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Ne’ila: Making Change Against All Odds
This past week, on Wednesday, the Jewish people have lost Lily Ebert, a Holocaust survivor from London who died at the age of 100.
If you asked me who Lily Elbert was five years ago, a small amount of time out of one hundred years, I would tell you Lily is a Holocaust survivor from Hungary. She was born in the small town of Bonyhád, Hungary. In 1944, together with almost a half a million Hungarian Jews, Lily was taken to Auschwitz, where her mother and sisters were taken to the gas chambers and killed within the first hours after arrival. Lily was enslaved by the Nazis in slave labor, taken to the camp of Buchenwald, where she worked in a slave labor camp. In 1945, Lily was liberated by the American army at the age of 20 when an American soldier from New York, Private Hyman Shulman, saw her, spoke to her, and wrote her a kind note. Looking for a piece of paper, the only one he saw was a German banknote he had taken from a German and written on it: “As a start to a new life. Good luck and happiness”, and gave it to her as a gift.
After the Holocaust, Lily spent a few months in a hospital in Switzerland in rehabilitation, and later she moved to Israel. Later on, Lily got married, moved to London, and raised a beautiful family, seeing the unimaginable to her as a young person: children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Lily helped create the center for Holocaust survivors in the UK and went around UK schools, telling her story. Lily’s story could have ended as a story filled with pride, resiliency, and meaning. She had led a proud life to the age of 96, a long one by all accounts. But it didn’t end there.
In 2020, when covid lockdowns hit Britain, Lily was in lockdown with her great-grandson, Dov Forman, who created a TikTok account for his great-grandmother. On this account, she would answer the questions of young people about her life in Auschwitz and about the holocaust, and reached many millions of young people; with her grandson Dov Forman, she wrote a book called Lily’s Promise, Holding on to Hope Through Auscwhitz and Beyond with an introduction by King Charles. She received the Order of the British Empire from King Charles.
As we reflect on the day of Yom Kippur, we rightfully wonder if we can sincerely do Teshuva. Can we really repent after all those repeat offenses? Will this year be really different in terms of how much Lashon Hara we have spoken? How much Chessed we do? What our Shabbat and Yamim Tovim look like? How will we take our integrity to a higher level? How will we be treating others differently? Is there anything we can possibly change?
And yet, like the lives of Lily Ebert and countless ordinary Israelis over this past year, they have dispelled this question. People who had ordinary lives, businesses, studies, and routines were thrown at a moment’s notice into a new kind of existence. People who engaged in petty, small or divisive activities suddenly rose to the occasion in the most profound way possible. This past year has been a year of tragedy, pain, and loss for our people, but it also has been a year of transformation.
In his book Al Hateshuva, Rabbi J.B. Soloveichik shows there are two radically different types of Teshuva one can engage in. One is the Teshuva of expunging. We have all seen this type of Teshuva in the news and in history books. Someone faces legal or professional consequences for a mistake they have made. They stand accused–or have clearly committed wrongdoing. They engage in requesting forgiveness, seek to clear their name, and try to make amends for the harm they have done. Then, there is another kind of Teshuva, one that is more than just about the past; one that is about the future. There is a Teshuva, which is creative, one in which the person who repented is considered to be an entirely new human being. It is about this type of Teshuva that the Talmud tells us that not only are past sins of the sinner forgiven but the very sins that the person has done in the past are transformed into good deeds.
The times now are times of war. They are times of war for the Israeli soldiers serving in Gaza, Israelis serving in Lebanon, and likely in a few other countries we do not even know about. It is a time when Jewish kids, from grade school to high school to college campuses, can no longer take their right to be visibly Jewish for granted–it is a choice they must be willing to fight for, even if that means paying a price. Never in our lifetime have things been this complex for us as Jews, yet never have the opportunities been so great.
This past week, while attending an October 7th memorial, I heard from Lev Kraitman, the CEO of Midburn, who spent his day on October 7th rescuing survivors of the Nova festival. Later, he was recruited by the IDF and went to fight in Gaza. After finishing his service, a day before Rosh Hashana in Tel Aviv, he heard gunshots. Lev ran out with his flip-flops and his handgun and eliminated the terrorist. Hard times challenge us a great deal, but they also call on us to rise to the occasion.
As we look back on what we have done wrong or what we should have done differently, let us take the path of Teshuva suggested by Rabbi Solovietchik–a Teshuva that is creative, that takes us on another path, one that does not get dragged down by questions about our path, but is rather lifted by possibilities for our future. Our families and friends need it from us, our communities need it from us, and our people need it from us. Gmar Chatima Tova.
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