Unbreakable | Rabbi Eliyohu Meir Schmeltzer

[Music] several months ago I traveled to Chicago for a Simka in the family and I got into a taxi and I told him exactly where we want to go we want to go to the Peterson Park neighborhood and he says oh that's the Jewish neighborhood I said yes it is as we got closer to the neighborhood to be precise St Louis and Peterson anyone familiar at the Peterson Park Jewish neighborhood he turns to me and he says we are now in the Jewish neighborhood I said how do you you know he says because the I'm looking at the people in the street I see the way the women handle themselves I see the way they're modestly dressed I see the way they conduct themselves it's obvious that this is a Jewish neighborhood and I said to myself that this cab driver a Haitian cab driver should understand what kadas AM is just by looking outside on the street and I was thinking where does this come from and I was reminded of a story that my brother a prolific writer writes the following story there was a he told I want to share with you an experience from when I was in the labor camps back in the war when the Nazis yakam conquered Poland they had to lay new train lines to be able to transport their soldiers so they had a lay track so they grabbed a bunch of yiden from the local labor camps the concentration camps they handed them crude sticks and iron picks to smash up the rocks in the road to flatten the road to be able to lay the tracks the train tracks ran on top of a graveyard and they instructed us that we have to crack and break the gravestones and flatten them out and imagine the emotional trauma and the physical labor of cracking hard Stone monuments and the trauma of understanding that we're cracking the Matas of our haladas and we were doing that and I came across one Mata and I smashed it with my iron pick and I was smashing and it wouldn't budge and I continued to smash and then my iron pick smashed and it broke off the top and I looked quickly to the side to see if the Nazi commandant saw it and he didn't see it I picked up another iron pickax smashed against the same gravestone thinking this time I'll get it and this time the commant noticed me and he said you cursed yid you cursed jid you cursed Jew you don't know what you're doing and he grabbed an iron pick and he said I'll show you how to do this and he grabbed his pick and he smashed it with all his force and the top of the pig flew into his face and he walked away cursing I couldn't believe it every gravestone was managed we managed to smash and flatten and crack into small pieces why was this gravestone not budging and it was already night time and I crawled on my tattered clothing and my bloody knees to try to make out the name on the monument and I looked very closely and I saw that it said said here lies s nearer and I said to myself the roots that were planted could not be budged it remained staunch the roots that she planted could not be broken she implanted in a whole generation and generation and generation afterwards that we must be strong and this is why people in middle of Chicago in middle of the summer are able to walk around outstanding in their mind modesty outstanding in their in their in their strength of character that they should shine and every one of us could grab onto that root that root which sarne and others implanted and Infused in us that cannot be budged and it cannot be broken and let us all grab onto that branch that we could be part of this and maintain the modesty and kadas that we all intrinsically possess [Music]