are you color blind!” the woman snapped angry.“I’m color blind?” he shot back. “And what about the ties that you picked out for me!”
“Madam, sir.” the store manager interrupted. “You’re disturbing the other customers. Please control yourselves, or step outside.” The couple put their box of chocolates down and marched out of the store, leaving two half eaten pieces of candy on a table.
Quickly, I shlipped them into my pocket, sho that I could examine them in the Tzivos Hashem laboratory.
Suddenly,we heard a child crying loudly.“MAAAAAAAA! WHAAAAA!”
“What’s wrong?” I asked the child’s mother.
“I don’t know,” his mother answered.“He just tasted a piece of candy and all of a sudden he began yelling and crying, like he was upset. “WHAHAAAAA! MAAAAA!”
“Excuse me.” It was the store manager.“We ask customers not to eat any candy until Purim. I’m sure your child had some and he wants more. Please take him out of the store until he calms down.”
“Feivel, I’ve seen enough.” I said.
“But we didn’t even buy anything yet,” Feivel exclaimed.
“And I don’t think we’re going to,” I answered.“Let’s get out of here.We’ve got to get back to the…”
“Can I help you?” the store manager asked.
“Sure!” Feivel interrupted.“I want some gummy chews and some chocolate covered pistachio nuts, and some...”
“Feivel!” I whispered.“Let’s go!”
“You’re not going anywhere, Shpy!”
Feivel and I turned around. We knew that voice.
From out of the back room came Igor, growling and scowling.“The YH!” we both yelled at the same time.
“Jinx,” the YH said.
“I should have known that you were behind this, YH,” I shaid.
“How right you are! Only I could have invented a candy that makes people get angry and fight! HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAH! It’s guaranteed to ruin Purim for everyone, men, women, and children like!”
“You’ll never get away with this!” Feivel yelled.
“I already have!” the YH replied.“I’m producing candy and putting it on the shelves. And you can’t stop me because all my ingredients are 100% kosher, with the O-MY Seal of Approval. HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!” Then, turning to the back of the room, he yelled,“Igor! Get rid of our guests!”
From out of the back room, Igor came, growling and scowling. “Yes, boss!” he answered. Igor was huge-- at least seven feet, eleventeen inches tall.
“Sh-Shpy,” Feivel shivered,“I-I-I-I’m scared!”
“Me too, Feivel!” I shaid.
“D-did you bring your attaché case, Shpy? Feivel asked.
“No, Feivel. But don’t be afraid.We learned in Shpy Shchool not to be shcared of anyone or anything except Hashem.”
“I know, Shpy. ‘In the beginning Hashem created the Heavens and the earth -- Beraishis Bara Elokim eis HaShomayim v’eis Ha-aretz.’”
“You can shay that again, Feivel,” I shaid.
Meanwhile Igor came closer and closer. Just as he was about to crush us like two potato chips, I remembered the candy I had in my pocket, and threw it into his BIG mouth, which was WIDE open! As he tasted the candy his eyes lit up with pleasure! Then shuddenly he began to get angry! Very angry!
“Boss!” he yelled. “How come I always get stuck doing your dirty work? I’m tired of this, you know!”
“Igor! I order you…”the YH ordered.
“You order me? Why, I can tear this place apart in one second! And that’s what I’m going to do!”
And Igor began throwing chairs and tables around the room and ripping shelves off the walls. CRASH! BANG! Panic-stricken, the YH ran out of the store into the back room where all the candy was being made.We chased after him.“There he is,” Feivel cried, pointing to theYH running on a metal walkway above vats of whirring, stirring chocolate! “Shpy! He’s getting away! Do something!” Feivel shouted.
I took the other piece of candy from my pocket and threw it just in front of him. Shuddenly he shlipped and fell,splooooooshhhh, right into the vat of chocolate!
He must have been too sour to mix with the chocolate because it shpit him out with a giant PITOOOOIEY that shent him flying through the roof!
Meanwhile, Igor had totally destroyed Candy Heaven and all its contents.
Like I always shay,“You don’t need candy to have the shweetest holiday!”
