Kiddush Hashem? That’s Easy!

by Debby Friedman

Mrs. Debby Friedman lives with her husband and ten children in Kiryat Kaminetz, which is in Neve Yaakov, Jerusalem. She teaches in the Bais Yaakov Tiferes Rivka High School, located in the same neighborhood.

It started out as a simple need to relax and get a change of scenery after a fire broke out in our Jerusalem apartment one Shabbos, exiling our family to a neighboring flat for five weeks during repairs and renovations. My husband and I chose a motel on the shores of the Kinneret, and since we had use of a car, drove up to Tzfas on Erev Shabbos to visit the old Beis Hakevaros.

Shortly after I turned onto the main road, my husband Isamar called out, “Stop the car!” Putting my foot on the brakes, I innocently asked him, “How come?”

“There are two kids hitchhiking – let’s give them a lift.”

I looked in the rearview mirror, and was horrified to see the hitchhikers my husband referred to: two typical, irreligious, Israeli teenagers, wearing cutoff, ripped articles of (I guess) clothing, adorned with earrings and nose rings (how do they blow their noses?), sporting hairstyles that made them look like chickens in electric shock, and sunglasses for that “cool” look.

“Are you cra-a-a-zy?! They’ll pull out a gun and steal the car!” I answered as sweetly as possible, switching my foot to the accelerator.

“No, stop the car. We should give them a ride,” Isamar answered calmly. I slowed the car while simultaneously trying to slow my heartbeat, wondering at the same time how one says, “Stick ‘em up” in Hebrew?

The two hitchhikers came running towards our car and nearly froze in shock when they saw us: the typical, chareidi, bearded male and tichel-topped female, actually offering them a lift. They hesitantly got in with their bags, mumbled, “Toda,” and when asked their destination, replied, “Lo chashuv” (“It doesn’t matter”). I kept throwing meaningful glances at my trusting husband to get him to understand that “It doesn’t matter” means, “We’re momentarily going to get rid of you and take the car!”

Isamar was already engaging them in conversation, asking harmless questions like, Where are you from? (Yavneh and Rechovot). What are your names? (Li-Or and Or-El). What are you doing? (Nothing). When it came time to turn towards Tzfas, I piped up and said, “We’re turning right now to Tzfas,” and on impulse added, “Why don’t you come along, too? It’s a beautiful city.”

Both boys agreed. As we got to the entrance of that mystical city, they asked to be left off. Before closing the door, one of them asked shyly, “Uh, when are you guys driving back?”

I melted. We have sons the same ages as those boys. Our sons may look quite different (!) from Li-Or and Or-El, but those two Yiddishe neshamos also stood at Har Sinai, and they too answered, “Na’aseh v’nishma!” We exchanged cell phone numbers, and told them we’d be about two and a half hours. If that suited them, we’d be happy to drive them back. They readily agreed.

During our visit to the Beis Hakevaros, Isamar went to toivel in the Mikveh HaAri, which can be described as a tiny hole in a rock filled with fresh, ever-flowing, very cold spring water. After immersing seven times, he felt cleansed and purified – undoubtedly a wonderful state for avodas Hashem.

Filled with ruchnius-type feelings, he climbed the stairs out of the mikveh, only to be greeted by a shocking sight so antithetical to his uplifted state of mind: three brawny, hulking, and – pardon the expression, but it’s the only way to describe them – “proste” soldiers decorated with body earrings and tattoos. Their conversation was hardly conducive to preparing for tevila in the heilige Ari’s mikveh.

Isamar’s first reaction was, “That’s what You think of my tevila, Hashem?” He decided that once that boorish chevra left, he would toivel again to rid himself of the “tum’a” with which he felt he had come into contact.

The first soldier entered and dipped himself in the freezing water. “Hey!” he called to Isamar, “how many times do I do this? Three? Seven?”

“Seven,” Isamar replied. Then he noticed that the soldier was not going completely under the water. “But not like that – put your whole body in the water,” he instructed.

The soldier started his count all over again. After the seventh time, he came up ever so slowly and said with heartfelt meaning, “Yesh kahn mashehu.” (Loosely translated: “There’s something special about this place.”)

One of the other soldiers said, “You know, I’m over 40 and I’m only starting to realize that there’s more to life than what we know.” The three chatted with my husband awhile, and then the one who first spoke to Isamar said to him, “You know, you’re a nice guy.”

Tears came to my husband’s eyes. Those three “proste” soldiers were essentially eidel, Yiddishe neshamos, longing to be purified and reunited with their Source. Needless to say, my husband did not feel the need to toivel again that day.

