(Rabbi Gliss)
An incident that took place, and this is how it began:
On one of my flights, a man who sat to my left and ate a non-kosher meatball caught my attention, and on the envelope of his meal was a label with his name: Mr. Weinstein, his name indicates his Jewishness.
I leaned back and waited for him to finish his meal, and I turned to him, "Excuse me, sir, I'm not going to be rude or hurt you, but can I ask you a question?"
"Sure," he answered.
"Do you know you can choose a kosher meal on this flight?" he stared at me and answered, "I don't eat kosher."
What do you mean? You mean that in your home you keep kosher but outside the house you eat everything? Or is kashrut a mitzvah in your eyes that is not important?
No, he answered, I don't eat kosher because it's my free choice. I chose it because God commanded it, and everything that God says, I do exactly the opposite.
I was amazed to hear the hostility in his voice and even more shocked when I saw a tattoo on his arm as he rolled up his sleeves.
"Do you really want to know"? He asked me. I noticed that he was talking as if this matter had been running around in his head for a long time, and that he was now only expressing his feelings out loud, so I nodded my head at him and he continued.
"That was my son..." He said, that was the last thing that broke me, I held on all the way until one day I couldn't anymore, during the entire time I was in the concentration camp, I had only one aspiration, to see my son, Kasriel Menachem, be released from the camp, his mother had long since passed away, along with his brothers and sisters, but we would survive! I was sure of that.
One day, all the prisoners were gathered for a parade, there were several secret doors to the entrance to the area where people were hanged centrally, it was a feeling of terror, my son held my hand with a force that almost stopped the blood in my veins, we all started running in panic to escape the line of fire, I lost my son in the chaos that was created and I haven't seen him since. After a while, my acquaintances from the camp told me that they saw a soldier who grabbed my son and shot him, wiping away his tears he continued angrily, "The Holy One, blessed be He, said to bring children, I brought them, and He took them to me, all of them." He commands to eat kosher food, I eat treif, he says to keep Shabbat, I drive and go to work, I don't want to keep any of the mitzvot, everything he says I do the opposite.
I was so amazed to hear his story that I couldn't say a word during the remaining six hours of the flight, there was complete silence between us, we landed in Houston and we went our separate ways.
I never dreamed that I would meet him again.
Four years passed, and I decided to go with my family on a trip to the Holy Land, the Land of Israel, in preparation for the holidays. We searched and traveled all over the country. Yom Kippur came, and for the holy day prayers I joined a synagogue in the Mea Shearim neighborhood. I went outside to get some fresh air. When I noticed a strange thing, an old man sitting at the bus station smoking, I was shocked, a man who chose to smoke on Mea Shearim on the holiest day of the year? I looked at him again and here I recognized Mr. Weinstein. I realized that I had been given another chance from Heaven. There is no It's a coincidence that I meet him on the holiest day of the year.
I approached him, "Here we meet again. It's funny how life brings people together and they wonder what the reason or message is hiding in it. The years pass and their paths cross again, and perhaps then they understand why they met in the first place.
I am sure you know that today is Yom Kippur, in the synagogue to recite the Yizkor prayer in memory of the names of the deceased, come with me and remember the name of your son who died for the sanctification of Hashem, and pray for the elevation of his soul. This may be your only opportunity to mention your son's name, don't you think it's time to mention his name in the heavenly court?
Tears filled his eyes, I hugged his arm in mine, and led him to the synagogue, to the cantor's column, where we asked him to conduct a special funeral prayer, Mr. Weinstein leaned back and whispered his son's name: "Kasriel Menachem ben Yechezkel Serga"
The cantor's face turned white, beads of sweat appeared on his forehead and his eyes protruded as if they were thinking of getting out of place, he turned to us and cried out in a choked voice, "Father!! Then he fainted.
