Tefillin In Bergen Belsen

Today we went to the Rebbe Shlita in honor of the hanochos tefillin of my son Avi tomorrow. We are going to mark this special day by going ALL THE WAY to the kotel to daven Shachris tomorrow morning!

This is what the Rebbe related to the soon to be Bar Mitzvah boy...

There was a Jew in Bayit Vegan who owned a grocery store. When the children would misbehave he would show them the numbers engraved on his forearm and tell them they must behave because he went through gehenom. He related that when he was in Bergen Belsen EVERY MORNING there was a lineup of 30-40 people standing in the freezing cold wearing threadbare pajamas who risked life and limb in order to put on the only pair of tefillin [shel yad was all they had] in the camp. There were two Jews from Budapest who put the tefillin on every day even though they weren't religious and hadn't put tefillin on before the war. They explained that they were suffering so much because they were Jewish so they wanted to put on the tefillin and feel Jewish.

He also related that there was a simple Jew who hid his tefillin and risked his life to put it on daily. After the war a Rav told him that the tefillin are pasul and he should get new ones. The man scoffed "He's going to tell me that my tefillin are no good? I risked my life for these tefillin!" So the Rebbe suggested that he wear two pairs every day. One because the Rav said he needs new ones and in addition the pair that went through the war with him. The man liked the advice and so he did.

The Rebbe Shlita also spoke about his grandfather, the previous Rebbe ztz"l. He had two special loves in life - Jews and the land of Israel. He would sometimes purposely let his tefillin strap drop to the floor even though most people are careful to make sure that the strap does not touch the floor. When somebody would comment to him that his strap is on the floor, he would say "The floor in Eretz Yisrael is holier than the sky in Chutz La'aretz! In Chutz La'aretz the strap is allowed to rest on the table? The land HERE is holier than a table there." The Rebbe clearly relished telling the story about his Holy Zeide.