Our two hitchhikers called in, and we arranged a pickup point with them. As we pulled up, they waved to us as if we were old friends. Once they got into the car, Or-El said, “You made our day!” The ice was totally broken, and we shmoozed freely as we drove back to the Kinneret. Or-El revealed that his sister was in the process of becoming a ba’alas teshuva, and that his mother was very into “those religious red strings” (referring to the red strings people wear against ayin hara).

Li-Or sat quietly the whole time. His eyes were hidden behind his sunglasses, and he appeared to me to be somewhat bored and maybe even a little contemptuous of the conversation. I kept trying to inject a little more Yiddishkeit into the flow of talking – but my ever-diplomatic husband would gracefully cough, then totally change the subject, saving the boys from the prattling of a well-meaning Yiddishe Mamma. After a while, the two boys dozed off.

As Isamar and I watched them sleep, we struggled to keep abreast of our emotions. In no specific order, they were comprised of: pity and compassion that those two neshame’lach sleeping a shnas yesharim (sleep of the innocent) were unaware that while they were awake they were sleeping; anger that such a situation exists in the “Jewish” state; hope that they would yet find their way home; and gratitude that the Ribbono Shel Olam was mezakeh us with changing their views of Torah Yidden in some small way. (I never did learn how to say, “Stick ‘em up” in Hebrew.)

When we arrived at their destination and ever so gently woke them up, the boys couldn’t thank us enough. As they removed the last of their belongings from the car, Mr. Sunglasses popped his head back in. His voice must have been changing, since it cracked as he said, “Believe me, we need more people like you in this world.”

It’s amazing! Just by being nice, we were privileged to be mekadesh Shem Shamayim. And through a little bit of chessed back in that mikveh, my husband no doubt changed the way those soldiers looked at Hashem’s representatives. Have we any idea how often, and even how easy, it is to be mekadesh Shem Shamayim?

In our living room stands a small, round table, a haunting testimony to the power of Kiddush Hashem. The fire that erupted in our apartment caused extensive smoke damage throughout the house, but the only room that was totally ruined was the living room – including the furniture, pictures, silver, glassware, computer, keyboards, curtains, plants, stereo, and all the tapes. Nothing could be salvaged from that room.

Or so we thought.

In a tremendous Kiddush Hashem in its own right, our neighbors in the beautiful Torah community of Kiryat Kaminetz, Jerusalem, retrieved, cleaned, laundered, and boxed everything that was worth saving from our apartment. Incredibly, among this pile of items I found the small, wooden table that Mr. King had made for my father so many years ago – the table we called “The Kiddush Hashem Table” – intact and in beautiful condition! The tears came quickly – almost as quickly as the realization that of course that table would have survived!

It stands as a testimony to the power of a Kiddush Hashem which my father made many years ago while living in Los Angeles. A woman named Louise King, a devout Protestant, came to work for him. When Louise’s father, a virulent anti-Semite, found out that her new boss was Jewish, he all but cursed her and warned her not to come running home to him like she did when her Jewish husband abandoned her. That renegade of a husband and a Jew only intensified Mr. King’s loathing of all things Jewish, and he was beside himself with anger when his daughter went to work for a Jew. And a religious one, at that!

Yet, over the years, Louise told her father how her boss paid her when he closed for the Jewish holidays...and how he paid her for the non-Jewish holidays, too. How he lent her money, and let her pay it back how and when she could. How he went on business trips and left signed checks for all the meshulachim who might come in his absence, so that they shouldn’t go away empty-handed. How he helped her out of situations (that her father was well aware of), as only a father would.

Louise’s boss dramatically changed her father’s views about Jews in general, and about religious Jews in particular. While dying of cancer, Mr. King built a small, round table for my father in appreciation of his kind and caring treatment of his daughter – and in recognition that the Jews are, indeed, G-d’s chosen people.

That “Kiddush Hashem Table” once again has an honored place in our living room. It is a living testimony that one Yid – living and behaving as Hashem wants us to – changed the views of a hardened anti-Semite. How much more impact can we, the representatives of Hashem’s Torah, behaving as we should, have on inherently pure, precious, Yiddishe neshamos that ultimately want to cleave to Hashem?

Opportunities are given to us constantly. It’s up to us to recognize them and use them to bring Hashem’s kinderlach back to Him. May we be zocheh, very soon, to bring home all the multitudes of Yidden, and hear them and the whole world proclaim: “Who is like Your nation Israel, one people on Earth!”

Back to Homepage