“Should I tell you a bit more about my first trip to Panama twenty-five years ago?” asked Rabbi Eli Mansour, Rabbi of the Safra Synagogue, at the historic Dirshu Maamad Ahavat HaTorah recently held in in Panama. “I’ll tell you! Twenty-five years ago, I wasn’t speaking in this beautiful, large auditorium. It was a gathering in The Club. Many of you weren’t even born! The unforgettable Chief Rabbi of Panama, Haham Sion Levy, zt”,l told me, ‘Rabbi Eliyahu we have a crisis in Panama, we need chizuk in kedushas hamishpacha, in shemiras Shabbos, in kashrus!’
“And who did I address in that club twenty-five years ago?” Rabbi Mansour exclaimed, “There were no white shirts! There were no black jackets! No one was wearing a hat! There was no band playing Jewish music, no Yoreh Deah on the tables, no talmidei chahamim at the dais! Nothing like this!
“I gave a speech for men and women sitting together. We were trying to convince them that it is kedai to keep tahara, to eat kosher, that it is kedai to keep Shabbos. Who would have believed that one generation later we would already be coming here?! Who would have believed that now the discussion is Daf HaYomi, Amud HaYomi, Daf HaYomi B’Halacha, Mishnah Berurah, this learning, that learning, more iyun, less iyun… Now we are already dealing with different sheailos!!
Those were the powerful words from a seminal address delivered by Rabbi Mansour. To understand the history of the Torah revolution that the Panama Jewish community is undergoing, one had to witness this Dirshu event! It was an event where more than 1,000 men, women and children representing the entire cross-section of the community came to celebrate Torah learning and to pledge their commitment to sustain accountable limud haTorah.
Never in its history has the Panama Jewish community ever experienced an event for the sole purpose of promoting limud haTorah, as one community leader, related, “When I told people about the upcoming Dirshu event, the first thing they asked me was. ‘How much money do you want from me?’ Indeed, most Rabbinic guests who come to Panama come to raise money, but I told them that in this case Dirshu and it’s Nasi, Rav Dovid Hofstedter, are NOT coming to raise money! They are coming to GIVE! They want nothing more from the community than to increase Torah, to try facilitating more shiurei Torah, to try raising the level of daily accountable Torah learning in our community.”
A Line of Demarcation And a Night of Highlights
In truth, the Dirshu event was a rally on behalf of limud haTorah and a demarcation line that perhaps will forever be a “before and after moment” regarding the renaissance of Torah in the Panama Jewish community.
Never before in the history of the community has everyone - all the community’s Rabbanim, Ashkenazim, Sephardim, yeshivish, baalebatim - come together to show their support and admiration for something like Dirshu, an organization whose raison d'être is to enhance Torah opportunities in the community.
One highlight of the evening was the speech of the Nasi of Dirshu, Rav Dovid Hofstedter whose remarks, personality and life story made a profound impact on the community. Rabbi Hofstedter also took the opportunity, while he was in Panama, to visit numerous Torah institutions throughout the city and address many of them as well.
Another highlight was the emotional, enthusiastic, beautiful musical entertainment led by Naftali Kempe and accompanied by a large band and choir, all of whom came especially to Panama for the event.
The combination of drashos and Divrei Torah for the heart and music for the soul, provided the more than one thousand members of the Panama community an all-encompassing spiritual experience that will remain with them for the rest of their lives.
One of the most heart-warming moments was the grand entrance of all the Rabbanim of the community culminating in more than twenty-five Rabbanim representing the entire spectrum of Panama Jewry taking their place at the dais. There could be no greater expression of the chashivus of what Dirshu is doing for the community than the presence of the entire rabbinic leadership.
After the event, one prominent askan, commented in amazement that the most powerful moment was when all the Rabbanim joined together to dance with achdus and simcha.
