Kingdoms (2019): Season 1, Episode 1 - Episode #1.1 - full transcript

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KINGDOMS

THE WORLD OF HASSIDISM

Over a million
ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Jews live in Israel

The Hassidic communities number some
300,000 believers who belong to different courts

This is their story

Episode One
Sender's Revenge

Hassidism is a Jewish socio-spiritual movement
that arose in the mid-18th century

Hassidism arose in what is now western
Ukraine and quickly spread throughout Europe

Historically speaking, it's a movement,
a small group, a rabbi and his pupils,

who, within 100 years, attracted
hundreds of thousands of Jews

through ideology,



not money, not politics,
not property, not schools,

which, in a short time,
just 100 years,

hundreds of thousands joined.

This begs another question:
What is it, really?

What is this compelling thing?

It's a way of life.

A way of life that illuminated
and attracted tens of thousands.

The Jewish Cemetery of Warsaw

"Rabbi Israel of Medzhybizh
of blessed memory"

A Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jew
does what God commanded him,

in every detail,

but it's deeper than that,

it’s more about the inner self.

about celebrating it,



and that's what Hassidism teaches us.

Being a Hassid means
being a cut above the norm.

There's Halacha (Jewish law),
the Shulkhan Aruch (codex of laws),

which every Jew must obey,

be he Hassid, Lithuanian,
Sephardi or Yemenite.

There's a level above that,
called "Hassid,"

which means
not only observing the law,

but going beyond
the strict requirements of the law.

May we hear only good news,
may we see positive things happen.

Trip to Poland
The Hassidic community of Elad

The Hassidim are more connected
to their past than any other Jewish group.

All those names, Gur, Belz, Vizhnitz,
Nadvorne, Satmar,

are names of towns,
and there's a dynasty of Rebbes

so I always know where I stand.

There's the current Rebbe,
may he live long,

who's the successor
of the successor of...

going back uninterruptedly.

According to Hassidic tradition,
at the age of 28

the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite
appeared to the Baal Shem Tov

The prophet taught him Torah
for eight years

and then urged him to reveal himself
and spread the doctrine of Hassidism

He was a revolutionary,

the whole world rose up against him.

To Hassidic life
he brought a smile, a flavor.

a much more personal relationship
between man and his Creator,

he brought joy and made Shabbat
much more powerful.

People wondered:
How can I connect with God

if I can't study all day

and I'm busy working hard
all day to make a living?

The Baal Shem Tov said:

"The whole world is full of His glory"

means that God is everywhere,

no matter where you are,

where you work or what you do,

you're wherever your thoughts are.

So you're always with God.

1740 the Baal Shem Tov settled in the town of
Medzhybizh in Ukraine and opened a study hall

A document we have from
the Medzhybizh municipality

says: "Dr. Israel Baal Shem."
He was considered a doctor,

but he didn't attend any university.

People came to him
and he gave them herbs or amulets

or prayed and they were cured
or thought they were cured,

but he was called "doctor."

But for his pupils,
he was their Rebbe.

Hassidism uprooted ignorance.

The rampant ignorance.

People who couldn't read or write
would go to synagogue

and couldn't read a book.

they prayed from memory
and made terrible mistakes

and the Hassidic movement
changed all that.

Everyone was involved
to some degree.

A Hassidic Eastern European synagogue
at 3 a.m.

was full of people and heated.

People were poverty-stricken,

their houses were freezing,
so they flocked to the synagogue.

The synagogue
had heating, hot drinks

and atmosphere.

Gora Kalwaria
Tomb of the Gur Rebbes

Then why did it arouse
so much opposition?

Certain circles were very concerned

that its purpose was
to uproot the Torah,

the customs and laws
of the Shulkhan Aruch

and start something new.

