Got zol okhitn dir — May God Protect You

A rabbinic midrash on love, memory, and the breath of all living beings

by Rabbi Mikhail Salita

I first wrote this story many years ago—perhaps fifteen or twenty.

At that time, I wasn’t yet a rabbi. I was simply remembering my childhood in Odesa—our home, our garden, and our dog named Bim.

Recently, during my studies in the Animal Chaplaincy program at the Compassion Consortium, we were asked to write about a personal loss or challenge involving animals.

And I remembered Bim—a friend of our family, sent by the Holy One to teach us friendship, patience, and love.

Much has changed since then: I became a rabbi, immersed myself in Torah and Hasidic teachings, and discovered the science of animal behavior.

And I understood: gratitude is not only for the animal itself, but for the chance to be a good friend to the creature entrusted to our care.

So I rewrote this story—with gratitude to God for the sacred gift that lives in the breath of every being He created.

When I recall the house where I grew up, I see more than walls—I see a living world.

An old Odesa courtyard, a vineyard, trees that remembered our voices, a big German shepherd named Bim, and two cats—ginger Vasya and gray Murzik.

The two brother-cats lived peacefully with Bim; they often ate from the same bowl.

My grandmother fed them all together, simply and lovingly.

They grew up in one home and became used to each other.

And I often think: so it was in the Garden of Eden, before the harmony of creation was broken.

Then there were no predators or prey—the cat did not chase the mouse, and the lion and the lamb lay down together.

When Moshiach comes, it will be so again.

But in our home, it already was.

Dogs and cats ate from one bowl, and no one hurt another.

I still believe—that kind of peace can exist again.

Our house was divided into two parts: on one side lived my grandparents, Ita and Lev; on the other, my parents, my younger brother, and I.

Between us was a garden that breathed like a prayer.

My grandfather Lev had been an animal technician by profession—but in truth, he was a gardener of God.

He painted the tree trunks with lime, wrapped them in old clothes and plastic sheeting, and burned small fires nearby to keep them warm.

He spoke to them softly: “Hold on, my dear ones—soon there will be sun again.”

He believed that trees could feel love—and perhaps he was right.

When the Creator said to Adam, “I give you the Garden—care for it, for there is no one else who will,” my grandfather seemed to hear those words in his heart.

He cared for the garden, for animals, and for all living things entrusted to humanity.

And though he never spoke of theology, he lived by the principle of Tikkun Olam—repairing the world through kindness and care.

My grandmother Ita spoke Yiddish—the language where every word sounds like a blessing.

“Gey esn,” she would say—“Go eat.”

“Got zol okhitn dir”—“May God protect you.”

She said these words to people and to animals alike.

My childhood friend Dima Kilimnik’s grandmother came from a shtetl near the one where my grandmother was born.

When they met, they would switch into Yiddish, recalling faces and names from the vanished Jewish world.

Their children still understood, but we—the grandchildren—barely did.

I knew only two phrases: “Gey esn” and “Got zol okhitn dir.”

And in those words lived all the tenderness of our family’s world.

Bim came to us as a puppy, around the time my younger brother was born.

He had been born with a defect in his hind legs—no one wanted him.

My grandmother said, “If no one wants him, that means he’s waiting for us.”

She bottle-fed him with milk, gave him bits of cholnt left from Shabbat, and sometimes poured him chicken broth with matzah: “It’s Shabbat—he too must taste holiness.”

He understood the most important thing—that he was loved.

My mother bathed him in our bathtub; my father stroked his back.

No one was afraid of Bim—except for my little brother Dima.

He was still small, and Bim’s loud bark frightened him.

But after a few years, when Dima turned five or six, they became friends.

From then on, Dima and Bim were inseparable—they ran through the garden together, shared apples from the trees, and slept side by side on the rug by the heater.

Perhaps it was then that Dima first discovered the inner strength that would one day lead him to a world championship and to the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in New York.

But back then, he was just a little boy who stopped being afraid of his dog—and learned friendship, loyalty, and love.

Bim was part of our family.

Across the street stood a five-story apartment building, home to “scientific workers.”

They complained that Bim’s barking disturbed their dissertations.

One day someone tried to poison him.

He survived—but that was when I first realized that hatred toward Jews could even extend to their animals.

For the antisemite, anything that belongs to a Jewish family becomes a target—even a dog who guards his home.

It was a terrible distortion of creation: a human transferring his malice onto one of God’s innocent creatures.

My grandmother sat beside Bim, giving him warm milk and whispering, “Got zol okhitn dir.”

And perhaps God truly did protect him.

When the harmony of creation was broken in Eden, the animals who once lived in peace became predators and prey.

The cat began to hunt the mouse, and the strong began to oppress the weak.

So it is with people: when the soul’s harmony is broken, hatred is born.

Antisemitism is not merely prejudice—it is a distortion of the world’s spiritual balance, a tear in the breath of life that connects all things.

But when Moshiach comes, that harmony will be restored.

Animals will no longer be predators, and the nations will recognize their wrongs.

They will understand that hatred of Israel is not politics but a spiritual illness—the very opposite of the Divine design.

And when that healing comes, all living things—human, animal, tree, and earth—will breathe again in the same rhythm.

In 1991, when we emigrated from Odesa, Bim stayed in our home with my cousin Igor.

We couldn’t sell the house at the time.

Six months later, Bim was gone.

He couldn’t bear the separation.

Dogs miss their people just as humans do—and sometimes even more deeply.

Emigration is never easy.

In those early years in America, I missed everything—the garden, my grandparents, the cats Vasya and Murzik—and most of all, Bim.

He often appeared in my dreams, alive again, walking under the trees of our garden.

Today, in America, I live with Kanaani cats—a rare breed from Jerusalem, born on the Holy Land.

One day, God willing, I hope to welcome two dogs into my home: a German Shepherd, like my Bim, and a Canaan Dog, the native Israeli breed.

Let them live side by side—as they once did.

So that, as in Eden, peace may dwell again under one roof—between humans, animals, and the Creator.

Loss does not disappear—it transforms into memory.

And memory itself is a form of love.

I have come to understand: all life is interconnected.

When we learn to listen to animals, we begin to hear the voice of God.

In Chabad teaching, this is called Or ha-Chayim—the “Light of Life,” the Divine breath within every being.

In Animal Chaplaincy, it is called sacred presence.

But they are one and the same: the ability to be present, to care, and to bless.

That is the true meaning of Tikkun Olam: repairing the world through compassion, through attention to those who cannot speak our words but feel as we do.

All these paths—Animal Chaplaincy, Tikkun Olam, and the Hasidic faith in the coming of Moshiach—do not contradict each other. They complete one another.

Animal Chaplaincy teaches us compassion for all living beings.

Tikkun Olam reminds us that every act of kindness, every creature, every tree is part of repairing the world.

And Hasidic faith teaches us that through love, awareness, and mitzvot, this world moves closer to its healing.

When we feed an animal, comfort a person, plant a tree, or simply listen to the silence—we are already building the world in which Moshiach will be revealed.

And perhaps, in that unity—between human, animal, and God—lies the deepest repair of all.

It is said that when Moshiach comes, even trees and stones will speak.

Animals already speak, in their own language—the one understood by King Solomon.

But in that time, the very earth itself will have a voice.

And perhaps, its first sound will be the same words my grandmother used to whisper:

“Got zol okhitn dir — May God protect you.”