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Hamodia
December 21, 2005 - reprinted with permission
The $25 Million Funeral
by David Damen
It was just another routine day at one of the cemeteries in Central Israel. Dozens of family members walked, heads bowed sadly, behind their deceased loved one. A standard funeral, at first glance. Strangers who encountered the throng on its way out barely cast a glance at the group. Even the passionate sobs of the man leading the procession, who seemed to be the only son of the deceased, didn't transform the funeral into anything extraordinary in this land of the dead, where wails and sobs are the order of the day until that time when death will be forever vanquished.
No one could guess that this funeral, which was held about three months ago, was far from another routine funeral. It was the closing of an amazing saga, a rare collusion of events stunning in their intensity, Divine in their essence, and containing all the elements of an almost inconceivable story. Had it not actually occurred, it is doubtful that anyone would believe the tale.
The first part of the unbelievable puzzle was woven in Auschwitz, during the terrible war years. The thousands of downtrodden human skeletons walking through the camp were joined one day by a father and son, named Moshe and Yitzchak (not their real names). The father, a householder from a certain well known town, clutched his only son tightly, desperately attempting to protect him from any harm. The Nazis separated the father from his son. They were taken to different places, and never met again.
A short while later, the war came to an end. The survivors, who were slated to be next in line for the ovens, rubbed their eyes in disbelief. Then they began their odyssey toward living a normal, free life. Moshe, the father, tried to locate his son. When he failed to do so, he quickly despaired. The boy must have been killed, he thought to himself. The loss overtook him and broke his spirit. In a moment of emotional weakness, he decided to abandon his religion and completely disconnect from the past. Wounded, angered, and filled with resentment, he decided to turn over a new leaf in a place where he would be unrecognized. He wandered through several countries, finally settling in a country in South America.
In his new home, Moshe began a new chapter, albeit not a smooth one. He married a local non-Jewish woman. The young son that he'd left behind in Poland, and the possibility that he might still be alive somewhere, didn't occupy his thoughts all that much. Perhaps covertly, when no one noticed, he thought about the child. But to his non-Jewish wife and son, he never revealed his secret memories. The son, a non-Jew, never imagined in his wildest dreams what his father was hiding in his memory box. His father's financial successes veiled his previous traumas. When it came to money, Moshe did quite well. He made many successful deals and amassed tremendous wealth.
A few months ago came his turning point. Moshe felt unwell, and at his advanced age he didn't want to take any chances. He visited the local doctor, and after comprehensive examinations, was informed that his life was coming to an end. “You have just a few months left,” his doctor told him with an impassive expression.
Distressed, Moshe's conscience began to trouble him greatly. Thoughts of his lost son began to race through his mind, and spurred him to take action before it would be too late. Lying on his sickbed, he summoned his non-Jewish son and recounted the untold portion of his history. “I never told you this,” he said in a weak voice, “but you should know that there is a possibility that my other son, a Jew, is living somewhere in the world. I ask of you, try to locate him! When you do find him, give him twenty five million dollars.” This sum was exactly half of Moshe's estate. Fifty million dollars was the sum that Moshe would be leaving behind. Now, he had decided to divide it into two.
Moshe supplied his son with two pieces of information: the exact name of his missing son and his birthday. With the help of those two minute details, the non Jewish son began a fascinating search attempt. It was a race against probability and a race against time. Any day now his father was apt to breathe his last.
A Few Hours Too Late
Aided by advanced electronic media, which hadn't existed in the days after Auschwitz, the son slowly drew closer to his goal. He searched throughout the United States, carried on to Europe, and ... did not find a trace of his half-brother. As a last alternative he tried searching in Israel. The name that he located was a perfect match to the name his father had mentioned. Not only that, the birthday was also the same. He didn't waste any time, and contacted the fellow, his new brother. The man, whom we'll call Yitzchak, a Torah observant Jew living in Tel Aviv, heard the stranger on the other end of the telephone and was moved to tears. “Father is about to die,” his non-Jewish brother informed him. “The sooner you come, the greater your chances of meeting him.”
The man, greatly moved, took the first available flight and flew to South America to meet his birth father, for whom he had recited Kaddish for the last sixty years. He reached his destination and was met in the airport by his brother, whose saddened face said it all. “I am sorry to inform you,” the brother said, “that our father died last night in the hospital.” Yitzchak had arrived just a few hours too late.
The only thing left to do at that point was to arrange a respectable funeral. On the way to town, as the two discussed the tremendous inheritance waiting for them, Yitzchak tried to clarify the details of the funeral. “The funeral won't be held for another few days,” the non Jewish brother said.
“Why?” Yitzchak couldn't understand the reason for the delay.
“Because that's, what I've already arranged with the church,” his brother answered serenely. After a few moments Yitzchak learned that his Jewish father was slated to undergo a non-Jewish burial with all the trimmings. The funeral would be held in the church, the priest would deliver a fiery eulogy, and then the corpse would be sent for cremation. His father's body may have escaped the ovens of Auschwitz, but it would now be burnt in a magnificent non-Jewish ceremony.