New denominations
are always dubious

and this one was
particularly dubious

because it dealt with
Kabbalah, mysticism,

a new perspective on the relationship
between the Creator and His creations,

on the celestial order,

all sorts of Kabbalistic secrets
which were retranslated

and turned into a language
you could take with you,

from an intellectual concept
to a practical way to observe the Torah.

For example, prayer times.

The Shulkhan Aruch states that
one must finish praying by the fourth hour

Most Hassidim
of the earlier generations

prayed until noon,
sometimes later.

They said: I'm talking to God,
why look at the clock?

I'm approaching my Father,
I'm not ready yet.

My thoughts aren't clear yet,
I want to go to the ritual bath,

I want to recite Psalms,
study the Zohar, the Talmud,

I want to prepare myself for prayer.

When praying,
I want to feel uplifted

and go beyond words.

I don't want the clock to stop me.

I loved, I loved

When God heard

My voice, my voice

My supplications

For He turned His ear to me

And in my days I call out

For He turned His ear to me

And in my days I call out...

Father!

Oh, Father!

A Jew goes to his Rebbe,

to get there he walks through snow
and mud for days, weeks, months.

He spends time with the Rebbe,

not like now when you board a bus,
stay an hour and go home.

He's on the road for weeks.

He stays for a week, two, three.

People flock there.

It will change the way
he serves God.

Instead of only being concerned
with what's forbidden or permitted,

with fulfilling his duty,
with Heaven and Hell,

he sees Heaven right here.

There's a spiritual world right now.

It's no longer just about
whether I did my duty,

it's: I fulfill the commandments
for God's sake.

When the Baal Shem Tov died, most of his pupils
accepted the Maggid of Mezritch as their leader

He applied himself to improving and expanding
on the basic ideas his teacher developed

The Maggid of Mezritch
was the Baal Shem Tov's top pupil

whom everyone saw
as his successor.

He spread Hassidism
in a systematic way

by assigning each of his pupils
to a certain region.

He sent Rabbi Aaron of Karlin to Lithuania
and the Baal HaTanya to Russia.

He sent other pupils
to Poland and so forth.

They were giants.

We say: "They shone like the sun,"

they shook the world.

White Russia - Poland - Baltic Sea
Liadi - Zlotchov - Karlin - Mezritch - Lublin

The Baal HaTanya
was a charismatic figure.

Even in the famous portrait of him

you can see what a fascinating
figure he was.

They say he entered
the great study hall of Shklow

which was the stronghold
of opposition to Hassidism,

stood on the rostrum and sang,
I'll say it in Hebrew,

"Taste and see that God is good."

Come see how sweet God is.

He isn't angry or strict or bitter.

Come see how pleasant He is.

They say he attracted
many of the scholars there

and that was when
the mission began.

It was the end of the Maggid's time
and mainly right afterward.

when they spread to Poland,
Volhynia, Russia, Podolya, Belarus,

all over Europe.

Sadigura, Ukraine

The Baal Shem Tov
The Maggid of Mezritch

Avraham the Angel
Rabbi Israel of Ruzhyn

Sadigura

Courtyard of the Rebbe of Sadigura
1842-1914

As I said,
every time we come here

we're overcome with emotion
when we see

this big, beautiful hall

and our voices echo
against the walls.

But when we think back

on what it was like when it was
full of thousands of Jews

whose eyes were on that door,

the door to the Rebbe's room,

when I try to picture
the first Sadigura Rebbe

who was praised as a leader

and Zaddik (saint) of his generation

whose words were awaited
by thousands.

And when they saw
the doorknob move a bit,

his sign that
he'd finished his prayer

and the congregation could continue,

since they couldn't see him,
he was hidden in his room.

The tiny movement

of the doorknob
of the Rebbe's room

moved thousands.

Some Hassidim said
that when they came here

all they saw was the top
of the Rebbe's hat,

there were so many people.

The closed door
is an intrinsic part of Hassidism.

Standing outside the Rebbe's door
can bring about miracles.

So if you don't mind,
since I'm an individual too,

I want to recite a Psalm

outside the Rebbe's closed door.

