Some of the best stories in the Jewish World are the stories
told by and about Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach of blessed memory. Here is one from
the highly recommended “The Carlebach Haggadah” [page 88].
Motzi Matzah
My father was appointed to the Rabbinate of Berlin a little
before Purim, at the end of the First World War. A few days after Purim, he
received a letter from a soldier serving at the front. “Most of the soldiers
sent to the front never returned. The letter said, “My name is Moishele Cohen.
I’m the only matzah baker in my whole home town. If I don’t come home
immediately, there won’t be any matzos in my town for Pesach, so please go to
General So-and-so and beg him to give me some leave so I can come home and bake
matzah.”
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| Matzah baking in Bet El |
You only had to show this letter to anyone, and if he had a
brain in his head, he’d tell you not to waste your time. To try and get leave for
this soldier was a big joke. It was the desperate end of the war. Every day
thousands of soldiers were dying, and there was nothing to eat in Berlin; and
you think the General Staff had nothing on their minds besides matzos? My
father, yes, he was an important Rabbi with a big shul, but to come to the
General in the middle of a war and tell him we need matzos! For us it’s
life-and-death, but what would it be to him? Crazy.
By my father had a pure soul. He said, “I didn’t ask for
this letter, the letter came to me. I must go.”
Dearest friends, in my life, I never saw my father without a
sefer in his hands. This time too, he took with him a few sefarim, because who
knew how much time he’d have to wait to speak to the General? When he got
there, he saw hundreds of people waiting. The General had several officers who
did nothing but take down names and give out numbers – my father understood
that it would be days until he got to speak to the general. What did he do? He
gave in his name and continued learning.
A few minutes later an officer came over to my father and
said, “Rabbi, the General asks you to come to him immediately. He must see you.”
He walked in to the General’s office, and the General took
my father’s hand and kissed it. Unbelievable! What is going on? He asked, “Aren’t
you the son of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, the Rabbi of Lubeck?” My father said, “Yes,
I’m his youngest son.” He said to my father, “Whatever you want will be done.”
My father said right away, “I need to bring a solider from the French front
back to his home town.” He said, “Just give me his ID number.” And right away,
he dispatched an order to the staff in France to send Moishele Cohen home.
My father asked the General, “How do you know my father?”-
But if I want you to understand how that happened, I have to take a minute and
tell you another story first.
In the early nineteen hundreds, thousands and thousands of
Jewish youths from Germany left for America. To our sorrow, their parents lost
all connection with them. This left thousands of parents without any help or support
when they grew old. There were old people simply dying in their houses without
anyone even realizing. My grandfather, the Rabbi of Lubeck, thought, “I must
build an old age home for these people.” He decided he would look for new
contributors, people that never gave to holy causes like this before. He heard
that the banker of the German Kaiser was a Jew. Why was he a Jew? Simply
because the Kaiser never asked him to convert – all the Kaiser worried about
was that he should take care of the money. But if the Kaiser asked him to
convert, he would; that’s what they told my grandfather about him. This man had
certainly never associated himself with anything Jewish. But what do we know
about a Jewish soul, the depths of the Jewish soul?
My grandfather went to Baron von Bleichroeder’s palace, and they
brought him to his office. All of a sudden the Baron stood up when he saw my
grandfather. He went over to him, kissed his hand, and started crying. He said,
“Rabbi, you must know that G-d sent you to me. I’m seventy years old. Today is
my birthday, and last night I cried the whole night. I thought, ‘I’m Jewish,
but I’ve never spoken to my brethren. I never spoke to someone who could purify
my soul.’ Today you came to me.”
They became close friends. Anything that my grandfather
asked of him, the Baron did immediately. He built a huge building for an old
age home. It was the first old age home in Germany, and probably the first in
the whole of Europe. (To our great sorrow, the building was totally destroyed,
because the Nazis, yimach shmam, made it into their headquarters.) After five years
during which my grandfather spoke with the Baron almost every day, he got a
call from the Baron’s son, who said, “Holy Rabbi, you were my father’s best
friend. My father wasn’t a simple man. This morning I entered his office and
saw a letter on his desk. This is what was written: ‘If G-d forbid, I don’t get
up tomorrow morning, I want only Rabbi Carlebach to eulogize me. If he cannot,
I don’t want any eulogy.’ I ran into my father’s bedroom, but he was already in
Heaven.”
My grandfather said a hesped, a eulogy for the Baron, and
understandably, the Kaiser of Germany with all his family came to the funeral.
The brother of the Czar of Russia came too, and the kings of England, Denmark,
Sweden, Norway – all the European leaders.
Now I can return to the original story with the General.
When my father asked him how he knew the Rabbi of Lubeck, he answered, “I was
fortunate enough to be there when Rabbi Carlebach eulogized Baron von Bleichroeder.
Let me tell you, generals don’t cry and they don’t laugh. My heart is dead, and
my soul died before I as born, because you can’t be a general and remain a
person. I don’t believe in anything. If you came and told me that half the
world just died, I wouldn’t blink an eye. But one time in my life, I cried like
a baby for a quarter of an hour. Once in my life, I believed in people, in a
living G-d. Once in my life, I prayed that G-d would forgive my sins. That was
when your father spoke.”