Yitzchak was terribly disturbed. “How could you do this to Father?” he tried to reprimand his brother. “After all, he was a Jew.”
“Leave me alone,” the brother rejoined. “He never instructed me otherwise. Be behaved exactly as a non-Jew. There is no reason that you, a newly-arrived guest, should spoil this ceremony for me.”
The biting argument spiraled into a serious fight, with each side staunchly defending its position. The non-Jewish brother could not understand what the Israeli Jew, the fellow who was supposedly his brother, wanted from him. Just a few days ago, he had informed the Jew that he was about to become a millionaire. Now that he'd arrived, this stranger was making his life miserable over such inconsequential matters.
Everything For a Jewish Burial
Yitzchak didn't waste any time. He telephoned his lawyer in Israel, one of the country's top attorneys, and asked him to recommend a talented lawyer in the South American country where he was located. Yitzchak decided to prevail over his brother through the legal system. The Israeli attorney referred him to a local lawyer, and a hearing was quickly scheduled.
In the interim, a court order was issued forbidding burial until a final verdict would be reached. A few days later, the case was heard.
The judge, who apparently didn't quite understand the great furor, suggested what seemed to him a most logical arrangement. “The corpse shall be cremated,” he ruled. Still, in an attempt to satisfy the Jewish brother, he informed him that the ashes would be divided equally between the two brothers. Half would be given to the non-Jew, and the other half to Yitzchak, who would be free to bury it in a Jewish cemetery.
In any other situation, Yitzchak would have burst into uncontrollable laughter, remembering the famous verdict of King Solomon. But in this case, the subject was his father, whose body was about to be terribly violated. He could not permit himself to lose this battle.
Yitzchak summoned his brother and tried to convince him in other ways. “You know that my portion of the inheritance is twenty-five million dollars,” Yitzchak began in a soft voice. “Take ten million of those dollars for yourself and give me the body in exchange,” he offered.
The brother looked at him with flashing eyes and spit out angrily, “Aren't you ashamed? Here I made such efforts to locate you, and then you are shaming me like this, suing me in court, and embarrassing me in public! I don't want to talk to you at all!” he concluded vehemently.
Yitzchak wouldn't give up. In a flash of inspiration, he decided to make a much improved offer. “I will give you my entire share of the inheritance, all twenty-five million dollars, as long as you give me Father's body,” he told his brother, his voice shaky but sure. The brother thought a moment, and then immediately wrapped up the deal. What was a dead body worth to a non-Jew, compared to twenty-five million dollars?
And don't think that Yitzchak is a wealthy person. Not at all. Yitzchak is just a Jew who always managed to make as much money as he needed to get by, and who managed to marry off his children honorably. Nothing more than that.
The deal was closed on the spot. The non-Jewish brother received the entire inheritance, while Yitzchak flew back to Israel together with the most precious treasure possible: his father's unviolated body. Not only did Yitzchak lose his inheritance, he also had to pay fifty thousand dollars in legal funds.
Back in Israel, the entire family assembled to pay their final respects to their forgotten grandfather. Yitzchak said Kaddish in a crushed voice, and began a year of mourning.
Facing the open grave, Yitzchak began to think about the strange series of events that he had endured over the past few days. He had found his father, discovered a non-Jewish brother, lost twenty-five million dollars, and succeeded in according his father a Jewish burial. His family members were also immersed in thought. Who had a greater merit? The father who had miraculously made his way to burial in Israel, or the son who had conceded such tremendous wealth for that purpose?
As the family stood, still immersed in thought, the undertakers steadily continued their work. Not one of them imagined that this body, which they were slowly lowering into the ground, had “cost” the family twenty-five million dollars. □
Yitzchak, the hero of the story, is a modest man. He never intended to publicize the story, and had no plans of gaining any glory from his act.
What happened was, the story reached the ears of the gaon HaRav Chaim Yerachmiel Kleinman, shlita, mashgiach of Yeshivas Ateres Yisrael, who is personally acquainted with several of the people involved in the story. In a conversation with Mishpacha, Hakav Kleinman verified all the details of the story, and even mentioned that he had presented the story to gedolim, who had displayed great amazement upon hearing the tale. One of those gedolim was HaGaon HaRav Yitzchak Zilberstein, shlita, rabbi of the Ramat Elchanan neighborhood, who later retold the story to the audience at one of his lectures.
“It is unbelievable,” says HaRav Kleinman excitedly. “It is a story that is totally atypical of our times. It is nothing less than a ‘Berditchever tale.’ ” HaRav Kleinman has retold the story many times, but each time he is moved anew.
Mishpacha attempted, in any case, to establish contact with the hero of the story, but the latter's lawyer relayed that he was not interested in being interviewed.