The man's name was Shmuel Beller. Shmuel Beller, I believe, lives here in Brooklyn, or lived here in Brooklyn, and he's a 98-year-old Holocaust survivor, 98 years old. As you know, two months ago, we went to Poland with 350 single girls. We went to powerful kevarim (graves) to pray, and we also went to the tragic, hallowed grounds of Auschwitz. We walked on the freezing-cold ground covered with snow. We saw the camps, the barbed wire, the crematorium, the gas chambers, and the barracks.
Towards the end of a tour that lasted about a few hours at that terrible, horrific place, we had the 350 girls walk into a barrack that used to house 800 women. 800 women would fit in a barrack that was smaller than this room, and there would sleep one on top of it, whatever. And we walked in, and it was a very powerful experience because, you know, as a Syrian, you relate to the Holocaust very much, but there's a certain part of it that you don't, that all of a sudden hit me when I was there, because the rabbi said, “Let's say the Beracha (blessing). Anyone here who has a parent or grandparent who went to Auschwitz, say the Beracha.” Baruch atah Hashem, Eloheinu Melech ha'olam, she'asah nisim la'avoteinu ba'makom hazeh. That Hashem made a nes (miracle) for my parents in this place. Maybe 200 or 250—50 girls said the Beracha in that barrack, and then they began to sing. Of course, we left. The rabbis there left. We're not going to hear the girls sing, but it's such a powerful thing to sing Ani Ma'amin (I believe) in a barrack of Gehinam (hell), that barrack that tried to wipe out our nation and that sort of represents our power.
And then the rabbis—we were called back in because they had a little video they wanted to show us on FaceTime. The video was Shmuel Beller—not a video, a live Shmuel Beller. This was Shmuel Beller, who was going to talk to the girls. He started to tell the girls, “I was born less than a mile from Auschwitz. I was in the Holocaust for five years and eight months. I went through the camps.” Five years and eight months, he says, he went through the camps. And then he told the girls, “I want to tell you, it's open. I want to tell you what got me through those camps.” What he said was that the number on his arm was 1-8-4-8-0-5. That was the number that the Nazis, yimach shemam (may their names be erased), tattooed on his arm. 1 and 8 make 9, plus 4 is 13, plus 8 is 21, plus 0 is still 21, and then plus 5 is 26. 26 is the name of Hashem, Yud Keh Vav Keh. He says, “This is what got me through the Holocaust.” And he said, “My Beracha to every one of you girls is that the next date you go on, the next journey you take in your life, you should take this number that's on my arm with you.” This Shmuel Beller was a known, tremendous image of emunah (faith) and bitachon (trust) in Hashem through a life that went through Auschwitz, and thank God lived so long. On Sunday, Shmuel Beller, at 98 years old, passed away.
And this man represents the essence of what we believe. You guys, if you want to throw anything at us, we are above it all. If you live in the world of Paro, you're afraid of tanks, you're afraid of missiles, you're afraid of what they might predict will happen to the future of nature. But if you live in the world of the Jew, you live in the world of Yud Keh Vav Keh, you live under the 26, you live in the world of the 1,820 times that Hashem told us in the Torah, “This is my name and this is how I run the world.” If you live in the world where every single word of the Haggadah is here to show us, “I run the world, I control the world, and I am above whatever you think is natural in the world,” if you live in that world, you're not afraid of almost anything.