An awe-filled silence settled on the room as Rabbi Eli Avraham, a prominent marbitz Torah who is at the forefront of many of Panama’s Torah activities, was asked to make a siyum on Masechtah Pesachim that is being completed by Dirshu’s Amud HaYomi program. After Rabbi Avraham completed the Kaddish the entire assemblage burst into spirited song led by Naftali Kempeh. The emotion in the room was palpable as the feeling of being connected to the wider Torah world enveloped Panama’s Jewish community.
In an evening replete with highlights, the singular video messages recorded especially for the event by leading Gedolei Torah from Eretz Yisrael was particularly impactful. Special messages tailormade for the Panama community were delivered by HaGaon HaRav Moshe Hillel Hirsch, shlita, Rosh Yeshiva of the Slabodka Yeshiva, HaGaon HaRav Avraham Salim, shlita, Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva Me’or HaTorah, HaGaon HaRav Dovid Cohen, shlita, Rosh Yeshiva of the Chevron Yeshiva, and HaGaon HaRav Shlomo Yedidya Zafrani, shlita, Av Beis Din, Kesser Torah and Rosh Yeshivas Sifsei Chaim.
Their individualized words of chizuk contained timely messages for the community combined with a sense of joy, as each one of the Gedolim expressed their excitement over the fact that the Dirshu revolution is coming to Panama.
Rav Moshe Hillel expressed tremendous joy about the remarkable Torah strides made by the Panama community in recent years and then he spoke about Dirshu, saying, “I have seen what Dirshu’s programs to strengthen the learning of Torah, whether it is Gemara or halacha, have done for the Jews of Eretz Yisrael and America. They have added so much to the spiritual lives of those who are part of Dirshu and who have profoundly upgraded their Torah learning. I am certain that joining Dirshu’s programs will likewise tremendously elevate the level of Torah learning in Panama.”
Rav Hofstedter: The Imperative To Go Out Of One’s Comfort Zone
There is no doubt that one of the highlights was the powerful drasha given by Rav Dovid Hofstedter.
Rav Dovid delivered a dvar Torah that showed how a person having to come out of their comfort zone to go above and beyond. He explained that Mordechai HaYehudi had every reason in the world and every justification to bow down to Haman. It was permitted. It wasn’t idolatry. Nevertheless, the passuk tells us, “U’Mordechai lo yichreh v’lo yishtahave – and Mordechai refused to bend and refused to bow.”
Rav Hofstedter continued, “There are times in life when a person or a community is faced with a challenge; there are times when there is every reason in the world not to try achieving a specific goal and many times it is possible that the reasons are even justified. Sometimes, however, when a difficult challenge presents itself, we, just like Mordechai, come to the realization that this is our purpose and if we don’t elevate and motivate ourselves to meet this challenge head-on, we may squander the opportunity forever.
“This wonderful community that has, bli ayin hara, grown so much, is at a crossroads. The foundation has been built. Now the people of this community are empowered to accept upon themselves and decide with an ironclad decision to elevate themselves and achieve an important goal! This city can become an ihr v’em b’Yisrael in Torah study! It can be a community that when people come to visit, they can say that this community, this unique community, has flourished to become full of talmidei hahamim from east to west and from north to south.”
The applause was deafening as the entire assemblage stood on their feet clapping. You could see the glint of the challenge in their eyes as they contemplated meeting that challenge head on.
The Story Of A Young Girl Who Went Above And Beyond
Rav Hofstedter concluded his remarks with a fascinating story that emotionally drew the assemblage into his personal world.
“We are now in the period between the Yamim Tovim of Purim and Pesach. I want to tell you a story about someone who had all the excuses in the world but instead rose to the occasion and merited in that zechus, something eternal.
