Pleasure in Auschwitz
The famed author Reb Dovid Zaretzky related the following story, which illustrates the heights of pleasure we can attain when we have nothing, and we rely solely on Hashem:
My friend, Reb Shmuel Borenstein, the right hand of the Imrei Emes of Gur, related to me that he used to resid near his Rebbe, the Imrei Emes, in the town of Gora Kalwaria, and he had ample parnassah... he had nachas, and everything a Yid could wish for.
One dark day, the Nazis came to town and commanded him to leave everything behind and get onto the cattle cars. They allowed him to take along only a small valise weighting five kilograms. He took a valise and filled it with gold, silver, and other valuables.
As the train chugged along, Reb Shmuel sat and said to himself, “The Nazis took away my shop and my home, but at least I have my valuables, and my wife and children are still with me here.” When they arrived at Auschwitz, the Germans immediately confiscated the valise with its valuable contents, and then he said to himself, “They left me without a penny, but at least my family is still with me... I will find consolation in them.” When Dr. Mengele sent his wife and children to the left and Reb Shmuel to the right, he consoled himself, “At least I still have the clothing on my back.”
But when the guards ordered him to undress and enter the showers to kill the lice, he stood there... with every last thing having been taken from him. He then raised his eyes to the Heavens, and cried out, “They can take everything from me. But You, my Father in Heaven, they can never take from me. When I saw a Communist standing nearby, I repeated it out loud: “Even Stalin can’t take away my Father in Heaven.”
“I closed my eyes, and stood there, meditating on this thought... feeling a closeness to the Ribbono shel Olam the likes of which I had never felt in my life. The guards then ordered me to dress in the prisoner’s garb, I took some muddy soup into my mouth, and the feeling was gone.”
Continued Reb Shmuel, “I survived Auschwitz through a succession of miracles, and today, I once again have a wife and children. I have money and a home in Eretz Yisrael... but the deep pleasure of אלקים קרבת that I experienced during that half hour in Auschwitz cannot be described—and I have pined for it my entire life.”