In the early 20th century there were some
3,000 Hassidic communities in Eastern Europe

Every day they brought
to the cemetery

a cart carrying hundreds of corpses.

Eyewitnesses said the corpses were
sometimes piled two storeys high

and the burial society
couldn't handle it.

They couldn't give them
a proper burial.

So they dug a huge pit,
seven meters deep,

and one on the other side!
of the-path, too,

and they set up a ramp
and slid the corpses in

and the burial society stood here,
some steed here all day

reciting Mishnahs and Kaddish
and Psalms and Kaddish

and the burials took entire days.

In this pit 10,000 Jews are buried
and in that pit another 10,000.

"We Jews,

"nothing discourages us,
not hard times, not war,

"we carry on our Judaism regardless,

"commandments, Torah,
regardless,

"and that's called
The l-am-a-wall nation.

Why go back there?

We were expelled from there
in humiliation and killed and...

Why set foot on that
blood soaked ground?

As a religions Jew who observes
the Torah commandments,

I say there are many different degrees.

You can keep kosher,
you keep strictly kosher

you can keep super-strictly kosher,

and that's true of
many commandments,

you can keep the basic commandment
and that's okay

or you can go beyond.

Some go beyond by reading
books about the Holocaust

and learning about what happened,

and some actually go there.

I see that as going
beyond the beyond,

to remember and not forget.

Hassidim travelled to Europe,
but mainly to Zaddiks' graves.

Cheers, cheers...

"Bless You, Lord our God,
Who created all with His word." -Amen!

At first they only went
to Zaddiks' graves

and ancient study halls
and they ignored the camps.

But now that the pain has passed

and the issue is logical, not emotional
and there's much to learn there,

and hundreds of thousands of Hassidim
were killed in Treblinka.

Hassidim can definitely gain a lot
from such tours,

for many years they avoided it
but awareness is growing.

I think it will become more
even more popular.

Once we enter the area of the gas chamber
Cohens should be careful

because the whole area besides the paths
is strewn with our ancestors' ashes.

"The Nazis rounded everyone up

"and took us away in trains.

"How we suffered in the trains.

"Anyone who didn't experience it
will never know...

"And then we reached Auschwitz.

Mengele, curse his name

"sent me to the right," he recounts,

"toward life."

He didn't know what kind of life
it would be

but he sent him toward life.

Jews Game here naked, penniless,

in fear, in the freezing cold,
to a place they knew nothing about.

They told them
they were being resettled.

They get here, see a watchtower,

these are the original watchtowers,

and they disembark confused.

Millions of parents and their children
were parted here.

And all of them..

We have thousands of recordings
and films of this,

they all heard these last words
from their parents:

"Carry on," "Don't give up,"
"Survive," "Tell the world,"

"You must survive.

"you must tell the world
what you saw."

During the Holocaust the Belz Hassidic court
was nearly annihilated, few survived

Charity, charity...

This is my life.

I wish you good health.

Good health to all Jews.
I'm going to study.

By 5:00 am I'm studying.

It's the same every day.
He has a regular schedule

and it keeps him going.

They never talked about it.

We knew we weren't raised
like normal children.

We were always protecting
our parents.

We never wanted to come home
with bad things to tell them

or things we'd done wrong.

We just wanted to make them
feel good,

it was in our DNA.

My father never talked about it
and we were very interested.

At the age of 70 he started
to talk about it. -Really? -Yes.

When did you arrive in Auschwitz?
How did you get there?

I'll tell you.

I was in a bunker. -In Budapest?
-In Szombathely.

We stayed there...
-Yes.

And I saw the gendarmes...
How do you say gendarmes? -Border police

Walking with 11 children,
with my mother.

I ran away and went with my mother.
I did the right thing.

On the train my sister died,

but my mother said: My child,

we're reaching
our destination tomorrow.

My father's sister died in his arms.
-On the train. -Yes, from dehydration. -Yes.

