Recognizing
The Chosen People
...In Japan
Each
year, Israelis flocked to the Lee family in Saytama, Japan, for a
celebration called Leil HaSeider, although there wasn’t even one
seider item present * This year they contacted Rabbi Binyamin Edery,
director of the Chabad House in Japan, and four Tmimim went to kasher
the kitchen, change all the kitchen utensils, and prepare a proper
Pesach for two hundred tourists * It’s hard to believe – the Lee
family are Japanese gentiles – who understand that we are the Chosen
Nation and their role is to assist us in fulfilling Torah and mitzvos *
From the diary of one of the Tmimim
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BEIS CHABAD JAPAN |
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Exactly
half a year passed since Rabbi Binyamin Edery and his wife
arrived and opened the Chabad House in Japan, land of the rising
sun. In this brief span of time, Rabbi Edery has managed to
accomplish much with the local community, and to forge close
ties with all the community leaders and Jewish organizations.
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Rabbi
Edery dedicates most of his time to Torah classes and the
Rebbe’s mivtzaim among the local Jews and Israeli
tourists who visit Tokyo. From time to time, Rabbi Edery travels
to nearby cities to organize mivtzaim there, as well.
This
past Pesach, Rabbi Edery organized three public sedarim
with hundreds of people: in Tokyo, there were 120 participants;
in Saytama, 200; and in Osaka, 40. There was another seider
in Kobe with a few dozen people.
As
a preparation for Pesach, there was a Yud-Alef Nissan farbrengen
in which the participants resolved to help the work of the
Chabad House. Pesach ended with Seudas Moshiach in the
home of a friend of Chabad, Mr. Mordechai Luria.
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When
the Air Japan Boeing jet left the runway and headed towards New York, I
thought to myself that the paradoxes of this place, Japan, were endless
and beyond description, and they certainly could not be understood by
someone who wasn’t there. In general, the experiences we had in the
past few days did not take place in the exile world we are used
to, but in a world which has progressed towards the fulfillment of the
prophecies of Redemption.
We
landed at Narita, Japan’s international airport, a few days before
Pesach. From there we traveled by limousine bus, a tourist bus which
brought us to the Chabad House in Tokyo. After a hearty meeting with
Rabbi Binyamin Edery, the Rebbe MH”M’s shaliach to Japan, who
instructed us briefly about the upcoming days, we went to rest from our
long trip.
The
following evening, the son and son-in-law of Mr. Wabung Lee came to take
us to the family estate in the Saytama district, a two-hour drive from
greater Tokyo. We immediately noticed how they treated us with the
utmost respect. They insisted on loading into the car all the
paraphernalia necessary for the seider by themselves. They
didn’t even let us carry our own suitcases. The long trip to Saytama
was an excellent opportunity to speak to them face to face, directly and
without a go-between, and try to understand why they were so
enthusiastic about helping Jews.
“About
ten years ago,” began Mr. Kan, Mr. Lee’s oldest son-in-law, “an
Israeli tourist who worked in Saytama got entangled with the law and
went to prison. My father-in-law, who knew the Israeli, managed to
convince the court to lessen the punishment and to free him from jail
after a brief time. After he was released, the Israeli and my
father-in-law became close friends and he became a regular guest of the
family. That’s when my father-in-law first heard about Jews and Jewish
holidays.
“My
father-in-law is intelligent and he loves to get to the bottom of
things. He began reading books about Jews and discovered that they are
the Chosen People, and that G-d chose them to illuminate the world. He
read in the Bible that in the perfect world after the Redemption
everyone will recognize the Jewish nation, so he decided to help the
process along. He’s dedicated his life for the betterment of the
Jewish nation.
“A
year later, my father-in-law decided to celebrate the anniversary of his
friend’s release from prison. Since it was close to Chanuka, my
father-in-law asked him to bring other Israeli friends to celebrate. The
party was successful and my father-in-law decided to make a party for
Pesach. We’ve been having these celebrations for ten years.”
Rabbi
Binyamin Edery arrived in Japan last Chanuka and opened the local Chabad
House. In conversations with Israeli tourists he met in Tokyo, he
learned about the unusual Chanuka and Pesach celebrations. He became
good friends of the family. Rabbi Edery and his wife had long
discussions with the Lee’s and told them, among other things, that the
Rebbe MH”M stated ten years ago that gentiles would begin to
understand their role and would assist Jews in fulfilling Torah and mitzvos.
When
the Lee’s were asked about the kashrus of the food they served
the Israelis, it turned out they hardly knew anything about the subject
and most of the food was definitely not kosher. For example, they knew
that matzos were eaten on Pesach, and they even managed to get matzos
each year, but the matzos as well as the other foods were served
and cooked in their pots in which not only chametz was cooked,
but non-kosher food as well.
At
a meeting held a month before Pesach, Rabbi Edery brought up the topic
and explained to them that despite their good intentions, they were not
permitted to serve the Israelis food cooked in non-kosher utensils.
“If you truly want to help the Jewish people, you must make sure that
the food you serve is kosher and permissible on Pesach,” he said.
The
family expressed interest in learning the details of kashrus. The
result of this meeting was an agreement that the Rebbe’s shluchim would
arrange the seider, kasher the kitchen and supervise the kashrus
of the food. The Japanese family accepted all this quite seriously, and
wrote the Rebbe a letter informing him of their decision and asking for
a bracha.
Tmimim
Dov Segal and Dovid Kopf, who are studying for smicha in Milano,
arrived in Japan a week and a half before Pesach. They purchased the
equipment they needed to kasher the kitchen and went to the
Lee’s home. The two boys worked all day, cleaning and scouring the
kitchen and dining room. They kashered the counters, faucets, and
sinks and covered everything with heavy- duty silver foil.