In honor of Purim Koton, we have a Purim story:
One Purim many, many years ago, in a little town in Russia, everyone was very worried. Instead of looking forward to the gaiety of Purim, they were afraid that their entire Jewish community would be destroyed. It almost seemed like the times of the first Purim--that's how great the danger was.The son of the Czar had gone hunting in the woods with a group of friends. They had lost their way and by chance arrived in this little village.
All the people were excited to have this distinguished visitor in their midst. They gave him the finest room in the local inn, the finest food, and delicious cakes. The next day, the prince suddenly became sick and was not able to return home. Messengers were sent to the Czar to report the bad news. In a very short time, the Czar and several ministers arrived in the village.
They had brought several doctors with them who immediately began to examine the prince. Each one tried to cure him, but none was successful. The prince was moaning in pain. His face was flushed, and he was burning with fever. Most of the time he slept. He refused all food and drink. His very life was in danger. And then one of the ministers said that it was the fault of the Jews that the prince was sick, because they gave him bad food.
This was of course ridiculous and untrue, but everyone was so worried about the sickness of the prince that they believed him. Unfortunately, many times in history, when there was any kind of trouble, evil men placed the blame on innocent Jews.
And so the Jews of this village were very frightened, for they knew that their lives were in danger.
On the day before Purim, two notices were put on trees. They said that if the prince did not recover by the end of the next day, all the Jews in the village would be held responsible. Also, since the prince was very weak, everyone had to be very quiet.
But the Megillah had to be read. The Jews gathered silently in the little Shul on the main street, right near the inn where the prince lay gravely ill. Everyone in Shul was told to sit absolutely still, for the Rabbi would read in a soft, low voice. The children had been told to leave their graggers home, for the notice had requested silence. The fathers looked very serious and sad. The mothers in the women's section were crying. There was no feeling of Purim in the air, that's for sure.
Suddenly, there was an awful noise. The name of Homon had been read, and little Yaakov was swinging his gragger with all his might. Happily, with a big smile on his face, he was swinging that gragger.
Everyone became very frightened. The Rabbi continued reading. People were shaking their heads. They made signs to Yaakov that he must be quiet. One man wanted to take the gragger away from him, but Yaakov would not even let him touch it. Everyone was afraid that Yaakov would scream and make a lot of noise if forced to give up his gragger. So he was allowed to keep it. No one could tell him to stop using the gragger, for during the reading of the Megillah it is forbidden to speak. They were hoping that Yaakov would understand and put the gragger away.
The windows to the prince's room were open to let in some fresh air. Gathered around his bed were the ministers, the doctors and the Czar. There was total silence in the room. The prince was pale and weak. He had no strength left. His eyes were closed and he seemed not even to be breathing.
What was that? Who dared to break the rule of silence? All the people in the room ran to the window to see who the guilty one was. The next moment they jumped in fright, for they heard a voice behind them asking for some water.
There was the prince, sitting up in bed, wide awake. "What a jolly noise I hear! What is it? Please bring me some water. I have never been so thirsty in my whole life. Hurry, please. I feel so dry." The noise of the gragger had awakened the prince.
In a few days he was well, and the whole company returned in peace to the palace. The Jews in the town were saved, and they had the happiest Purim day you could ever imagine.
Yaakov was the hero of the day. People hugged him and kissed him. They gave him so much nosh that he had enough to eat till Pesach.
All the people were excited to have this distinguished visitor in their midst. They gave him the finest room in the local inn, the finest food, and delicious cakes. The next day, the prince suddenly became sick and was not able to return home. Messengers were sent to the Czar to report the bad news. In a very short time, the Czar and several ministers arrived in the village.
They had brought several doctors with them who immediately began to examine the prince. Each one tried to cure him, but none was successful. The prince was moaning in pain. His face was flushed, and he was burning with fever. Most of the time he slept. He refused all food and drink. His very life was in danger. And then one of the ministers said that it was the fault of the Jews that the prince was sick, because they gave him bad food.
This was of course ridiculous and untrue, but everyone was so worried about the sickness of the prince that they believed him. Unfortunately, many times in history, when there was any kind of trouble, evil men placed the blame on innocent Jews.
And so the Jews of this village were very frightened, for they knew that their lives were in danger.
