Rabbi Paysach Krohn

Rising To the Top

There is a striking verse in the book of Yirmiyahu. The prophet compares the Jewish people to “Zayis ra’anan yefei peri to’ar—A flourishing, beautiful olive tree” (Yirmiyah 11:16).

Chazal ask why the Jewish people are compared specifically to an olive tree. The Midrash offers two explanations, one of which is especially poignant.

If you were to try a simple experiment at home—take a glass of water and pour in orange juice, or milk—you would see that the liquids blend together. But if you pour in oil, something remarkable happens: the oil rises to the top. It refuses to blend in. No matter the environment, oil remains distinct.

This, the Midrash teaches, is the nature of the Jewish people. Wherever Jews find themselves, under any circumstances, they rise. Not out of arrogance, but out of identity. We all have the opportunity not only to grow in Torah learning, but to rise in middos and become role models for our families and communities.

But what does it truly mean to “rise to the top”?

Many times, I have traveled to Poland. People often ask me, “Why do you go there? So much Jewish blood was spilled on that soil. Why return to a place of such pain?” My answer is always the same. I do not go to Poland to see how Jews died; I go to Poland to see how Jews lived. I go to show that even in the darkest, most brutal moments of history, Jews held on to mitzvos with unimaginable courage.

Take a look at these two ordinary forks. At first glance, there is nothing special about them. Each fork has four prongs; eight prongs total. But in the concentration camps, Jews did something extraordinary. They melted wax and placed a small amount on each prong. They used cotton or even a shoelace as a wick, lit it carefully, and suddenly, they had eight flames.

From two forks, they fashioned a Chanukah menorah.

Who could imagine such ingenuity, such determination, such mesirus nefesh? And yet, that is exactly what happened. Even there, stripped of dignity, freedom, and safety, Jews found a way to fulfill a mitzvah. That is what it means to rise to the top.

That is why Chanukah is not only a story of ancient history. It is a timeless message. The Jewish people have endured hardship, persecution, and exile, but again and again, we rise.

Let me share a remarkable story.

Reb Elimelech Tress, known as Mike Tress, has a full book written about his life. He was a truly great tzaddik and a central figure in Agudas Yisrael. My cousin, Stuart Tress, once told me the following remarkable story.

He was in Miami, standing in shul during davening. As many people do, he had his name embroidered on his tallis bag: Stuart Tress. Suddenly, a Satmar chassid approached him. He had curly peyos, a bekisheh, and a deeply emotional expression. The man asked him, “Your name is Tress?” “Yes,” my cousin replied. “Do you know a man named Elimelech Tress?” “Yes,” my cousin said. “That was my father.” At that moment, the man took my cousin’s hand, held it tightly, and began to cry.

My cousin was startled. “Is everything okay?” he asked gently. “Why are you crying?” The man said, “I need to tell you something.”

He explained that he had arrived in America in the late 1940s, broken and penniless after the war. He had no job and no money and no way to provide food for Shabbos for his wife and children. Living in Williamsburg, he went door to door asking people if anyone could help him find work. Each person answered honestly: “We’re struggling too. We don’t have anything to offer.”

But again and again, people told him the same thing: “There is one man you must go to—Elimelech Tress. He works for the Agudah. He loves helping people. Go to him.” Eventually, he found his way to Mr. Tress’s office on Bedford Avenue. He walked in not knowing who he was, and Mr. Tress greeted him warmly. “Shalom Aleichem. How can I help you?” “I need a job,” the man said. “What do you do?” Mr. Tress asked. “I’m a glazier,” he replied. “I fix windows inside homes, stores, cars.”

Mr. Tress smiled. “You’re in luck. I know a glazier on Marcy Avenue who just told me he needs help.” He took out a piece of paper, wrote a short note, and handed it to him. “Give him this.” The man walked a few blocks to Marcy Avenue, gave the note to the shop owner, and was hired on the spot. Every Friday, he was paid. And every Friday, he was able to bring food home for Shabbos. For the first time since arriving in America, his family had dignity and stability.

After four months, his employer called him in and said, “Tell Mr. Tress he no longer needs to cover your salary. I’ll take it from here.”

That was when he learned the truth. Mr. Tress had written on that note: “Hire this man. I will personally pay his salary for as long as necessary.” Once the employer could manage on his own, Mr. Tress quietly stepped aside.

That is what it means to rise to the top.

Imagine that level of chessed. Imagine taking responsibility not just to help someone once, but to carry them until they can stand on their own feet. That is Jewish greatness.

We have it in so many forms: the forks turned into a menorah in the camps; the quiet heroes who lived with dignity under impossible circumstances; and the life of Mr. Tress.

And here’s one more point.

One of the most important lessons of Chanukah is found in a well-known machlokes between Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel (Shabbos 21b).