And then his mother said to her:
My child, we'll meet again tomorrow.

She knew where she was going.

I wanted to get my tefillin
from Birkenau.

The kapo said:

They're burning there
with your mother.

your tefillin.

Was that the last time
you saw your mother? -Yes.

By then none of your family
was left, you were alone.

You didn't know..
-With God.

Every day I sang...

"Everything comes to an end,
after December comes May."

Memorial day for the fourth
Belz Rebbe, Rabbi Aaron Rokach

In WWII the Belz Hassidim smuggled
Rabbi Aaron Rokach to Palestine

When did he leave Belz?

He left Belz on Simchat Torah, 1939.

In a hurry.
He traveled on the holiday itself.

A religious court permitted him to travel
since it was a matter of life and death.

He only took a few possessions.
He left everything behind.

His family too, right?

Originally his family was meant to
join him before Premishlan, but then...

The family split up on purpose.
Then he asked his brother to join him.

It turned out that his decision
to take his brother was almost prophetic

because it saved the Belz Hassidim
from extinction.

You have to decide.
Who are you going to save?

There's a principle that someone
who's needed by the public

should be saved first.

One who teaches the many
should be saved first.

There are several factors,
I can't tell you what they are offhand,

regarding who should be saved.

The Belzer Rebbe was...

This was true of most
Hassidic Rebbes at the time,

the people needed them.
They had many followers.

So every effort had to be made
to save them.

For a Hassid,
the Rebbe isn't only practical,

"he'll answer my questions
and tell me what to do."

He stands between me and God,

his prayers protect me,

he keeps me alive.

People in the camps said:
"I kept closing my eyes

"and picturing the Rebbe

"and that was a comfort
in my strife."

For the Hassid,

the fact that the Rebbe exists
is reason enough to rest assured.

So naturally, they wanted
to keep them safe.

Like any rabbi,
I want him to live.

I need him for continuity.

No one saw destruction coming.
-Right.

In 1940 no one imagined that in five years
Europe would be in ruins

and the Nazis looked for the Rebbes,

the Wonder-Rebbes from Belz,
Gur, Alexander,

they were always looking for

the wonder-working rabbis
and persecuting them.

They were objects of persecution

so they were the first to rescue,

and besides,
they needed them to survive.

That was urgent.

For the average Hassid,
was the Rebbe's life

more important than his own?

I don't know what would've happened
if the Nazi said:

It's either you or him.
I imagine many would say:

Take me and let him live.

They weren't often put
to the test,

but it was comforting to know
that the Rebbe was in the Land of Israel.

Word spread through the ghetto: "Did you
hear? The Rebbe made it to Jerusalem."

They have somewhere
to return to.

Matters are in good hands.

When he arrived in Palestine,
Rabbi Aaron of Belz settled in Tel Aviv

"Belz Hassidic Schools"

This is the last picture of him.
This is how he looked at the end.

Is that a photo or a painting?
-A photo, of course.

Here are two assistants.
This is me.

This was my place and this was
the other assistant.

How did you become
the Rebbe's personal assistant?

I don't know.
-Did he ask you to?

Of course. Not him.
He had a beadle

who asked me if I was willing.

What was your job?

Do you want to be a Rebbe?
-Just tell me what your job was.

The Rebbe served God 24/7.

It wasn't like,
"I'm tired, I'm going to rest..."

No such thing.

Why was he nicknamed "the Angel"?

No human could do that.
-Do what?

Not eat, not sleep,
work all day,

standing, praying and so on.

He was 80 years old.

He fasted every day.
Not only sometimes.

Except on Shabbat...

He fasted on Shabbat, too.

So when he came here.

Belz was just a few people.
-Nothing.

How many?

Maybe 50 old-time Belz Hassidim.

When they came to Israel
after the war, some said

that Haredi Judaism was dead.