On the day before Purim, two notices were put on trees. They said that if the prince did not recover by the end of the next day, all the Jews in the village would be held responsible. Also, since the prince was very weak, everyone had to be very quiet.
But the Megillah had to be read. The Jews gathered silently in the little Shul on the main street, right near the inn where the prince lay gravely ill. Everyone in Shul was told to sit absolutely still, for the Rabbi would read in a soft, low voice. The children had been told to leave their graggers home, for the notice had requested silence. The fathers looked very serious and sad. The mothers in the women's section were crying. There was no feeling of Purim in the air, that's for sure.
Suddenly, there was an awful noise. The name of Homon had been read, and little Yaakov was swinging his gragger with all his might. Happily, with a big smile on his face, he was swinging that gragger.
Everyone became very frightened. The Rabbi continued reading. People were shaking their heads. They made signs to Yaakov that he must be quiet. One man wanted to take the gragger away from him, but Yaakov would not even let him touch it. Everyone was afraid that Yaakov would scream and make a lot of noise if forced to give up his gragger. So he was allowed to keep it. No one could tell him to stop using the gragger, for during the reading of the Megillah it is forbidden to speak. They were hoping that Yaakov would understand and put the gragger away.
The windows to the prince's room were open to let in some fresh air. Gathered around his bed were the ministers, the doctors and the Czar. There was total silence in the room. The prince was pale and weak. He had no strength left. His eyes were closed and he seemed not even to be breathing.
What was that? Who dared to break the rule of silence? All the people in the room ran to the window to see who the guilty one was. The next moment they jumped in fright, for they heard a voice behind them asking for some water.
There was the prince, sitting up in bed, wide awake. "What a jolly noise I hear! What is it? Please bring me some water. I have never been so thirsty in my whole life. Hurry, please. I feel so dry." The noise of the gragger had awakened the prince.
In a few days he was well, and the whole company returned in peace to the palace. The Jews in the town were saved, and they had the happiest Purim day you could ever imagine.
Yaakov was the hero of the day. People hugged him and kissed him. They gave him so much nosh that he had enough to eat till Pesach.
When Chanan was five years old, his father, the famous Dr. Yitzchak Greenberg, outstanding lawyer in Lodz, and the son of the equally famous Rabbi Aaron Greenberg, had given him his first violin on the same day that he started to learn Chumash. To his father’s joy Chanan proved equally capable in his Hebrew studies and in his music. In fact, his skill on the violin was so amazing, that his father bought him a very precious instrument, the masterpiece of a famous Italian violinmaker of Cremona.
But Dr. Greenberg’s joys over his son’s progress both in his Jewish and his musical studies were short-lived. When Chanan was little more than ten years old the Nazis invaded Poland. Jealous colleagues made sure that the Jewish lawyer was one of the first to be imprisoned. He died as a martyr for his faith. Chanan and his mother were able to hide in the city of Lodz until a year later, when the Germans began an intensive hunt for all Jews. One dark night Mrs. Greenberg and her son set out to escape the terror and hunger. They lost almost everything they owned. But when they reached Warsaw, Chanan still clutched his dark brown violin to his side. One icy morning its box had been sacrificed to keep them from freezing. But the worse the situation, the sweeter were the songs that flowed from the violin’s unprotected strings. They provided comfort in moments of utter hopelessness and despair.
The Warsaw Ghetto was crowded beyond capacity, and the situation became worse every day. Hunger, sickness and terror struck at the frightened Jews in the trap from which they could never escape alive. Chanan and his mother lived with the father of Dr. Greenberg in the one room that the old rabbi’s followers had secured for him. The old man seemed to be able to go without food. For, whatever his chasidim brought him, he gave to his daughter-in-law and grandson. Yet despite all his care, Chanan’s mother was unable to stand the strain. One night the old Rabbi shook his grandson from his restless sleep. “Wake up, Chanan, take your violin and play for your mother. That will make it easier for her to die.” Chanan had hardly touched his violin during the months of misery in the Ghetto. But he understood his grandfather’s and his mother’s wish. His music was the only thing of beauty in their present situation. While the old Rabbi said Tehillim, Chanan stood by his dying mother and played as he had never played before. His young, desperate soul burst forth into a song of faith that beautified the last minutes of many hundreds of Jews who subsequently died with the words of “Ani Maamin” (“I believe”), on their lips and in their hearts. While the strains of the sad melody rang through the silence of the Ghetto on that terror-stricken night, Chanan’s mother returned her soul to G-d, to carry the message of the Ghetto inmates’ boundless faith before His holy throne.
