Parshas Tazria Metzorah Iyar 3 5770 4/17/2010 Jaron Mendels Bar Mitzva

Jaron just finished a beautiful davening. I know he would like it to keep on going. Jaron let me tell you something. We would like it to keep on going also. You know the old joke about the synagogue that had a problem with mice. The rabbi came up with a brilliant idea. He Bar Mitzvad them. So let’s talk about how we preserve this beautiful moment. Let me share an experience I had earlier this week.


From Yad Vashem in Jerusalem to Greenwood Cemetery in Atlanta, from the White House to local Boards of Commissioners, observances were held and proclamations issued this past week in commemoration of the Holocaust. Dekalb County was gracious enough to invite me to deliver the opening invocation for their Tuesday session and then lead a Holocaust memorial service. After delivering the invocation I took my seat and waited for the Holocaust memorial. We were scheduled third. First the county issued a proclamation honoring the activities of governmental and private groups who are working to curb child abuse and neglect. Proclamations were read, speeches were delivered and pictures were taken. Next was National Library Week. The outgoing director of Dekalb library system stepped up with a group of librarians. They seemed to be the same ones that were at the library when I was a kid. Proclamations were read speeches were delivered and pictures were taken. Then the Holocaust memorial group was called up. Proclamations were read speeches were given. Six candles were lit and pictures were taken. As we walked out the president of the commission was reading the days agenda. It was all well and good and certainly better to have it than not but it left me feeling strange.

Let me be perfectly clear. Child abuse is horrible. We should all do anything we can to obliterate it. Let me make another thing perfectly clear. I love libraries. I have always been and remain an avid reader. I remember fondly the library I used to go to on Olsen Hwy. It has since made it on the national register of historic buildings. But in my mind the Holocaust is different. Not just because it was bigger and not just because it happened to my people. I believe that the Holocaust was part of the advancement of the world toward the goal that G-d has in store for it. I don’t know exactly how it fits but I believe that the events that swirl around the Jewish people play an indispensable role in G-ds plan. This is obvious from a cursory reading of the Torah, study of the Talmud and Midrashim and it is the foundation of all Kabbalistic literature. And while the county of Dekalb might view it as a bad thing like child abuse or illiteracy I know in my heart that the fate of the Jews is a very different issue.

That was Tuesday. On Thursday Steve and I were discussing the upcoming Bar Mitzva. Jaron is clearly blessed with a beautiful voice we all hear that. In addition he has wonderful character and has really embraced the formidable task of reading two difficult Torah portions as well as leading services. Jaron revels in the task as he should. The past months have been full of trips to and from Bar Mitzva lessons. The house has been full of the sunds of Torah reading it has felt good. How do we continue Steve asked.

That is a very good question one that many parents of Bar Mitzvas think about.

I would like to share with you how one parent tried to ensure that it would continue.

My friends Jonathan Rosenblum whose columns are regularly carried in the Jerusalem Post and other periodicals tells a story he heard from a friend who is a Rebbe in a Yeshiva. One of this Rebbes students lost his father. The Rebbe went during shiva to comfort his student, and as was his custom, he kept the discussion centered entirely on the niftar (deceased). His talmid told him that his father had never had much of an opportunity to learn Torah. At a young age, he had arrived on one of the kindertransports from Germany to England. Because he came all by himself, without any family members, he was eventually sent to Palestine from England. Upon arriving in Palestine, he made his way to Petach Tikva.

Though he had never learned in a yeshiva, he remained observant, and, in time, became the initiator of almost everything that took place in the Great Synagogue of Petach Tikva. He arranged the various shiurim (classes) in the shul – shiurim which he faithfully attended himself. And he was the one who took responsibility for the upkeep of the shul.

While still at the shiva house, the Rebbe asked the older of the sons what was the secret of his father's success. How did someone with little formal learning and all alone in the world from a young age grow to be so dedicated to his Jewishness. Certainly factors would have indicated a different outcome. The young man replied that he had only recently thought about the question for the first time. Until then, his father was just his father, and everything about him was just the way it was. But when the question of how his father had remained faithful to his Judaism, while so many from ostensibly more favorable circumstances had not, finally occurred to him, he had asked his father. His father answered with a story from his own childhood.

As a young boy, less than ten years old, he was sent by his father to Germany from the town in which they lived in Austria. For some reason, only he was allowed to cross the border. Father and son sat in the early morning darkness waiting for the train that would separate them forever. Neither spoke.

Finally, the lights of the train appeared. As the father lifted his son onto the train, he broke the silence. "Zei a gutte Yid – Remain a good Jew, " he told his son. As the train began to pull out of the station, the father ran alongside yelling, "Zei a gutte a Yid." The train gained speed, and the father kept running after it, screaming, "Zei a gutte Yid." As he ran, the father tripped and fell prostrate on the station platform. That image of his father running after the train and then falling, as he desperately tried to implant the message to be a good Jew in his heart, remained with the young boy the rest of his life. And he lived up to it, under the most adverse circumstances.



Jaron if your parents have articulated it verbally or not I don’t know but their lives are telling you “zie a gutte yid”. Their involvement in your school and shul tell you zie a gutte yid. Your father is Past President of this shul and your grandfather is Past President of Beth Jacob. As a matter of fact I want to share my early experience with the Mendel family. When a young rabbi moves to Atlanta from the Northeast the first thing you find out is that you are going to need a second car. The second thing you find out is the Hame Herb Mendel. So off I went and met a man who dedicated his time to helping other Jews. Also behind the glass handling the paperwork I met Marlene o.b.m. A woman of uncommon wisdom and common sense. Now when a rabbi moves to Atlanta he meets Steve a man who is dedicated to helping other Jews. The Mendels have many interests but first and foremost is their dedication to being a good Jews.

So parents stop and think for a moment. What would you tell your child? What do you tell your child? As important as it would be I don’t think you would holler out ‘stop child abuse’ or ‘support the library’. Jaron, I know what your parents tell you. This morning I am proud to welcome you, a gutte yid, into the community of gutte yidden. Zie a gutte yid.