True Strength Lies in What Cannot Be Taken
A Prison That Cannot Contain the Soul
In the icy expanse of a Siberian labor camp, men endured endless toil, stripped of their freedom and dignity. Among them was a mando named Futafas, and alongside him, a learned professor who observed the prisoners closely. Day after day, the professor noticed something alarming: young men, once strong and healthy, would simply refuse to rise from their cots. By evening, after a day of grueling labor, they were dead. They had not succumbed to starvation or disease, but to a loss of will. Yet the mando remained different. Though imprisoned and separated from his family for fourteen years, he grew stronger with each passing day, inspiring those around him with a quiet vitality—a love of life that could not be extinguished.
Life Stripped Down to Its Essence
The professor asked the mando to explain this remarkable resilience. Futafas described the others as “cross-secs,” men whose lives revolved around a horse, a rifle, and a battle of vodka. When these simple joys were taken from them, life itself seemed to vanish. But the mando’s situation was different. He had already sacrificed much before his imprisonment, working to forge passports to save Jews from persecution. The hardships of the camp mirrored the challenges he faced at home. What was taken from him could not touch the essence of his spirit.
Faith That Cannot Be Taken
Even in the harshest conditions, the mando found ways to serve Hashem. While chopping wood under the setting Siberian sun, unable to attend a synagogue for prayer, he whispered his devotion silently in his heart. In that moment, he realized something profound: in all of history, no one may have stood on that exact spot offering their praises. He was free in the ways that truly mattered. His life, though constrained by walls and labor, remained full of purpose and faith. The mando’s story teaches us that the deepest part of ourselves—our beliefs, our convictions, our spirit—cannot be taken, even in the darkest of places.