Chanan was an orphan. For a whole year he did not touch his violin, though it never left his side. When he did not study with his grandfather, he stared at the silent strings, and his soft, young hands followed the graceful pattern of the wood tenderly and with a love that was beyond his understanding.
The Battle of the Ghetto had begun, and the air of the walled-in trap suddenly changed from fright and gloom to inspiration and courage. One day at dawn, when the Ghetto inmates were getting ready to march to their death, the old Rabbi told Chanan: “Now is not the time for mourning, my child. Take your violin and play for the Jews who go to die for the glory of G-d and His people. I am too old to fight. But you are not too young to help them with the inspiration of your music.”
Chanan took the bow and the violin and left the house. He would rather have taken a gun like many of his comrades. But he, too, realized that he had something better to give than other boys and girls.
And indeed, to the men and women who walked into the fray knowing that they would not return, Chanan’s music was like medicine. Their heavy hearts grew light with the strains of the violin, and the sounds of the Song of Faith, as Chanan fell in with them and accompanied them to the scene of their hopeless battle. Frequently, the young boy came close to the actual scene of the fighting and bullets spattered past him and his precious violin. Yet, as if charmed, he walked through the hail of death unscathed and unconcerned, living only for those who went to die. The Jews of the Ghetto began to consider him their talisman. As long as his music sounded, they fought back, tooth and nail, against an enemy who was a thousand times their superiors in number, training and equipment. The Germans caught an occasional glimpse of the boy with the violin from afar, and his melodies haunted them in their sleep. They began to fear him as a bad omen, and a special reward was put out for his capture. They realized that to the gallant defenders of the Ghetto the boy with the violin was worth more than a thousand fighters.
On the fortieth day of the heroic resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto the Nazis caught Chanan with his violin. They had captured a heavily defended apartment house. When they entered the cellar they found the boy sitting on the ground, an old, white-haired, long-bearded man lying dead across his lap. Chanan no longer cared to run away. He sat there, looking into the beloved face of his dead grandfather, the last spark and will to life gone from him. The Nazis treated him as a sensation, rather than as an enemy. Many teen-age boys and girls had fought side by side with the men and women of the Ghetto, and the brutal Germans had shown them no more mercy than to adult Jews. Yet Chanan had become something of a legend among the armored troops who had fought their way into the Ghetto, and they were anxious to see him.
No less eager than his men was Colonel Von Bibra, their callous commander, who had crushed the rebellion mercilessly. He asked the Jewish boy to play his violin. But Chanan refused to obey the command of his captors. They beat him and kicked him, but he only replied: “I shall never play for you butchers.” Before Colonel Von Bibra had become a military man, like the generation of his ancestors, he had played first violin in a Kammermusic quartet. He loved music and that is why he hesitated to kill the boy, or destroy his violin. But when he realized that neither kindness, nor brutality would induce Chanan to play for him, he had him sent to Treblinka, the extermination camp, where thousands of Jews died at the hands of the Nazis.
“Play for us, Chanan,” begged his companions in the dirty, cold barracks. But Chanan did not listen to their plea. His eyes were far, far away, where no human voice could reach him. Everything he had dreamt and lived seemed wrong now. “I can’t, I can’t play,” he kept mumbling to himself, his eyes glued to the bow and loose strings of his violin. He did not need an excuse for his companions. They understood what was going on inside him, and they did not demand the impossible, even though they ached for the comfort of Chanan’s music, of which they had heard from the few survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto battle.
One night Chanan lay asleep in a corner on a wooden bunk, and in his dream the old Rabbi, his beloved grandfather came to him. “You lie here, cold and unconcerned for the souls of your brethren. Do you know that because of your refusal to play, they are afraid of death?”