Ben-Gurion thought
religious Judaism

was inconsequential. He gave
permission not to serve in the army

to Hazon Ish and the yeshiva students.

He didn't think there'd be
more than 400 yeshiva students.

It looked like it was dying out.

Essentially it was a period,
as Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi wrote

in his famous poem:
Gathering the scattered like stalks of grain

People underwent
a difficult crisis of faith

and the Haredis' Holocaust trauma

is much deeper than
the general trauma

because it involved
other losses,

losses of faith, of community,

of the Hassidic courtyard.

Tremendous losses.

And to pick up the pieces
and rebuild a whole

was very hard.

"Belz Hassidic Schools"

I know not how to ask for what
I lack and what is good for me

Master of the World,
in my heart I know not how to pray

Master, Master of the World...

The place we stand today is large,

but once it was a small room
when the Rebbe came to Israel

and Belz was much smaller
than the group gathered here

so they all fit in a small room.

so they all fit in a small room

He lost his whole family.

I think he had about
30 descendants.

He had sons, daughters,
grandchildren,

a wife, of course.

He lost everything. Everything.

We know that when
he was first told that his son...

The anniversary of his death
was a month ago,

he was burned alive.

his eldest son was a grown man
of 40-something,

a father of children,
and he was his favorite son.

When he heard the news
his father said:

Thank God, I also had the privilege
of offering a sacrifice. That's that.

I was with him for four and a half years.
He never said...

"I had a son." Never.

And he never mentioned
his family...? -God forbid.

Why "God forbid"?

He didn't want to complain.
If God did it,

it had to happen.

Why? I don't understand.

"I have no claims against God."

But he lost his whole family.

He didn't recite Kaddish.

He didn't say Kaddish
over his children. -No.

He said: Thank God I was able to...
-Offer a sacrifice.

He said they'd reach such a high place
that they didn't need Kaddish.

His family who died?
-All his sons and daughters.

He had a whole empire in Belz.

Hundreds. They all died.

He once said to someone:
"You know what I had in Belz?

"What an empire I had?"
He only said that once.

But the fact is, some Rebbes
chose to stay with their flocks

and march with them to Auschwitz.

Look, it's much more heroic to stay,

it makes a tremendous impression,

but in the test of time

there's no doubt that what
the Belzer Rebbe managed to rescue

and what he initiated...
-What he built.

He was one of the great architects.

I always say that history shows
that after the war

there were no flocks,
only shepherds.

The historians' claim

regarding the efforts
to rescue their Rebbes

while their Hassidim

themselves died.

what's your take on that?

It's false. It's almost like
what they asked the Jews after the war:

Why did you go like
sheep to the slaughter?

That's the perspective of someone
who comes from outside decades later

and tries to judge the most
chaotic situation in human history.

Let's take two of the biggest courts
in Poland before the war,

Gur and Alexander.

The Gur Rebbe came to Israel,
my grandfather, the Imrei Emet,

came to Israel.
He was a broken man.

The truth is, in Israel
he hardly did anything,

he was broken and crushed,

but the Hassidim
united around him.

In Israel there were already
1,000 Gur families

that he sent here
before the war

so there was somewhere to go.

Then the survivors
and others came one by one.

And other Polish Hassidim came
who had no Rebbe,

their Rebbes were killed,
so they joined Gur

and today Gur is flourishing.

There was the Alexander Hassidism,

the Alexanderer Rebbe was killed
in Treblinka,

and the once-huge Alexander court
is almost non-existent now.

There's a tiny community
of a few hundreds of families,

but we were only able to start
a whole generation afterwards

because we rescued the Rebbe.

The Baal Shem Tov
The Maggid of Mezritch

Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk
The Seer of Lublin

The Belz Hassidic Court

he fifth Belzer Rebbe, Issachar Dov Rokac
comes to pray at his ancestors' graves

"Bitter mourning!
Over the death of Rabbi Aaron Rokach of Belz"

In 1957 Rabbi Aaron Rokach, the fourth
Belzer Rebbe, died and was buried in Jerusalem

At first there was no successor.

