From Kristallnacht to a Life-Changing Decision: A Story About Identity, Faith, and Assimilation

Parashat Shemot describes the spiritual decline of the Children of Israel in Egypt after the death of Yosef. In Midrash Rabbah it is written: “When Yosef died, they annulled the covenant of circumcision and said: ‘Let us be like the Egyptians.’ Once they did this, the Holy One, Blessed be He, turned the love of the Egyptians toward them into hatred, and they began plotting against them with cunning.”

This Midrash teaches what history has repeatedly proven:
When the Jew tries to imitate the nations and walk in their ways — the opposite happens. Instead of acceptance, the nations distance themselves, reject, and persecute.

A chilling story is brought to illustrate this idea. A weeping widow once came to the Rebbe of Kopitschnitz in the United States. She told him that she had one son — and that he wanted to marry a non-Jewish woman, thereby severing the Jewish chain of generations. She begged the Rebbe to speak with him and persuade him to change his mind.

The Rebbe replied with sorrow: “I do not know him, and he does not know me. I doubt I will be able to influence him — especially since my English is poor and broken.”

The widow pleaded again: “My son understands Yiddish. Please try. This is my last hope.”

The Rebbe’s heart was moved with compassion, and he agreed, telling her to bring the boy — praying that Heaven would place the right words in his mouth.

She returned home relieved. Knowing her son well, she did not tell him the real reason for the visit; instead she simply said she wished him to receive a blessing before his marriage. The son suspected something, but could not refuse his mother’s tearful request.

He entered the Rebbe’s home, and the Rebbe began to speak — telling him the following story that occurred on Kristallnacht: “On the 16th of Cheshvan, 1938, the pogrom of Kristallnacht broke out across Germany and Austria. Synagogues were burned, thousands of Jewish stores were looted, hundreds of Jews were murdered, and more than 30,000 were arrested.”

“I too was among the arrested,” said the Rebbe. “Gestapo soldiers stormed my apartment in Vienna. With blows and curses they dragged me to the Gestapo headquarters and threw me into a huge basement filled with stunned, frightened Jews — bleeding and crying.”

“Among those awaiting interrogation was a man of about forty. His head was bare, he was clean-shaven, elegantly dressed, and stood facing the wall, banging his head against it.”

“I approached him and said: ‘Even if a sharp sword rests upon a man’s neck, he must not despair of Divine mercy. Do not torture yourself — trust in the Creator!’ But he did not respond.”

“I grasped his hand — I feared he was about to lose his sanity, and begged him to calm down.”

“The man turned to me with red eyes and said in a broken voice: ‘Leave me. I do not deserve Heaven’s mercy.’”

“God forbid!” I answered him. “Hashem has mercy on every Jew, in every situation.”

But the man insisted and began to tell his story.

His parents had emigrated from Galicia many years earlier. He had received a weak Jewish upbringing — and even that he later abandoned. He married a non-Jewish woman, severed all ties with his people, and his parents cut all ties with him as well.

He sacrificed everything for this relationship and hid his Jewish identity so completely that no one even suspected he was a Jew. “And last night,” the man said, “my wife handed me over to the Gestapo herself.”

“The racial laws forbid her to be married to a Jew — and from her point of view, let them arrest me, torture me, exile me — she would remain with all the property.”

The Rebbe finished the story and turned to the widow’s son: “Remember this story before you cause such pain to your widowed mother — and before you cut off the branch that connects you to the Jewish people, by binding your fate with a non-Jewish woman.”

The young man leapt up as if bitten by a snake. He ran to the doorway, placed his hand on the mezuzah, and swore that he would not marry the non-Jewish woman.