Next day, when the regular group of prisoners was led to their death by the camp guards, Chanan tightened his bow and tuned the strings of his violin. As the group marched out, he played the Song of Faith which he had played for the first time when his mother had died from the horrors of the life in the Ghetto. Smiles of happiness appeared on their faces when they walked to their death. They looked through the uncouth, grinning faces of their butchers, as if they saw a higher and better world waiting for them, beyond the silent walls of the bestial slaughterhouses and the brutality of a horrible death.
Captain Bauer, the camp commandant, was on his job, day and night. One evening, as he walked past the barracks to check on guards and inmates, he heard music. The beautiful melodies flowed from the strings of a violin and re-echoed in the deep melancholy voices of the responding chorus of prisoners. There was spirit and defiance; there was hope and happiness in the midst of their sadness. This was not what Captain Bauer expected from his victims. He was therefore astonished to hear the spiritual revolt that echoed in the voices of the prisoners’ chorus. He blew his whistle, and at the head of a group of S.S. guards, he entered the barracks from where the music had come. He saw the boy standing in the middle of the large room, surrounded by the camp inmates, whose pale faces turned even paler, as the beams of the strong flashlights passed over them. They stopped singing, but Chanan went right on playing his fiddle, oblivious of anything that went on about him. As far as he was concerned he was still standing in the dark, his eyes closed, melody after melody flowing through his body into his arms and fingertips. The rough grip of a tough S.S. man shook him out of his trance. He was whisked away, into the office of the Commandant. There, Captain Bauer ordered him to play for him. And again Chanan answered: “My violin does not play for you butchers.” They beat him and kicked him, but to no avail.
Captain Bauer was not as sentimental as Colonel Von Bibra. His forefathers had been serfs and peasants, not knights who cultivated the fine arts when they were not waylaying rich travelers. So he was not one to play around with an obstinate Jewish boy. He pulled his gun and ordered Chanan to play or to die. The boy had looked into the muzzles of guns more than once, and he had lost all fear of death. He waited for the end, the violin clutched to his breast. Captain Hans Brauer was about to press the trigger when a brilliant idea flashed through his perverted brain: “Take the kid to the gas chambers and make him play there. He says he plays only for Jews.” The guard clicked his heels together, saluted, and roared dutifully at the good humor of his commander. In anticipation of much fun, he pushed Chanan down the road next morning to the brick houses with the steel-chambers.
Chanan had heard of the death by gas, and he had seen the kind of treatment that the Germans had given the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. Yet he was not sufficiently steeled for the cries of the dying behind the huge, airtight doors. Chanan looked at the beloved instrument in his hands. Its deep brown color seemed to have changed into the dark red of blood, and instead of sweet melodies there were only those gruesome cries and groans of agony. There was no hope beyond the huge steel-doors, and there was no sense in living on. Chanan grabbed the thin neck of the violin with both hands, lifted the instrument high above his head and smashed it into the face of the S.S Man next to him. A minute later his crumbled body lay beside the fragments of the shattered instrument. Captain Bauer ordered Chanan buried together with the pieces of the dark-brown violin. He had a sense for the dramatic, and his friends back home would appreciate the anticlimax of this choice piece of his war tales.
To the fortunate few who escaped the horrors of the Warsaw and Treblinka, Chanan never died. They will always see the boy as he walked through he hail of bullets, inspired, and inspiring defiance and faith, with the melodies of his dark-brown violin.
But Dr. Greenberg’s joys over his son’s progress both in his Jewish and his musical studies were short-lived. When Chanan was little more than ten years old the Nazis invaded Poland. Jealous colleagues made sure that the Jewish lawyer was one of the first to be imprisoned. He died as a martyr for his faith. Chanan and his mother were able to hide in the city of Lodz until a year later, when the Germans began an intensive hunt for all Jews. One dark night Mrs. Greenberg and her son set out to escape the terror and hunger. They lost almost everything they owned. But when they reached Warsaw, Chanan still clutched his dark brown violin to his side. One icy morning its box had been sacrificed to keep them from freezing. But the worse the situation, the sweeter were the songs that flowed from the violin’s unprotected strings. They provided comfort in moments of utter hopelessness and despair.
