The Alter Rebbe, the founder of Chabad Hasidism, the movement within Judaism to which I belong, was the regular weekly Baal Kore, the person who reads from the Torah. When he was not in Lyozna on the Shabbat when parsha Tawo (Deuteronomy 27) was read, as it will be this coming Shabbat, his son, who was not yet bar mitzvah, heard the Torah reading from someone else. His fear of the curses (admonishing passages) caused him so much grief that on Yom Kippur, the Alter Rebbe doubted whether his son would be able to fast. When the boy was asked, “Don’t you hear this parsha, these curses, every year?”, he replied, “When my father reads this, I don’t hear curses.” In other words, even in the most dramatic situations, it is sometimes possible to see something positive.
Coincidentally, the above thought came to my mind just after I was confronted with a tragedy. The dramatic death of a young woman not yet forty, completely unexpected. Every day, our newspapers are full of murders and accidents, and tomorrow I will once again give my annual speech during the commemoration of the Twente Raid (September 13-14, 1941) in the synagogue in Enschede. In the synagogue and not, as usual, in front of the most beautiful synagogue in the Netherlands, where the raid monument stands. The reason: the ceremony in memory of the raid in which young Jewish men were arrested and murdered “is politically sensitive because of Gaza!?”
Monday was a special day. Thirty (almost all) new employees of the Israeli embassy came to visit the Israel Products Center in Nijkerk. And so Blouma and I were expected to be there. Why were we expected to be there? We are, as it were, the stamp that declares Christians for Israel kosher.
Two giant cakes had been imported from Antwerp with a welcome message to the new (and old) embassy staff. It was interesting to see that after the more or less official program had ended, the employees couldn’t be pried away from the IPC store, where they stocked up on kosher groceries and were amazed at the variety of Israeli wines. Apparently, they had never seen that in Israel!
At the moment, I am sitting non-stop behind my phone and computer, answering calls and reading emails. I have now written my speech for Sunday, my party, and I am already receiving lovely emails, paper letters (which apparently still exist) and phone calls as a kind of prelude.
Please read along:
Dear Rabbi Jacobs,
I read about your 50th anniversary in the NIW. Congratulations on this milestone. It wasn’t always easy, but it’s quite an achievement to be able to navigate so well and keep everyone happy ( ). Your wife has also been and continues to be a great support to you. I can still remember your 25th anniversary. Here’s to the 75th!
Dear Chief Rabbi Jacobs,
We heard the news of your 50th anniversary in office from various sources. Anneke and I wish you mazel tov for you and your family. We first met in 1990 at the opening of the synagogue in Bourtange. After that, we spent decades celebrating Hanukkah in Bourtange. We have also done other things together, such as unveiling the monuments in Loppersum and Ter Apel. Several commemorations. During the Corona period, I followed your online lessons.
We feel connected to the Jewish community and are deeply troubled by the current anti-Semitic society. We wish you and your wife many more years of good health so that you can continue your work.
Willem Fokkens.
Such an email from Mr. Fokkens is remarkable. He was the ambassador of our Chief Rabbinate and of the NIK in the northern provinces for Jewish cemeteries, monuments, and subsidies. Less than a year ago, he handed over his position to a younger generation. Yes, we had and still have many friends within non-Jewish society, let’s not forget that.
I began with an anecdote about the negative curses, which will be read in all synagogues around the world this coming Shabbat. The negative in which you can apparently also hear something positive. Life is relative, but sometimes very hard and incomprehensible. How do I view that? How do we deal with adversity? With incomprehensible misery and, in fact, unacceptable pain and sorrow. While I am writing my diary in the back of the car, Blouma is with a mother whose daughter died unexpectedly and dramatically. Unacceptable, incomprehensible. And yet this too is part of the capricious nature of earthly existence. Why? Why? That son, who had not yet reached bar mitzvah age, initially heard no curse in the curses. But I would not know how to see or hear anything positive in this death.
We are almost home again. In the side room of the church in Jaarsveld, there was a gathering to mark the publication of part II of “Revealing Sermons.” Sermons that the local pastor, Rev. Bogerd, has published in book form and that explain the Megillat Esther based on Jewish tradition. Because I had been given the first part, I was also asked to be the first to receive part II. You may wonder if I had nothing else to do. No, I had nothing better to do. Jaarsveld stands united behind Israel, and we should cherish that. And so I spent just over an hour in Jaarsveld, received the book, and was also presented with a kind of fruit basket without fruit, but with a variety of pure fruit juices.
I am going to send this diary to my assistant, who will correct any language errors and/or typos. Tomorrow is another day. First, Enschede for the Commemoration of the Twente Raid. Then a meeting with the War Graves Foundation and the Jewish Funeral Service, and then to Nieuwspoort in The Hague for the Rosh Hashanah reception hosted by the CJO, Central Jewish Council.
But for now: we’re almost home, just something to eat and then to bed. Because even though I’m a terrible sleeper, I really need those first three hours of sleep.
