Rabbi's Blog

OZ PURIM PAGE: WWW.OZNY.ORG/PURIM

Dear OZ family,

This past Shabbos was Miriam Feig’s 8^th Yahrzeit. I have written about her often, and it was quite appropriate that we connect her to this past Shabbos. As you have surely heard, this past Shabbos was designated as a day of hate by people so consumed by the emotion, that they had to go public with their vicious threatening vitriol. We were all told to be on heightened alert, and thankfully we did not hear of any incident. The collective reaction of so many Jews was to displace the hatred with love. We turned it into a Shabbos of peace, love and serenity. We can continue to react to their irrational hatred with a very rational decision to cut out Lashon Hara, and to judge others favorably. We can choose to turn away from their cold darkness by shining the light of good will, and the warmth of our empathetic love to all who around us.

This is what Miriam Feig was. She lost her entire childhood to the murderous hatred of the Holocaust. She was a hidden child and spent her early youth in a monastery, and took quite a turn from there after the war, to be raised by Satmar Chassidim. After such a tumultuous early part of her life, she ended up here on the West Side and became a veritable Chesed machine for dozens of needy individuals. She didn’t only raise money for them, she cooked for them, she shopped for them, and she cleaned for them. She did much more for them than she ever did for herself. She did this for so many years, and most of the people who came to know her at OZ knew her at the end of her incredible life. She displaced so much hatred with love. She converted so much destruction with good will and kindness. She displaced bitterness with sweetness (she loved to give out sweets and lollipops).

Adar is the season of “V’nahafoch Hu”, of turning things around. In Miriam’s name, let us commit to be the best we can be, to make the most of every situation, to make every place better than the way we found it, and to make the best of every day.   May the memory of Miriam bas Eliyakim Getzel Chayim be a blessing

Stay well and healthy.

Rabbi Allen Schwartz  

Rabbi Allen Schwartz

Congregation Ohab Zedek

118 West 95^th Street | New York, NY  10025-6604

Phone 212.749-5150, ext 200 | Fax 212.663-3635

E-mail ras@ozny.org

Website:  www.ozny.org