The Warsaw Ghetto was crowded beyond capacity, and the situation became worse every day. Hunger, sickness and terror struck at the frightened Jews in the trap from which they could never escape alive. Chanan and his mother lived with the father of Dr. Greenberg in the one room that the old rabbi’s followers had secured for him. The old man seemed to be able to go without food. For, whatever his chasidim brought him, he gave to his daughter-in-law and grandson. Yet despite all his care, Chanan’s mother was unable to stand the strain. One night the old Rabbi shook his grandson from his restless sleep. “Wake up, Chanan, take your violin and play for your mother. That will make it easier for her to die.” Chanan had hardly touched his violin during the months of misery in the Ghetto. But he understood his grandfather’s and his mother’s wish. His music was the only thing of beauty in their present situation. While the old Rabbi said Tehillim, Chanan stood by his dying mother and played as he had never played before. His young, desperate soul burst forth into a song of faith that beautified the last minutes of many hundreds of Jews who subsequently died with the words of “Ani Maamin” (“I believe”), on their lips and in their hearts. While the strains of the sad melody rang through the silence of the Ghetto on that terror-stricken night, Chanan’s mother returned her soul to G-d, to carry the message of the Ghetto inmates’ boundless faith before His holy throne.
Chanan was an orphan. For a whole year he did not touch his violin, though it never left his side. When he did not study with his grandfather, he stared at the silent strings, and his soft, young hands followed the graceful pattern of the wood tenderly and with a love that was beyond his understanding.
The Battle of the Ghetto had begun, and the air of the walled-in trap suddenly changed from fright and gloom to inspiration and courage. One day at dawn, when the Ghetto inmates were getting ready to march to their death, the old Rabbi told Chanan: “Now is not the time for mourning, my child. Take your violin and play for the Jews who go to die for the glory of G-d and His people. I am too old to fight. But you are not too young to help them with the inspiration of your music.”
Chanan took the bow and the violin and left the house. He would rather have taken a gun like many of his comrades. But he, too, realized that he had something better to give than other boys and girls.
And indeed, to the men and women who walked into the fray knowing that they would not return, Chanan’s music was like medicine. Their heavy hearts grew light with the strains of the violin, and the sounds of the Song of Faith, as Chanan fell in with them and accompanied them to the scene of their hopeless battle. Frequently, the young boy came close to the actual scene of the fighting and bullets spattered past him and his precious violin. Yet, as if charmed, he walked through the hail of death unscathed and unconcerned, living only for those who went to die. The Jews of the Ghetto began to consider him their talisman. As long as his music sounded, they fought back, tooth and nail, against an enemy who was a thousand times their superiors in number, training and equipment. The Germans caught an occasional glimpse of the boy with the violin from afar, and his melodies haunted them in their sleep. They began to fear him as a bad omen, and a special reward was put out for his capture. They realized that to the gallant defenders of the Ghetto the boy with the violin was worth more than a thousand fighters.
On the fortieth day of the heroic resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto the Nazis caught Chanan with his violin. They had captured a heavily defended apartment house. When they entered the cellar they found the boy sitting on the ground, an old, white-haired, long-bearded man lying dead across his lap. Chanan no longer cared to run away. He sat there, looking into the beloved face of his dead grandfather, the last spark and will to life gone from him. The Nazis treated him as a sensation, rather than as an enemy. Many teen-age boys and girls had fought side by side with the men and women of the Ghetto, and the brutal Germans had shown them no more mercy than to adult Jews. Yet Chanan had become something of a legend among the armored troops who had fought their way into the Ghetto, and they were anxious to see him.
No less eager than his men was Colonel Von Bibra, their callous commander, who had crushed the rebellion mercilessly. He asked the Jewish boy to play his violin. But Chanan refused to obey the command of his captors. They beat him and kicked him, but he only replied: “I shall never play for you butchers.” Before Colonel Von Bibra had become a military man, like the generation of his ancestors, he had played first violin in a Kammermusic quartet. He loved music and that is why he hesitated to kill the boy, or destroy his violin. But when he realized that neither kindness, nor brutality would induce Chanan to play for him, he had him sent to Treblinka, the extermination camp, where thousands of Jews died at the hands of the Nazis.
