Dear Friends,
This week, Dr. Edith Eger left this world. She was 98 years old.
But who was this well-known Jewish woman?
She was a teenager in Hungary when her family was put on a train to Auschwitz. On the very first day, her parents were taken from her. And that same night, she was forced to dance for the evil Dr. Josef Mengele!
While she danced, her mind went somewhere else entirely. She imagined herself on a stage. She heard music. She held onto something from before. She knew exactly where she was. But there was one place inside her they couldn't reach, and she refused to let go of it.
She called it the space between what happens to you and how you respond to it. That space, she said, is where freedom lives.
After surviving the war, she went on to become a psychologist, spending decades helping thousands of people find that same place inside themselves — people imprisoned not by barbed wire, but by grief, trauma, and the stories they couldn't stop telling themselves. She wrote about it in her memoir, The Choice. (The title alone is the whole message!)
I never met her. But reading her works and after listening to interviews this week, something felt deeply familiar — like ideas I had encountered before, in a different language. And perhaps that's why in recent years she ended up speaking at dozens of Chabad Houses around the world.
The soul is untouchable. You are not your circumstances. You can choose how to react and live. These are essential ideas of Judaism and Chabad Chassidism teachings.
She lived to 98. And from what I understand, she never stopped teaching.
Today is the little-known Jewish holiday of Pesach Sheni ("Second Passover"). And I can't think of a more perfect day to be writing about her.
If anyone ever had the right to say, "I am a victim of circumstance," it was her. And yet she refused to live there. And yet she refused to live there. Not because she denied what happened — she spoke about it openly, painfully, honestly, much of her life. But she made a distinction that sat at the core of everything she believed: what happened to me is real. But what I become because of it is still open.
That is also the essence of Pesach Sheni (The Second Passover).
When the Jewish people left Egypt, G-d instructed them to bring the Paschal offering on the 14th of Nissan. But there were those who were ritually impure — unable to participate through no fault of their own. And still they came to Moses and asked: does this mean we're left out? Is the story already written for us? G-d's answer was to create an entirely new holiday. One month later, a full second chance — Matzah, Maror, the whole thing.
While the practical Pesach Sheni was only observed in Temple Times, the Rebbe loved its timeless message and would repeat it again and again: it's never too late. You are not doomed to repeat. You are not stuck. (You can hear the Rebbe saying the words here)
We all have places where it feels like the story is already written. This is how I was raised. This is just my personality. This is the mistake I made.
I can't tell you how many times I've heard "Rabbi, it's too late for me." Too late to begin this particular Mitzvah. Too late to incorporate faith in my life. Too late to become a certain type of spouse or parent. Too late to join a strong Jewish community.
Pesach Sheni was given to us specifically to answer that.
As a mentor once told me " There are those who debate whether the glass is half full or half empty. And then there are those who realize the glass is refillable!" Lchaim!
Today is the annual reminder that wherever you are, whatever you're carrying, whatever feels finished — it isn't!
Good Shabbos/Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yitzi Hein
Oh, and many have a tradition to eat some Matzah today :)