27 May WHAT THEY’LL NEVER UNDERSTAND ABOUT THE JEWS

Chaim Lindenbaum, a
77-year-old man from
Haifa, was diagnosed
with aggressive
leukemia in 2022.
Doctors said the
grandfather could only

survive with a life-
saving bone marrow transplant. Dr. Daniel Levi

had signed up to be a bone marrow donor after
moving to Israel from Peru and he came up as a
match for Lindenbaum, even though they were
not related. After finding out he could be a donor,
Levi had about one week to prepare for the
urgent stem cell transplant, which was arranged
through Ezer Mizion, the world’s largest Jewish
bone marrow registry. The transplant was a
success, and the older man wanted to thank his
benefactor. But donor rules forced the men to
wait a year before the donor’s identity could be
revealed.
A year later, Chaim Lindenbaum and Daniel
Levi were anxious to finally meet each other.
They scheduled to meet after the Jewish holiday
season that ended with Simchas Torah on
October 7. But that meeting never happened.
Daniel Levi and his young family lived in
Kibbutz Be’eri and on October 7, when terrorists
infiltrated the kibbutz, he answered the frantic
calls from the medical clinic. He ran into the
trouble, racing to treat the severely injured. As
his wife Lihi, 34, daughter Emma, 5, and son

Liam, 2, were hiding in a safe room for seven
hours, Levi calmly texted her, “I love you” while
Hamas terrorists opened fire. After treating
many people and saving lives, Dr. Daniel Levi
was killed on October 7.
Lindenbaum never did get to meet the man who
saved his life, but he did get to meet his family.
A few weeks after the horror at Be’eri, someone
from Ezer Mizion was trying to arrange the
meeting and kept called Levi but didn’t hear
back. She looked at his file and saw he was from
Be’eri. She did more research and learned he
had been killed. She decided to call Lihi
nonetheless to see if a meeting could be arranged.
During an “exciting and emotional” meeting for
the two families, Daniel Levi’s widow got a
chance to do what her husband dreamed of doing
for more than a year, hug his bone marrow
recipient.
Bending down to little Emma, Lindenbaum
explained, “I was very sick – my blood was sick.
And today I’m healthy, thanks to your daddy’s
blood.” He continued: “I was very sad, I wanted
to thank him. His blood system is in my body. In
compatibility we were like brothers.” He added
that a part of Levi still lives on in him: “He left,
aside from his two beautiful kids, his blood,
which is my blood.”
The truth is this principle is not limited to Chaim
Lindenbaum and Daniel Levi, but all Jews are
brothers and sisters, we must work to be perfectly
compatible.

