by Rabbi Yair Hoffman for the Five Towns Jewish Times

It is a remarkable picture.

It depicts a holocaust survivor – one who had built the institutions in this community. He built the yeshivos and he built the Bais Yaakov. Elementary schools, high schools and Batei Midrashim. Older now, he still continues. But it is difficult to get about now.

He wants the next generation to know about the holocaust – about the world that once was. It was a world in which he lived. It was a world where he had lost friends, teachers, parents and other family members, including a remarkable Talmid Chochom of a brother. He wrote a book about his own family’s survival, or at least most of them. He lectures and he teaches.

And now the two boys.

The two boys have taken it upon themselves to pick him up each day, and to bring him to their Yeshiva where this remarkable man can continue to teach about the holocaust. And they bring him back to his home when he is done teaching. These two young men themselves are members of remarkable families, families that have built Torah as well.

We read the papers and see depressing headlines. We see assimilation. We see crime, rachmana litzlan, and chemical abuse. But in this picture we see the future. We see kavod, respect, love and appreciation. We take enormous pride in our young men.

It is a remarkable picture.

the author can be reached at [email protected]