The feeling was awful.

He was orphaned at age three.

At nine he was orphaned by
the uncle who adopted him.

There's a picture of him at age nine.

It's a great illustration of how
a nine-year-old took on the burden,

it's chilling to think of
the burden he took on.

The "branch of Belz." The Rebbe of
Seret Vizhnitz called him "the branch."

He told the Belz Hassid

Hold on and support that branch.

But he was young...

He was young...
-Nine years old.

If we didn't appoint a rabbi soon,
we'd vanish.

I had perfect faith

and I said:
I'll accept him as the Rebbe.

I accept him as the Rebbe.

He's my rebbe.

He believed in him,
he knew it was a dynasty.

You know what that is?

He was the next in line
in the Belz dynasty

which makes him holy,

he comes from a holy family.

When he was only nine?
-Yes. He really was holy.

His parents were very special.

The people believed in him
even though he was...

Our Rebbe is very special.

We're privileged, he's special
and wise and understanding

and the things he does
are unbelievable.

But that's not why he was chosen, no.

At first they believed in him
simply because they were Belz Hassidim,

they came from Belz,
it wasn't...

It was unconditional love.

There's definitely a matter
of ancestral right,

we Hassidim accept that.

But they also have
to work on themselves,

which is why Hassid

It usually seems like
it's passed on automatically

but there's a long
acclimatization period

and Hassidim are very judicious
about their Rebbe.

There may be some oddballs

but they examine his behavior
very carefully.

Some find it hard to see
differences in behavior

between the previous Rebbe
and the new one.

In some places it's very common...
-Schism...

Schism...

Schism is the Achilles heel
of Hassidism

but Hassidism is also
founded on it.

Look at the two Satmar groups
in the U.S.

The schism has cost
hundreds of millions of dollars

but it's incredible how strong
both groups have become.

Incredible.

Rabbi Shalom Rokach
Rabbi Yehoshua Rokach

Rabbi Issachar Dov Rokach
Rabbi Aaron Rokach

Rabbi Issachar Dov Rokach

He was like a son to me.

It was in my heart.

The Torah says: "And they believed
in God and in Moses His servant."

Every generation has its
"Moses His servant."

Today's Moses is the Belzer Rebbe.

It's amazing, it's so good for him.

Sometimes I wish I could
feel the same.

He's totally...

Everything the Rebbe says is true.

He submits to the Rebbe completely.

It takes hard work.

He worked on himself,
it didn't happen by itself.

If someone wants to be a Hassid

he must submit to the Rebbe completely,

he works on himself

and submits.

It takes two.

It isn't only the Rebbe's power.

He's seen miracles.

I haven't seen miracles.

Why not?
-I'm not such a strong believer...

If you want miracles
you need faith.

When everyone is gathered
around the Rebbe

as a congregation

and each person feels
he's contributing something,

each person adds his essence

and the Rebbe gives to each person

by guiding and leading
and uplifting everyone,

then everyone, from the woodcutter
to the water carrier,

from the lowest to the highest,
are all uplifted together.

They aren't uplifted individually,
they're uplifted together.

He knows everything.

Everything, everything...

Everything.

A Hassid learns
by submitting to the Zaddik.

I'm not alone,
I'm totally submissive,

and whatever the Rebbe says, I do.

We don't turn the Rebbe
into an idol.

The Rebbe represents us
before God.

Just as I pray to God
and that’s my connection to God,

my connection with the Rebbe
is my connection to God.

I can't be as close to God

as the Rebbe,
so he's my representative.

So my connection with the Rebbe
and the Rebbe's connection with God

is the connection
of man and his Creator.

The Jews walked in a big circle
and came to those stairs.

The stairs at the edge.

Next to the stairs
is the orchestra plaza.

There they sat and played
and the Jews entered a subterranean pit,

the massive room
we're standing next to.

