On my recent trip to Ukraine to celebrate the birthday of my father, I met Sasha, a fellow emissary of the Lubavitcher Rebbe and a student of my father. Sasha’s job is to visit Jews in the most remote corners of Ukraine and reconnect them to their roots. He related to me the following story:

“I recently received a strange phone call from a mining company that was digging near Anipoli, a small town in western Ukraine. They claimed to have discovered what appeared to be a mass Jewish grave from the Holocaust. At once, I dropped everything I was doing and contacted the chevra kadisha in Jerusalem, who immediately dispatched a delegation of rabbis to confirm this and help organize a proper burial and monument for these martyrs. A few weeks later, we decided to follow up with a Shabbaton for the relatives, to honour the memory of the martyrs. I brought along with me a group of young yeshiva boys from Kiev, plenty of kosher food and a portable ark with a Torah. It turned out to be a very moving Shabbat indeed, even beyond our wildest dreams.”

Sasha explained: “Among the many people who attended this Shabbaton was an elderly gentleman who refused to participate in any of the religious aspects of our program. At the Shabbat afternoon services, I saw him sitting alone with his family, on the other side of the room, without a kippah. I called him up for an aliyah to the Torah, and, as expected, he refused.

“I really don’t know what possessed me, but I literally took the man by his the arm and escorted him up to the bimah. I then asked him for his Hebrew name. He said that he couldn’t remember, but if it helped, his Ukrainian name was Vasilly. I called him up by that name. He then said the appropriate blessings with some help from me. Just as I started to make the Mi Sheberach prayer for him, I noticed that the man was crying uncontrollably. I asked him what was wrong and he responded in a choked voice that after so many years he suddenly remembered his Hebrew name. It was Azriel, the name his grandfather, the rabbi of the town, gave him at his bris.

“‘You know” he said, ‘my Zaide was the first one to be shot by those murderous Nazis. I remember it like today. They gathered our whole town into the square. I was then only 12 years old, just before my bar mitzvah. I was very lucky. I had just drunk a bottle of water and was granted permission to relieve myself behind some trees. From behind those trees, I watched how they shot everyone. No one was spared. My Zaide was first, because he was the rabbi. The rest of my family followed. After they finished, I was left in this world all alone, wandering through the forests…’

“‘After the war I returned to my hometown but unfortunately, with no Jewish community left, I gave up my Jewish heritage, married out of the faith and raised a non–Jewish family. When I heard about the discovery of the grave, which more than likely has my family buried in it, an incredible feeling of longing for my family and my past engulfed me. I needed to make that connection once again. I even agreed to attend your program with my family.

“‘A whole Shabbos I was struggling with my Jewish past and my identity. Who am I? Am I the Jew of my past or the Ukrainian of the present? Then when you called me up to the Torah and asked me for my Jewish name, it all came back to me. The floodgates of my past were opened. My Zaide, my Hebrew name Azriel, and the bar mitzvah that I prepared for but never happened, all flashed in front of my face. I knew that I belonged to my people.’”

Sasha concluded: “I then told ‘Azriel’ that he should treat this aliyah as his bar mitzvah. ‘Surely, your zaide is very proud of you today,’ I told him. He hugged me as tears were rolling down his face. I think they were tears of immense joy.

“You see,” Sasha said, “one should never underestimate the soul of a fellow Jew, even one that has drifted away for many years. We need just to provide the match. The spark is already there!”

“By the way,” I asked Sasha as he finished his amazing story. “When did this story happen?”

“Three weeks ago.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, of course. Why do you ask?”

Now it was my turn to cry: “My first grandson was born exactly three weeks ago and we named him Binyomin Azriel!”

Rabbi Avraham E. Plotkin is spiritual leader of Chabad Lubavitch of Markham.