According to Beis Shammai, we light eight candles on the first night, followed by seven on the next night, and then six, five… until one. According to Beis Hillel, we begin with one and increase each night.

The Gemara explains why we follow Beis Hillel: “Ma’alin bakodesh v’ein moridin—In matters of holiness, we always go higher.”

That is the message of Chanukah.

If you learn one Mishnah a day, make it two. If you give a dollar to tzedakah, make it a dollar fifty. If you never said korbanos, start saying them. If you don’t bench from a siddur, start benching from a siddur. I never bench without one. Even for an Al HaMichya, I take it out and say it inside. Voltaire already knows; he brings it to me automatically.

Everyone here has to ask: what will I do more this Chanukah than I did last year?

A young boy from a very poor family was sent by his mother to the grocery store to buy fruits and vegetables. He picked up a tomato and an apple and went to the counter to pay. The store owner looked at him and said, “Yingele, is that all you’re buying? I saw you staring at those cherries. Why don’t you take some?” The boy said, “I’d love to, but I can’t afford them.”

The owner said, “I’m the owner. I’m telling you; you can take some.” The boy refused. “I can’t. It wouldn’t be right.” So the owner said, “Then I’ll take them for you.” The boy went back, looked again at the cherries, his mouth watering, but still didn’t take any. He returned with only the tomato and apple. The owner smiled, walked over, took a large handful of cherries, and put them into the bag.

When the boy came home, his mother saw the cherries and said, “Where did you get these? You didn’t steal them, did you?” The boy told her the entire story. She paused, then asked him gently,

“When the man told you twice that you could take the cherries, why didn’t you take them yourself?” The boy answered, “Because he has a bigger hand than me.”

That, said Rabbi Meir Shapiro, is why we say in Ashrei, “Pose’ach es yadecha—Open Your [Hashem’s] hand.” Anything we truly need, only Hashem can give, and His hand is bigger than anyone else’s.

That is ma’alin bakodesh. Just like that boy got more cherries by letting the one with the bigger hand give them, so too when we do a little more for Hashem, He gives back more.

Middah k’neged middah. You take one step up and Hashem will lift you higher.

Rabbi YY Jacobson

The Two Fathers in Heaven

Hanan Amar was a beloved barber in Ashkelon, known to everyone for his warmth, generosity, and boundless heart. On the morning of October 7^th, 2023, Simchas Torah, Hanan was brutally murdered at the Nova Music Festival. In his final moments, he was not running. He was not hiding. He was physically shielding two young girls with his own body.

Hanan was only 38 years old.

He was survived by his wife, Miri, and their three beautiful children: Avishag (13), Noam (11), and Eitan (five and a half). Friends described Hanan as a man with “the biggest heart you could ever encounter,” a person who loved people, loved his family endlessly, and was deeply in love with life, kindness and connection.

More than two years passed after that dark day.

A few months ago, as Noam approached his thirteenth birthday, his mother gently began speaking with him about his Bar Mitzvah. But to her shock and heartbreak, Noam told her he did not want one.

The pain of entering this milestone without his father was simply too overwhelming.

Miri was stunned. “Every Jewish boy has a Bar Mitzvah,” she said. “You go to shul, you’re called to the Torah, you put on tefillin. Jewish boys have been doing this for thousands of years.” “No, Mommy,” Noam replied. “No Bar Mitzvah for me.”

Trying to understand, she asked, “So what would you like to do instead?” “I want a vacation,” he said. “I want to travel to the United States.” Miri’s heart sank. “My dear son, I would love to give you that, but we simply can’t afford it. I’m so sorry.” “You asked me what I want,” Noam said quietly. “That’s what I want.”

Then this extraordinary mother, this Yiddishe Imah, said something that changed everything.

“My precious son,” she told him, “you have two fathers in Heaven. Your biological father is there. And your Creator, Hashem, is there. Go talk to them. Tell them what you want. Because this is far beyond anything I can arrange.” Noam took her words to heart.

Later, he told me: “I went to the synagogue. I spoke to Hashem, and I spoke to my father. I asked my dad to intercede for me. And I asked Hashem to please arrange a trip to America.”

Life went on. Then, a few weeks later, Miri received a message on her phone.

An organization called Menucha V’Yeshua, founded by my dear friends, Mendy and Bracha Kenig, had reached out. The organization supports bereaved families after the October 7^th massacre and the Gaza war. They were arranging a ten-day, all-expenses-paid vacation in the United States for grieving families.

Miri looked at the dates. It was the exact week of Noam’s Bar Mitzvah.

“I thought I was hallucinating,” she later told me. “I thought I was dreaming.” She called immediately. “Of course,” they said. “Come. Bring your children. Your family will have a beautiful time.”

When Mendy Kenig heard the full story, he said without hesitation: “We are going to arrange your son’s Bar Mitzvah in the most beautiful hotel in the United States. Hundreds of Jews will celebrate with him. We will take care of everything.” I joined them too.

