TORAH UNDERGROUND

In the ghettos of Nazi-occupied Europe, there was an underground group of yeshiva youth whose founder was a young man called Mattisyahu. Born into an assimilated Viennese family, Mattisyahu became a deeply committed Torah Jew, a ba'al teshuva, by age 15 -- despite the fervent opposition of his father. He eventually left home and came to Poland, where he entered a yeshiva and quickly developed into a budding scholar.

By the time the Germans occupied Poland, he had become the leader of a group of young men fervently devoted to Torah ideals. The Germans decreed that all Jewish men had to shave their beards and sidelocks. Jews had to work on Shabbat if they were to get ration cards to buy bread. Mattisyahu told his group that it was an attempt to get Jews to deny their religion.

"You can be sure," he said, "that they intend to kill all the Jews eventually. This is an attempt to take our souls before they take our bodies. We are not going to give in to their demands. We will go underground. We are going to keep our beards and sidelocks, observe Shabbat, and learn Torah until we die. We will dedicate ourselves to serving God fully with the last days of our lives."

They went into hiding. The community secretly supported them with the little food they had, and came to view these young men as a source of pride. Other groups of young men in other ghettos modeled themselves after them. And these groups, wherever they cropped up, were invariably the last Jews to survive, going to their death with their holy with books in their hands and with "Shema Yisrael..." on their lips.

FACING THE TEST

A diary of one of the last survivors of Mattisyahu's groups was discovered. He describes how he is the last one left in his bunker. Dying of starvation and experiencing tortuous suffering, he writes how he knows that within a couple of hours the fires raging about him will end his life. He knows that according to Jewish law he is allowed to jump into the fire. Nevertheless, he debates with himself whether to jump into the fire and shorten his last few hours of pain, or to stay alive until the fires burn him up.

As he writes, he is reminded of a story about the plight of a Jew during the Spanish Inquisition. The Marranos were Spanish Jews who converted to Christianity under threat of death, but secretly maintained Jewish law and custom -- despite the risk of getting burned at the stake if they were discovered.

As the story goes, one aristocratic Marrano family was discovered. Forewarned by a friend that the authorities were coming to get them, they managed to flee, albeit empty-handed and barefooted. They wandered for weeks and weeks until they finally found their way to a refugee camp in Morocco. Conditions there were dire and impoverished -- certainly a far cry from the aristocratic lifestyle they were used to -- but at least they were with others like themselves.

Then plague struck the camp. Death hung everywhere. One morning, a child of this Marrano family did not wake up. Shortly thereafter, another child died. Soon, all the children died. The parents remained as strong as they could and accepted their fate. Then, finally, the wife died.

When that happened, the husband lifted his eyes to Heaven and said, "God, I know that everything has been a challenge to see if I would stop believing in You and loving You, to see if I would break. What is left for You to try to break me with?

"When they forced us to feign Christianity, we remained dedicated to Your Torah in private. We lived under constant fear of being caught and that did not deter us. Then we had the choice to accept death or flee in order to continue living. We fled. And then you took away one child. We did not complain. And then You took our next child. And still we accepted Your decree. Eventually, You took all the children. And now You have taken away my wife. What else is there for You to break me with?

"As I see it," he exclaimed, "there are only two things left. One is my life and the other is my belief in You. If you want to take away my life, go ahead and take it. It is not mine to begin with; it is Yours. However, if you want to take away my belief in and love for You -- that, even You, Almighty, cannot take away. They belong to me -- and to me alone."

PRECIOUS LIFE

Now, in a bunker in one of the burning Jewish ghettos of Nazi-occupied Europe, this starved, tortured young Jew recalled the story of the Marrano. He wrote:

"When I reminded myself of this story, I reminded myself that these moments of 'confrontation' with God are the most precious moments a person can possess, because they allow one to prove absolute love of and devotion to God."

It was then that he decided not to jump into the flames prematurely. He turned to God: "In these moments, where there is no hope, and no apparent reason or purpose to live, I know that everything You have done is a test to see if we still love You, to see if we still want Your Torah and mitzvot, if we still believe in You. You fought us. You fought me. But You did not break me.

"Soon I am going to be consumed by fire. But I will not rush to my death. These last few painful hours You have given me do indeed contain a purpose: to prove to You that even if the life You have given becomes a living hell, it is still the most precious possession -- because we can use it to tell You that You cannot stop us from loving You. You can test us with anything You like; I promise that I will fight You to the last moment."

Sometimes, it seems like God is fighting us. We want to be good Jews and serve Him and keep His Torah, but everything seems to be working against us. However, we should never despair. God may be engaging us -- challenging us -- but He does so in order for us to discover the lesson that no power can take away our ability to love Him.