Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld
July 28, 2023 • 11 Menachem Av 5783 • Parshas Va'eschanan (Deut 4-7)
The purpose of this blog is to make you a hero at the Shabbat table - please share.
The story of Roi Klein has been told and told and told and told. It must be a story worth telling.
On July 26, 2006, Klein dove on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers.
In the last seconds before the grenade exploded beneath him, his comrades heard him say - loudly and passionately - Shema Yisrael Adonai Elohaynu Adonai Echad!
(That's what we're taught we should want to be on our lips in our last moment of life.)
Click on the image above for the inspiring book about his life, or watch this 5-minute video.
Two questions for your table.
First: Roi saved fellow Jews that day, but made his wife a widow and his children orphans (not to mention other bereft loved ones). He could perhaps have saved himself that day and returned home to his wife and two young children — did he do the right thing?
Second: When you read about his life, you realize that his martyrdom was not in a vacuum – he was an extraordinary individual in many respects. Does everyone have such opportunities for heroic self-sacrifice, in their own contexts? Or is heroism only reserved for the extraordinary individuals?
On July 26, 2006, Klein dove on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers.
In the last seconds before the grenade exploded beneath him, his comrades heard him say - loudly and passionately - Shema Yisrael Adonai Elohaynu Adonai Echad!
(That's what we're taught we should want to be on our lips in our last moment of life.)
Click on the image above for the inspiring book about his life, or watch this 5-minute video.
Two questions for your table.
First: Roi saved fellow Jews that day, but made his wife a widow and his children orphans (not to mention other bereft loved ones). He could perhaps have saved himself that day and returned home to his wife and two young children — did he do the right thing?
Second: When you read about his life, you realize that his martyrdom was not in a vacuum – he was an extraordinary individual in many respects. Does everyone have such opportunities for heroic self-sacrifice, in their own contexts? Or is heroism only reserved for the extraordinary individuals?
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