As far back as I can remember, my father, HaRav HaGaon Avraham HaLevi Jungreis, zt”l, would always remind us that in every Yiddishe neshamah there is a holy spark from Sinai that, in an instant, can become an eternal flame.
The Yiddishe neshamah can be likened to a computer. If you can’t find that pintele Yid, it’s only because you don’t know how to bring up the program – but you can rest assured the program is there.
This truth was brought home to me on a visit to Eretz Yisrael several years ago. My book, Life Is A Test, has been translated into Hebrew, and I was scheduled to speak to audiences running the gamut from right to left. At all my programs, except for one in English which took place at our Hineni Center in Jerusalem, and one near Tel Aviv where I spoke in Hebrew to 1,000 religious high school girls, the majority of the audience was secular.
On one of these occasions, prior to addressing a group of university students, a campus rabbi asked to speak to me. “These students are very secular,” he warned, “so please be careful not to use words like Torah, Hashem or mitzvot. Secular Jews regard such talk as ‘brainwashing.’ We have to tackle those subjects stealthily.”
“Don’t worry,” I assured him. “My weaknesses are my strengths, so I can get away with many things: I’m coming from outside; my Hebrew is far from perfect; I’m a woman, not the typical Orthodox rabbi they anticipate; and I have, Baruch Hashem, reached eit ziknah – my senior years – so I can say whatever I wish and no one can take umbrage!”
I spoke to the students for an hour and a half , and they drank in every word of Torah. When I finished, their eyes were brimming with tears and they lined up to speak with me. I gave them copies of my book along with a berachah. The rabbi, who had been so worried, apologized to me. The following day, he bused a whole new crew of university students to my program.
This same scene was repeated everywhere I spoke in Israel. But it wasn’t only in public forums that I discovered the pintele Yid in the souls of our people. I had the same experience in personal encounters. Take, for example, an exchange I had with a taxi driver who had made aliyah from South America.
Taxi drivers in Israel are all philosophers and have opinions about everything, which they love to share with their passengers….
“What is your name?” I asked our driver.
“Matthew,” he said.
“Tell me your Jewish name.”
“Mattityahu.”
“I hope you don’t take offense, but may I tell you something from my heart?”
“Please.”
“Do you know one of the reasons our forefathers were deemed worthy of being redeemed from Egypt was that they did not alter their Jewish names? ‘Shem Yisrael kadosh – the names of the Jewish people are holy.’ They are rooted in eternity, and reflect our heritage, our destiny, our legacy, and our covenant.”
He drove in silence, so I continued: “Just consider that you have come back to the land of your fathers after having been away for almost 2,000 years, and you call yourself ‘Matthew’ when you have a glorious name like Mattityahu.”
I went on to explain that Mattityahu was one of our people’s greatest heroes; the high priest who saved the Jewish people from extinction in the days of Chanukah.
Our driver, like most Israeli taxi drivers, did not usually lack for words, but now he was silent – the pintele Yid had started to work in his neshamah.
“Tell your family, your friends, your co-workers,” I urged him, “that from now on they are to call you Mattityahu.” And with that, I gave him a copy of the Hebrew edition of my book. By the time we got out of the cab, he had become Mattityahu.
Yes, that spark in every Jewish neshamah is always there.