The other night I was in somebody’s house, and he said, “Rabbi, I want to share with you some stories about my grandfather from the Holocaust. Let me share with you one story.” The man’s name was Yossi Goldberg. Yossi Goldberg was taken with his parents to Auschwitz. He was told to go to the right, while his parents and siblings were told to go to the left. When he went to the right, he was put in a barrack with tons and tons of boys. He asked somebody, or maybe one of the guards, where his parents were. The guards pointed to smoke and ashes and said, “Those are your parents.” He had lost his parents, obviously, and was now in this barrack with all these boys. The way it worked in Auschwitz was that if someone’s bunker was ever surrounded, it meant something really bad was about to happen.
One day on Rosh Hashanah, their bunker was surrounded by dogs and guards. Everybody knows that means very shortly they’re going to be taken to the gas chambers. This boy, this Yossi, is standing there in the middle of the room with all these kids, who are nervous and know what’s about to happen. In his mind, he keeps saying to himself that his Rebbe (teacher) taught him that life is invaluable, that there’s nothing more important than life. And so he’s debating: Should he? When he gets into the gas chamber, should he breathe it in right away and let himself pass away quickly? Or should he hold his breath and not breathe it in, so he gets a few more seconds of life? That’s his debate. All of a sudden, a Nazi guard walks into the room. Yossi stands up and says, “Are you looking for me?” There’s no idea why he said it, no idea why anyone would even think it. He had never seen the guard before, and the guard had never seen him before. The guard says, “Yes, I’m looking for you.” The guard takes him out of the room and puts him in the neighboring barrack. A few minutes later, he watched as trucks came to pick up all the boys in the barrack he was in. He heard them on the trucks singing, “Shema Yisrael, Hashem Eloheinu, Hashem Echad (Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our God, Hashem is One).” Then again, “Shema Yisrael, Hashem Eloheinu, Hashem Echad.” And again and again and again.
He told his family about that rhythm: “Shema Yisrael, Hashem Eloheinu, Hashem Echad,” and then again and again. He said that the rhythm started to get fainter and fainter and fainter because the truck was moving further away. He said, “The rhythm of that Shema Yisrael (Hear, O Israel) rings in my head for the rest of my life. Everywhere I go, I just hear the Shema Yisrael, Shema Yisrael, Shema Yisrael. I keep hearing it getting fainter and fainter and fainter, until it was gone.” Let me ask you a question: What’s the difference between that boy and everyone else in the barrack? Why is it fair? Who deserves what?
The answer is that life doesn’t go by what you think you deserve. Life—and this is obviously the most difficult story—but life works by whatever Hashem decides someone should have. In fact, throughout the entire Torah, the whole Torah, the oldest son never gets the cake, never gets the bone, never is the one. Kayin is older than Hevel, and Hevel is greater than him. Yishmael is older; Yitzchak is younger than Yishmael, and Yitzchak is the one. The younger one gets the one. Yaakov is younger than Esav, and Yaakov is the one. Yehudah is younger than Reuven, Shimon, and Levi. And Yehudah is younger than Reuven, Shimon, and Levi. Yosef is younger than almost all of them, and he’s the one. Moshe is younger than Aharon, and he’s the one. It doesn’t go by what you think you deserve. It goes by how Hashem puts you and how Hashem positions you.