After the Nazis invaded the small village of Klau-senburg, they began their celebration in their usual sadistic fashion. All the Jews were rounded up and forced into a circle in the center of town. Then, the soldiers brought forward the revered spiritual leader, the holy Rebbe of Klausenburg, Rabbi Halberstam.
They mocked him mercilessly. They tugged at his beard, shoved him from side to side, and jeered as they trained their rifles upon him. The Nazi commander, grinning cruelly, turned to the Rebbe and sneered, “Tell us, Rabbi, do you still believe that you are the chosen people?”
The Rebbe’s voice rang out clear and unwavering: “Most certainly.”
The officer’s face contorted with rage. Lifting his rifle like a club, he struck the Rebbe across the head with brutal force. Blow after blow fell until the Rebbe collapsed to the ground, bleeding and battered. Still seething, the commander shouted again, “Do you still think you are the chosen people?”
Through pain and blood, the Rebbe raised his eyes and said softly but firmly, “Yes. We are.”
The officer kicked him viciously. “You foolish Jew! Look at yourself—broken, humiliated, lying in the dirt. What makes you think you are chosen?”
The Rebbe turned his gaze toward his weeping family and the trembling townspeople, then looked back at his tormentor. From the depths of suffering, he replied, “As long as we are the ones being beaten—and not the ones doing the beating—we remain the chosen people.”
From the back alleyways of a destroyed Jerusalem, to the ports of Spain in 1492; from the burning villages of Germany to the frozen wastelands of Siberia; from pogroms to crusades, from ghettos to dungeons, from death camps to bomb shelters—wherever Jews have been scattered across the ages, we have carried that same light.
And so, at the beginning of every new month, no matter where we find ourselves, Jews gather, whether in cities or forests, in exile or in freedom, to say Kiddush Levanah. We look up at the moon, and in its gentle glow we whisper: “Hashem, this month we will begin again. This month we will renew our strength. This month, we will strive to be better.”
Through tears we say, “No amount of pain, no measure of bloodshed, will dim the holiness You have placed within us.”
We keep dancing through history’s darkness, souls illuminated by faith, holding hands in small circles under the night sky, singing, weeping, and believing. For though the exile has been long and the night unbearably deep, as long as we remember the unimaginable holiness within our souls, we are undefeated.
So keep marching forward.
