Young Jews around the world are facing a historic turning point

Where: Crown Heights, NY

What: The Pegisha shabbaton, by Chabad On Campus, with the participation of 2,000 college students from all over the globe

My takeaway: Young Jews around the world are facing a historic turning point

Imagine this scene as a chapter from Tanach: Am Yisrael tries to return to Eretz Yisrael without fully observing Torah and mitzvos. After several decades, a terrible tragedy occurs, but on its heels, there is a great awakening, and several lost tribes that had almost vanished in the Diaspora decide to return to their true identity. That’s pretty much how I felt during the recent Pegisha shabbaton, with its powerful focus on Jewish identity, reminding each of the 2,000 student participants that they’re part of something greater, stronger, something eternal, empowering them to fearlessly carry that resilience, unity, and inspiration back to their campuses.

Today’s generation of university students, almost fully assimilated, had now received a Divine, historic opportunity to return to its roots. The 2,000 who participated represent hundreds of thousands who didn’t, but who are out there, farther away, in the many campuses across the globe. One student told me, “On September 11, the West needed to learn a lesson. On October 7, the Jews needed to learn a lesson. We are the Jews of October 8. We’ve woken up.”

In this spirit, students spent the weekend going from class to class, from hall to hall, to hear compelling lectures and shiurim, to take part in tefillos and workshops. On Friday afternoon, a thousand young women stood in front of the Shabbos candles and recited the brachah together, literally shaking the walls with their intense prayer. I can only imagine how much light was added to the world in those minutes!

On Friday morning, I joined a group of about 15 students from a prestigious US campus at the ohel of the Lubavitcher Rebbe zy”a. I was asked to say a few words, but before that, they decided to sing me “their song,” at which point they broke out into an exuberant rendition of “Am Yisrael Chai.” When they were finished, I said, “You just said the three most important words that sum it all up. Who wants to translate for me what you sang?” Silence. No one even tried to answer. I sensed their embarrassment and tried to help them: “What does ‘Am’ mean? What does ‘chai’ mean?”

Slowly, we pieced together the meaning of the song, that the Jewish nation is alive and vibrant. The syllables that they repeated over and over now took on real meaning. I could only imagine the level of their academic achievements, but this was the best example of the huge gap between their excitement and thirst for some authentic Judaism and their actual level of practical knowledge. Yet they were carrying with them the Rebbe’s enduring message: Every Jew matters, and every action can illuminate the world.

It was Sunday morning at the large hall of Brooklyn’s Bedford Armory, following an epic Shabbos — for many, the first authentic Shabbos they’d ever experienced. The guest speaker was Daniel Weiss, a young musician from Kibbutz Be’eri, who over the year has emerged from near-anonymity to becoming the symbol of October 7, the day that changed his life forever. It was only a full week after the massacre that he received official confirmation that his father, Shmulik, had been murdered on that day, while his mother, Yehudit, had been kidnapped to Gaza. On his father’s shloshim, Daniel received the bitter news that they had found his mother’s body in a booby-trapped house near Shifa Hospital in Gaza where she’d been murdered.

This young man, who doesn’t yet speak the language of Torah or Divine Providence, was nevertheless giving a profound lesson on resilience.

“My parents are still close to me,” he began our on-stage interview. “I feel them in my bones — our connection hasn’t ended. In some ways, we are more connected now than before.”

Daniel never learned about the eternality of the soul; he simply described it in the most tangible way he knows: “I feel them with me now on this stage.”

For most of the students, it was their first time hearing a first-person account of the events of October 7 — and from a survivor of Kibbutz Be’eri, where 101 Israeli civilians and 31 security personnel were murdered and from where 32 hostages were taken.

“I was born twice,” Daniel continued. “Once when my mother gave birth to me, and the second time, when I survived the onslaught of October 7. I heard the terrorists right outside my window, and I held the handle shut for all I was worth. I felt death very close. Since my rescue, I see every moment of life as a gift. Every morning, I thank G-d that I am breathing.

“I can’t say that life is all bad. Life is the greatest gift — and I now try to do holy things for the sake of my soul and the souls of others. This is how we should live.”

Daniel then spoke about his music, the songs he’s written in the wake of October 7 and how the massacre has impacted him. “I touch my pain, and through that, I create something new — I’ve learned that I can produce something beautiful from the ugliest encounter. Out of the excruciating pain, I’ve created a monument. You know, we all have untapped kochot, and for me, pain was a way of discovering mine. It’s been my driving force over the past year.”

At the end, I asked Daniel to sing, and he performed two songs: “Vehi She’amdah” and “Shir L’Maalot.” And like he said, through his pain, Daniel is able to create something of beauty and holiness.

Chanukah is long over, but the eternal message of finding light within the darkness was evident over the weekend. In fact, one of the campus shluchos told me, “As soon as there were announcements on our campus for an anti-Israel Apartheid Week, my husband said, ‘Well, I’ll need to prepare more mezuzos and tefillin, and I’m sure that we’ll have many new students coming for the Shabbos seudos who never came before.’ We simply see with our own eyes, in the numbers, in the people, how the darkness intensifies the light.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1047)