And so, weeks ago, Shabbos Parshas Chayei Sarah, I stood at the Oceanfront Berkeley Hotel in New Jersey, surrounded by hundreds of Jews, as Noam Amar was called up to the Torah. He was lifted onto shoulders. We danced, we sang, we showered him with candy. Widows, orphans, bereaved parents, donors, benefactors, people who had come thinking they were simply on a vacation, were suddenly united in something far greater.

I was asked to say a few words, and I said the following.

“Noam, my dear. Everyone in this room thought they came to America for a getaway. Nearly two hundred tickets were sponsored so these families could have joy again. But the truth is, none of us knew why we were really here.

This entire trip was arranged by your tefillos. By the prayers of a child who spoke to Hashem, and to his father in Heaven. You brought all of us together.”

I then noticed another man standing nearby, Achiya Eliyahu, who had been preparing Noam for his Bar Mitzvah.

He said to me quietly, “I had a son, Ariel. He was a tank gunner. On the morning of October 7^th, he drove his tank to Be’eri. He eliminated dozens of terrorists and saved countless lives, until he was killed at the age of twenty.” Then he added, with trembling voice: “My son also celebrated his Bar Mitzvah on this very Shabbos—Parshas Chayei Sarah.”

Souls connected across generations.

Later that night, after Havdalah, as we were sitting together eating pizza, Noam looked at me and said: “I took my mother seriously. She told me to pray. She told me I had two fathers in Heaven. That’s what I did.”

Such is the power of a pure heart in prayer.

Rabbi Zev Leff

The Miracle of Today

In Al HaNissim of Chanukah, we declare that “the salvation of Chanukah endures until this very day.” At first glance, this is difficult to understand. After all, the historical salvation of Chanukah included the rededication of the Beis Hamikdash and the restoration of Jewish sovereignty, both of which ultimately ended with the destruction of the Second Temple. Neither exists today.

So what, exactly, does endure?

To answer this, we must understand the nature of the Greek threat. The Greeks were not primarily interested in destroying the Jewish people physically. Their goal was something far more insidious: “Le’tamei u’lechalel—to defile and to desecrate.” The word chilul literally means to hollow out. The Greeks sought to strip Judaism of its inner spiritual meaning, leaving behind only an empty shell.

Greek culture celebrated the external: external beauty, external wisdom, external power, and external achievement. Their worldview denied the primacy of inner sanctity and transcendent purpose. What they wanted was not our annihilation, but our spiritual neutralization: a Judaism emptied of its soul.

The message of Chanukah, therefore, is not that the spiritual and physical must always be in conflict. Judaism does not reject the physical world. But when there is a conflict, Chanukah teaches that the spiritual must take precedence over the physical.

This is precisely what we articulate in Al HaNissim: “You delivered the mighty into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the wicked into the hands of the righteous.”

We readily understand the miracle of the few overcoming the many, and the weak defeating the strong. But why is it a miracle that the righteous prevailed over the wicked?

The Greeks possessed the physical advantage in numbers, strength and military might. The Jewish people, however, possessed the spiritual advantage of purity, righteousness, Torah, and emunah. And when a confrontation arises between those armed with physical power and those anchored in spiritual truth, Chanukah proclaims that spiritual depth ultimately prevails.

This is the deeper meaning of the miracle of the oil. Quantity was irrelevant. What mattered was purity. One small cruse, uncontaminated, was enough. The menorah itself embodies this truth: a magnificent physical vessel whose sole purpose was to serve as a base for spiritual light. The object mattered only insofar as it carried the flame.

This is why, when we sing Ma’oz Tzur, we list mighty empires that once dominated the world—each with overwhelming physical power—and yet no longer exist. No one sings about them anymore. They have vanished into history.

And yet we are still here.

We stand by our candles and sing about them not because we defeated them militarily, but because we outlived them spiritually. We did not possess land, armies, or empires. We possessed something far more enduring: the light of the menorah, the inner flame of faith and meaning.

That is the salvation of Chanukah that exists until today.

Every year, Chanukah recharges us with this truth: that spiritual power can overcome physical dominance; that inner sanctity can withstand external pressure; and that even in a world ruled by might, numbers, and force, it is the spirit of God that ultimately determines history.

That is Chanukah’s eternal miracle.

Rabbi Moshe Dov Heber

Holy Padlock

Rabbi Baruch Ber Leibowitz, the Rosh Yeshiva of Kamenetz, visited America in 1928 and strengthened Jews struggling with Shmiras Shabbos. Seeing stores locked on Shabbos, he said, “This holy padlock proclaims: Hashem is God, and we are His servants.” Today, our challenge is different: do we lock away what isn’t Shabbos-dik and preserve the day’s sanctity?