The students of seventh and eighth grades of Montreal Tomchei Temimim assembled in honor of Tes and Yud Kislev as part of the Chayolei Beis Dovid program run by Rabbi Levi Itkin.
The month of Kislev is a month full of chasidishe yomim tovim, it is important that the students feel a connection with each yom yom tov and that it becomes memorable.
The intend of the CBD program is to instill into the students the importance of each of the chasidishe yomim tovim, and learn a lesson from it how to live the day to day life as a chasid.
It was with that mindset that the students arrived in the lunchroom to listen to a speech in honor of the Miteler Rebbe’s birthday, your tzait and chag hageulah. The students sang the miteler Rebbe’s niggun and received a doughnut sponsored by the woman’s committee while getting ready to listen to the esteemed guest speaker.
Rabbi Yossi Evers the vice principal introduced Rabbi Benyomin Jacobs the head Shaliach and chief rabbi of Holland, talking about his background and some of the great accomplishments he has had during his years of shlichus.
Rabbi Jacobs started off by sharing and interesting anecdote about the time when he was a bochur in the Yeshiva in Brunoy, France. One year on a very hot Tisha b’av afternoon he with another bochur went out to find some yiden to put on tefilin, however, it so happened to be that they didn’t find even one Jew with whom to put on tefilin that day. They felt quite downcast even though they spend much effort that afternoon, they felt that they did not succeed.
When they came to the Yeshiva they sat down to learn a sicha, the sicha spoke about how sometimes a bochur goes out and feels unaccomplished in his shlichus, he should know that the mere fact that he walked around looking like a religious Jew has an effect on people and one can never know what he accomplished.
Rabbi Jacobs then took this concept and shared several beautiful stories about how this exact concept happened on shlichus in Holland.
Amongst the stories that Rabbi Jacobs shared was a riveting story of a man who’s now in his 70s, who as a child in the Holocaust was saved from a certain death by a non-Jewish family, with many miracles involved.
This child grew up completely ignorant of his Jewish identity and lived a full live not connected to yidishkait, in recent years Rabbi Jacobs made a connection with him through a public menorah lighting in Maastricht, a city in the south of Holland.
Rabbi Jacobs ended up that this story and many other stories from his many years as a shaliach send us the message, which is also the message from this month of Kislev that every chosid must be a “ner leho’ir”, just by doing the right thing he will light up the world with the light of yiddishkeit.
Rabbi Moshe Ezagui the principal closed off by thanking Rabbi Jacobs for the inspiring words, wishing him well and much Hatzlacha on his shlichus. The students felt inspired and uplifted.
