If one needs to be in the hospital there is a Bikur Cholim room set up for any Jew, no matter what his level of religiosity. The room is regularly re-stocked with free food and reading material, and the room itself provides for a brief respite from the intensity of the hospital. When a woman in our community has a baby, there is an immediate mobilization to ensure that meals are provided for the family for some time. The same holds true in the face of a tragedy, G-d forbid.
What a nation! What a people! With all of our shortcomings and despite all of our internal and external challenges, the covenant that our forefathers made in Egypt lives on. We revel in it and it is one of our defining features, and ultimately we will again merit redemption because of it.
[1] Rabbi Binyamin Rabinowitz is the founder and seventh grade rebbe of Yeshiva Bais Hachinuch.
[2] Rabbi Yisroel Rabinowitz was the rabbi at Kehillas Ohel Moshe in the Bronx and the author of two volumes of Kol Bo on the Shulchan Aruch.
[3] The Germans bombarded Lomza mercilessly because it was the first major city near the East Prussian border.
[4] 12:35-36
[5] 11:2
[6] See Bava Kamma 37b where the Gemara explains that when the Torah refers to ‘a friend’ it refers exclusively to a fellow Jew.
[7] 6:5
[8] Eliyahu Rabbah 23:9
[9] Sanhedrin chapter 11
[10] “Az Yashir” in parshas Beshalach
[11] Yirmiyah 2:2