“Play for us, Chanan,” begged his companions in the dirty, cold barracks. But Chanan did not listen to their plea. His eyes were far, far away, where no human voice could reach him. Everything he had dreamt and lived seemed wrong now. “I can’t, I can’t play,” he kept mumbling to himself, his eyes glued to the bow and loose strings of his violin. He did not need an excuse for his companions. They understood what was going on inside him, and they did not demand the impossible, even though they ached for the comfort of Chanan’s music, of which they had heard from the few survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto battle.
One night Chanan lay asleep in a corner on a wooden bunk, and in his dream the old Rabbi, his beloved grandfather came to him. “You lie here, cold and unconcerned for the souls of your brethren. Do you know that because of your refusal to play, they are afraid of death?”
Next day, when the regular group of prisoners was led to their death by the camp guards, Chanan tightened his bow and tuned the strings of his violin. As the group marched out, he played the Song of Faith which he had played for the first time when his mother had died from the horrors of the life in the Ghetto. Smiles of happiness appeared on their faces when they walked to their death. They looked through the uncouth, grinning faces of their butchers, as if they saw a higher and better world waiting for them, beyond the silent walls of the bestial slaughterhouses and the brutality of a horrible death.
Captain Bauer, the camp commandant, was on his job, day and night. One evening, as he walked past the barracks to check on guards and inmates, he heard music. The beautiful melodies flowed from the strings of a violin and re-echoed in the deep melancholy voices of the responding chorus of prisoners. There was spirit and defiance; there was hope and happiness in the midst of their sadness. This was not what Captain Bauer expected from his victims. He was therefore astonished to hear the spiritual revolt that echoed in the voices of the prisoners’ chorus. He blew his whistle, and at the head of a group of S.S. guards, he entered the barracks from where the music had come. He saw the boy standing in the middle of the large room, surrounded by the camp inmates, whose pale faces turned even paler, as the beams of the strong flashlights passed over them. They stopped singing, but Chanan went right on playing his fiddle, oblivious of anything that went on about him. As far as he was concerned he was still standing in the dark, his eyes closed, melody after melody flowing through his body into his arms and fingertips. The rough grip of a tough S.S. man shook him out of his trance. He was whisked away, into the office of the Commandant. There, Captain Bauer ordered him to play for him. And again Chanan answered: “My violin does not play for you butchers.” They beat him and kicked him, but to no avail.
Captain Bauer was not as sentimental as Colonel Von Bibra. His forefathers had been serfs and peasants, not knights who cultivated the fine arts when they were not waylaying rich travelers. So he was not one to play around with an obstinate Jewish boy. He pulled his gun and ordered Chanan to play or to die. The boy had looked into the muzzles of guns more than once, and he had lost all fear of death. He waited for the end, the violin clutched to his breast. Captain Hans Brauer was about to press the trigger when a brilliant idea flashed through his perverted brain: “Take the kid to the gas chambers and make him play there. He says he plays only for Jews.” The guard clicked his heels together, saluted, and roared dutifully at the good humor of his commander. In anticipation of much fun, he pushed Chanan down the road next morning to the brick houses with the steel-chambers.
Chanan had heard of the death by gas, and he had seen the kind of treatment that the Germans had given the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. Yet he was not sufficiently steeled for the cries of the dying behind the huge, airtight doors. Chanan looked at the beloved instrument in his hands. Its deep brown color seemed to have changed into the dark red of blood, and instead of sweet melodies there were only those gruesome cries and groans of agony. There was no hope beyond the huge steel-doors, and there was no sense in living on. Chanan grabbed the thin neck of the violin with both hands, lifted the instrument high above his head and smashed it into the face of the S.S Man next to him. A minute later his crumbled body lay beside the fragments of the shattered instrument. Captain Bauer ordered Chanan buried together with the pieces of the dark-brown violin. He had a sense for the dramatic, and his friends back home would appreciate the anticlimax of this choice piece of his war tales.
To the fortunate few who escaped the horrors of the Warsaw and Treblinka, Chanan never died. They will always see the boy as he walked through he hail of bullets, inspired, and inspiring defiance and faith, with the melodies of his dark-brown violin.