In describing the most seminal moment in
history, the revelation at Sinai, the Torah tells us:
Va’yachanu ba’midbar, vayichan sham Yisrael
neged ha’har, they encamped in the desert and
the Jewish people camped opposite the mountain.
Rashi famously comments on the change in
tense—from the plural “Vayachanu” to the
singular “Vayichan”—that we stood “k’ish
echad b’lev echad, like one person with one
heart.” The Ohr HaChaim writes that this
mindset was from “ikarei ha’hachana l’kabbalas
ha’Torah” a critical part of preparing to receive
the Torah. It was then, and it is again now, as
each year we accept the Torah together anew
The simple understanding of this concept is that
we were united, cooperative, caring and loving
of one another. We were a family, a community,
a people instead of just a gathering of disparate
individuals. But the idea is deeper. Indeed, we
can’t fully observe and keep the totality of Torah
unless we are united and as one. We are all
obligated in Taryag mitzvos but yet can’t observe
every one of them because we can’t
simultaneously be a man, woman, Kohen, levi,
Live in Israel and outside of it, during the Beis
HaMikdash and without it, etc. The Kiryas
Sefer explains that only through the principle of
Kol Yisroel areivim zah la’zeh can we fulfill the
entire 613 commandments. By being guarantors
one for the others, we can be motzei each other
and thereby all fulfill it all. It is not a coincidence
that areivim is the same word as ta’aroves, a
mixture. When we guarantee one another and
have each other in mind, we become a mixture
together.
The Baal Shem Tov understands this idea in
an even deeper way. The only way to fulfill
Taryag Mitzvos, he says, is to not only exist
independently, but also to see ourselves as part
of one organic, integrated whole, one unit.
קיום תרי״ג מצוות אינו אפשרי אלא ע״י שכל אחד
כולל עצמו בתוך כלל ישראל באהבה ואחוה ע״י זה
why is This .יש לכל אחד חלק בתרי״ג מצוות
Chassidim say before each mitzvah they
.“בשם כל ישראל” ,perform
But perhaps there is yet another explanation.
We all know the name of the mountain the
Torah was given on is Har Sinai. The Gemara
(Shabbos 89a) tells us the etymology of the
name Sinai.
ְּדַּרַב ִחְִסְָּדּא ְוְַַרָּבּה ְּ-בֵּרֵיּה ְּדַּרַב הּוָנָא- ְּדָּאְָמִרִי
ַּת ְ ְּרַוַוְיְיהּו: ַמַאי -״ַהַר ִסִיַנַי״? ַהַרֶׁ-שָּׁי ְְּרָדָה ִׂשְׂנְָאָה
Sinai Har called is It ְ.לְֻאֻּמֹות- ָהָעֹוָלָם ָעָָלָיו
because it is the mountain from which sinah,
hatred descended against the Jews. While
countless explanations have been offered for
antisemitism, the world’s oldest hatred, there
is no unifying explanation because it has
reared its ugly head in times of prosperity and
poverty, in times of assimilation and strong
Jewish identity, throughout history and across
the globe, when we have been in our homeland
and when we were dispersed in galus.
Ultimately, our rabbis taught, we are hated
because we stood at Sinai and accepted a great
role and responsibility, a mission to be models
and examples, to improve and repair the
world. Subjective cultures and systems of
morality challenge the objective moral
timeless truths of our Torah, but they don’t

endure. We are meant to be the moral conscience
of the world, an example of creating an ethical
and holy society and community, and the people
of the world don’t like that.
The sinah, the hatred of the Jew, goes all the way
back to Har Sinai when we stood at the mountain,
three thousand, three hundred and thirty-seven
years ago and accepted to live lives informed,
inspired, and guided by the Torah. We have
faced discrimination, bias, double standards,
tropes and hate since the very moment we began.
We have been forced to live with and navigate
sinah since we first stood at Sinai.
How? How has our people not only survived this
sinah but thrived despite it throughout the
millennia? What is the explanation for our
endurance, resilience, strength and capacity to
still be here standing, to be back at that same
mountain that brought this hatred?
The answer, the secret to our surviving the sinah,
also goes all the way back to that mountain and
the way we gathered there. אחד בלב אחד כאיש,
we stood together as one: undivided, invincible,
ready to confront and overcome whatever sinah
would come our way.
A study released on friendship in 2008 by
professors from four universities in the Journal
of Experimental Social Psychology found
something remarkable about companionship and
community. Participants in their studies were
asked to estimate the incline of a hill in front of
them. Over and over again, those who were
accompanied by a friend estimated the hill to be
less steep than participants who were alone. The
researchers concluded that the more one is
connected with others, the more we are part of a
community, the more we feel we can climb
whatever mountain is in our way.
Long before researchers, our Torah understood
ִ֥א֥יׁש ֶאֶת־:said) 41:6 (Yeshayahu Navi The .this
helps one Each , ֵֵרֵ֖ע֖הּו- ַיְַעְֹ֑ז֑רּו ּוְלְָאִָ֖ח֖יו ֹיֹאַ֥מ֥ר ֲ-חָֽזֽק׃
the other, saying to his fellow, “Take courage!”
We have overcome the sinah since Sinai because
we stood and we stand together k’ish echad b’lev
echad, as one, turning to each other over and
over and saying, “Chazak! Be strong.” We have
not just stood united, we have become united,
like one, laughing together, crying together,
davening together and feeling together with our
lev echad, one heart.
As we prepare to stand at the mountain again to
reaccept the Torah, the sinah from Sinai
continues to rage in Israel, on college campuses,
in some offices of Congress, and in too many
countries around the world. Our response now
must be as it was then, to turn to one another
with a sense of unity, love and oness and to wish
each other chazak. If we are going to not only
survive but thrive, we must be in compatibility
like brothers and sisters, like one.