By
the end of the day, the kitchen was kosher la’mehadrin, similar
to a Lubavitcher’s home. They didn’t have to kasher the pots,
because the family decided to buy new pots and pans for Pesach. Before
returning to Tokyo, the boys gave the Mrs. Lee a list of products she
could buy.
Two
days later we arrived from New York – Avrohom Veiner, Avrohom Reinetz,
and Boaz Sharon – and we brought fish and meat, matzos and
wine, a total of a few hundred kilograms.
We
arrived at Saytama late at night. The sky was clear and by the light of
the nearly full moon I saw and was impressed by the large three-story
house. Surrounding the porches I noticed wooden fences, which were made
in the shape of menoros, one connected to the next, and I noticed
the giant Magen Dovid on the roof. Later, I heard from Mr. Lee
that he had built the house just at the time he had met the Jews. In his
enthusiasm, he built dozens of Jewish symbols into his home. The menoros
and magen Dovid are only some of the symbols. There are also
dozens of Jewish pictures which adorn the walls, and even an illuminated
sign that says “Boruch HaBa Melech HaMoshiach.”
In
the entranceway of the house we were asked to follow the usual Japanese
custom of removing our shoes and replacing them with slippers. We were
graciously brought to the guest suite, where two beautiful bedrooms
awaited us. Along the way, we managed to catch a glimpse of the many
tables which filled the two large dining rooms, all of them covered
exactly according to the instructions we had left them.
It
was only the following morning when we went to burn the chametz
in the nearby forest that I was able to take in the enormity of the
house, and the spacious grounds upon which it was located. The
transition from Tokyo, a bustling city in which over twenty million
people are squeezed into tiny apartments, to Saytama, which is built in
a picturesque village setting where each family has a spacious piece of
land alongside lakes and forests, gave us a good feeling of
expansiveness, which was fitting for the festival of freedom.
We
spent Erev Pesach in the kitchen carefully supervising the
cooking and frying and the preparations for the seider. One of
the bachurim went outside to grate the maror in the fresh
air, while Mr. Lee sat down beside him, wanting to learn more about the
holiday and its mitzvos, and about the special foods we prepare.
Every
few hours we were reminded of the great esteem in which the family held
us, and the tremendous efforts they made to accommodate us and to ensure
that the seider would be done properly. When we asked them to get
us some washing cups for netilas yadayim, and we explained how we
would be washing our hands twice during the evening, they sent a family
member on the errand. He returned after half an hour with thirty washing
cups and basins so that everybody would be able to wash at the table.
Later that evening, they sent around bottles of water to refill the
empty cups.
About
an hour before Yom Tov, we noticed Mr. Lee connecting
amplifiers and microphones to a sophisticated sound system, and
preparing tapes of Israeli music. Although we had discussed kashrus
extensively, we hadn’t explained that this would be prohibited. We
told him it wasn’t allowed, and within five minutes it all
disappeared.
Night
was almost upon us by the time we finished our final preparations. The
tables were set, and dozens of Israelis began to show up. The family
told us that in previous years they had nearly one hundred guests, but
this year they expected a few more. The few more grew from minute to
minute, and when we began the seider, there were nearly 200
people! Even the gentiles agreed with us that the secret to success had
to do with the fact that this time it was a real seider, kosher
v’sameiach.
It
wasn’t the first time I was running a public seider, but this
year it was really quite moving. Two hundred Israelis, who in previous
years had spent the evening eating non-kosher food with no real seider,
participated this year in a real seider with matzos, seider
plates and wine, and open Hagadas.
There
were all sorts of Jews from all sorts of backgrounds. There were many
tourists, but there were also Israelis who had been living in Japan for
years. There was a sailor from the U.S. Navy whose base was nearby, and
there was an elderly couple who had come to visit their son who lived in
Japan. There were businessmen stuck in Japan for Pesach, and even four
entire families with children who had come touring and had decided there
was nothing better than a seider with Chabad.
We
read the Hagada together, paragraph by paragraph, with each guest
given the honor of reading aloud. I explained everything as we went.
When we got up to “Ma Nishtana,” I called upon one of the
children, the six-year-old son of Israelis living in Rome who had come
on vacation to Japan.
When
we got up to the paragraph that says, “We screamed to Hashem, the G-d
of our fathers,” we asked all present to use this auspicious time to
scream and beg Hashem to bring the Redemption immediately. I was greatly
moved by their cries of “Ad masai!” and “We Want
Moshiach Now!” A flame of emuna and bitachon flickered
strongly as we continued with the next paragraph, “and Hashem heard
our voices.”
It
was inevitable that the night in which we celebrate our redemption from Mitzrayim
would be dedicated to strengthening our emuna in the imminent
revelation of Moshiach with the final Redemption. Indeed, most of the
songs we sang during the meal were about Redemption and Moshiach. We
were additionally inspired by the fact that it was a Japanese gentile
family who had organized the seider for us, a literal fulfillment
of the prophets: “And kings will be your nursemaids,” and
“Gentiles will go in your light.” The seider ended close to
midnight with songs of Hallel and Redemption.
Sunday
morning just before we left, Mrs. Lee approached us, bowed, and said,
“On behalf of the entire family, I want to thank you for giving us the
privilege of making the seider as G-d wants. We know that you,
the sons of Abraham, are the light of the world; you are the chosen
people and G-d gave you the key to guard the world and to bring
redemption to the world.”
When
we got into the taxis, which waited for us in front of the house, our
hosts saw us off. Parents and children followed us silently, as though
their future and the future of the entire world depended on us.
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