“Around one-hundred years ago this person, a young girl, lived in a tiny little village in Europe before the Holocaust. There was no Bet Yaakov school in her village, no day school, no summer camps and no Bnos groups. There wasn’t even a minyan in town during the week. The chinuch she received was what she learned from her mother, her father, her grandmother, and her uncles. The town was so small that in order to have a minyan on Shabbos, they would have to bring in bachurim from a nearby town. In our world, we would say that she had no chinuch…
“When the war broke out, she was all of sixteen years old. At that young age, she was taken to Auschwitz, and from there to a brutal slave labor camp called Allendorf. Then came Pesach, 1945. She knew that it was simply impossible for a Jewish girl to eat chametz on Pesach. But not eating chametz meant starving. Nothing less. Still the chinuch she had received at home was so real, so sincere, so G-d fearing, that she felt that come what may, she would not eat bread on Pesach. There was a problem, though. If the Nazis saw that the prisoners didn’t take the bread, they would beat them to death, so she had to take the bread. What did she do? She took the bread and buried the pieces in the ground.
“Not long after that fateful Pesach, the last Pesach of the war, the allies began bombing Allendorf. The Nazis liquidated the camp, sending that girl with all the other prisoners on the infamous death march. They marched for days and days. People were falling and dying all around. There was no food, no water… nothing!
“And then it happened! One day, the Nazis suddenly disappeared! The allies were almost there! That girl and her friends were a short distance from a farmhouse when she collapsed. She simply couldn’t carry on. Her friends, however, brought her to the farmhouse, gave her water and some food that revived her and brought her back to life.
“What enabled her to last on the death march until that point even though so many others had died? Just before they were herded away to begin the death march, she remembered the hidden bread and retrieved it. It was that bread; bread that she had not eaten on Pesach so that she could refrain from eating chametz; that bread saved her life, giving her sufficient nourishment to withstand the cruel march into Germany…! Until they were finally liberated.
“Morai v’Rabbosai! That young girl was my mother, a”h! It is because she survived that I am here with you tonight! Because there was a young girl who had all the teirutzim, all the excuses in the world but pushed herself above and beyond, to do what she felt was important in order to fulfill her purpose in the world!”
The History of Dirshu in Panama
Rabbi Gabriel Chizkiya, who leads Dirshu’s activities in Panama, described how Dirshu has grown in Panama, raising the spirituality of the community. Dirshu has been in Panama for more than a decade. It began with a group that learns the Daf HaYomi B’Halacha and more recently the Amud HaYomi. In the last few years, however, the Torah base of the community has grown exponentially. There is a very large yeshiva and there are also teachers of Torah who have come to the community, and this has facilitated a tremendous spiritual growth and Torah learning. The younger generation, here in Panama, have also gone to learn in yeshivos in Eretz Yisrael and have later returned to the community after their marriage. These young people are coming with a background in Torah learning and are now being offered serious learning opportunities even as they are already involved in the business world.
Many baalei batim learn at the kollel in the morning or in the evening and they have avreichim as chavrusos. Dirshu programs such as Amud HaYomi are perfect for them! The set schedule along with the built-in review and possibility of taking tests serve as even greater motivators. In addition, an Amud HaYomi chaburah has opened, where there are many chavrusos learning at the same time and a rosh chaburah who is available to answer questions.
“Now,” Rabbi Chizkiya continued, “in the aftermath of the event, I have been swamped with phone calls, messages and even people coming up to me in the street saying that they want to join a program. They came to the evening of Ahavat HaTorah and were so inspired! They don’t want to lose their enthusiasm! They want to grab the opportunity to incorporate more Torah into their life in a sustainable way.
“Another byproduct of the event,” Rabbi Chizkiya stressed, “was the very positive impact it made on the women of the community. Although many young men go to learn in yeshiva, most of the girls and women remain in Panama and don’t have any exposure to the Torah world as the boys do. One community member told me that the presence of prominent rabbanim and the opportunity to hear messages from gedolim, the inspiring music and the fact that so many came to the event just to celebrate limud haTorah has strengthened observance and Judaism in many homes!”
“Panama Will Never be the Same!”
Perhaps the words of a prominent community leader said in the aftermath of the Dirshu event in Panama, says it all. “The day after the event, I went to pray in the kollel, and I met an avreich. This avreich told me, ‘You know, when we were saying Minha today, during Modim, do you know what I did? I thanked the Ribbono Shel Olam for sending Dirshu, and this amazing event to Panama. Panama will never be the same!”