The room had a ceiling
that was destroyed by a bomb.

It was the cloakroom.

In the room were 2,000 or 3,000 Jews

who had to leave their clothes
on hangers and tie their shoes.

"Hear, O Israel,

"the Lord is our God,
the Lord is one."

And that which stood up

For our forefathers and for us

For not only once

Did they try to annihilate us

Rather, in every generation

They try to annihilate us...

We all know that song,

"And that which stood up... For not only
once did they try to annihilate us..."

People don't understand
what it was that stood up for us,

what is it?

The great Hassidic Rebbes
explained that

"And that which stood up
for our forefathers"

goes with "For not only once
did they try to annihilate us,"

in other words, the fact

that in every generation
someone reminds us that we’re Jews

is "that which stood up
for us and our forefathers."

In other words,
if they didn't harass us

and remind us we're Jews.

I don't know if we'd survive.

Our survival.

unbearable as it sounds.

but our survival depends on

their trying to annihilate us.

They try

They try to annihilate us...

Clearly even the evil in the world
is God's doing,

there are situations that are
hard for us to explain right now,

but they're clearly
part of the greater plan

of all creation,
and in the meantime

it's hard and we don't try
to understand it because we can't.

I don't ask.

I don't ask.

What should I ask?

It's a fact.

You know why my father doesn't ask?

I'll tell you why.

He always tells us: Look ahead.

Never look back.

Be happy. Never mind the past.

Now build. That's what a Jew is.

He doesn't ask or plead...
-He's a great Zaddik.

Aleph. -Aleph.
(Hebrew letters)

Bet. -Bet.

Zayin. -Zayin.

Vav. -Vav.

Ayin. -Ayin.

Dalet. -Dalet.

Clap your hands, children!

Congratulations.
He reads the letters so nicely.

Lick the honey.

May we receive the Messiah
with our king at our head. -Amen!

How big is your family?

How many grandchildren
and great-grandchildren do you have?

I don't know. The Rebbe asks that, too.
-The Rebbe asks? -Yes. -And?

I don't know.

A few hundred.
-After the Holocaust my father said:

My revenge on Hitler will be
having 100 grandchildren.

They laughed at him.
Who thought of the future?

Getting married?

And he, thank God,
has over 100 grandchildren...

Over 100 great-grandchildren.

Over 100 grandchildren
and over 600 or 700 great-grandchildren.

Thank God.

And 17 great-great-grandchildren.

The nicest thing about my father is,

he isn't bitter and
never cursed the Germans.

He came out of the war
without being bitter.

We never heard him curse or...

"Curse those Germans..."

Many days and years of life

Life, life, life and peace

Life and peace

More and more

Life, life, life and peace

More and more life and peace...

Throughout Jewish history,

no drastic change of direction

was a bed of roses.

Babies are born
through the shedding of blood.

A Jewish majority in our own land
is a new situation,

not to mention the achievements.

We're living in paradise.

A paradise of Torah,
a paradise of Hassidism.

They're flourishing.

Something happened.

Wedding of the Belzer Rebbe's grandson

Creator of the world,
complete this building...

When he gets up to dance

and the whole congregation
goes into ecstasy,

he stands up as a representative
of his father who died when he was two,

his uncle, his grandfather,

all the Zaddikim and all the souls
ho were killed without leaving descendant

In his mind he says:
Come, you who were murdered, burned,

come see, this is your revenge.

There are still Hassidim
like the old days.

He dances with their souls,
he has perfect faith

that God sends the souls of his
grandfather and great-grandfather

down here and he dances with them.

I don't ask if he saw them

with his physical eyes.

I believe he danced with them
and he did.

And with Your entire nation of Israel

And that which You

Will do for me

And my whole family

And all Jews

for all the kindness
You have done for me...

There are hundreds of Hassidic courts
which number about 600,000 people

in two main centers, Israel and the USA