O

ne of the great unheralded 
heroes of the Holocaust was 
Rabbi Avraham Grodzinsky, 
the spiritual leader of the Kovno ghetto. 
Until the outbreak of the war, he had 
been the Rosh Yeshiva of the famed 
Slabodka Yeshiva and was 
one of the leading sages 
of his generation. He had 
entered the yeshiva at the 
age of 17, and, under the 
tutelage of the legendary 
Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, 
the “Alter of Slabodka,” 
devoted himself to both 
intense Torah learning and equally 
intense character refinement.
Later, amid the horrors of the Kovno 
Ghetto, people would attest to the open, 
friendly countenance Rabbi Grodzinsky 
carried at all times, perfecting the 
trait of “receiving every person with a 
friendly face” (Pirkei Avot, 1:15), which 
was a source of hope and great comfort 
to all those who encountered him. 

 In the years of the ghetto, when the 
situation was most dire, he formed a 
group of 10 of his former students from 
the Slabodka Yeshiva, who would meet 
every Shabbos to discuss what spiritual 
and physical actions they could do to 
improve the plight of those around 
them. This eternal optimism in the face 
of hopeless odds — this faith in the 
power of the few — is an idea that goes 
right to the heart of Chanukah.
Actually, Rabbi Grodzinsky took 
his initial inspiration from an earlier 
source than the Maccabees. In the 
Torah portion a few weeks ago, we 
read of Abraham’s tireless negotiations 
with God to save the cities of Sodom 
and Gomorrah. After a few rounds of 
negotiation, God eventually agrees to 
save the cities if 10 righteous people can 
be found within them. From here, the 
Talmud learns the foundational spiritual 
principle that 10 righteous people can 
have a decisive impact on an otherwise 
hopeless situation (Sanhedrin 99b). The 

Talmud goes even further, stating that 
a person who doesn’t believe in the 
power of 10 righteous people to save the 
world is guilty of heresy. In other words, 
the belief in the power of even a small 
group of people to change the world 
and overturn the natural order of things 
is no less than a fundamental principle 
of Jewish faith.

POWER OF THE FEW
We see a powerful illustration of this 
principle in the story of Chanukah. 
The mighty Greek empire that had 
conquered most of the known world at 
the time had invaded the land of Israel 
and was pursuing a relentless campaign 
to remove all vestiges of Torah living 
from society. The situation seemed 
hopeless. There were many Jews at the 
time who were abandoning their faith 
due to both the existential threat and 
the enticements of Greek society. It 
was at this point that a small group of 
people banded together — Matisyahu 

Chief Rabbi 
Warren 
Goldstein

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH

 Chanukah: 
 The Multiplier Effect 
— The Power of the Jewish People

42 | NOVEMBER 25 • 2021 

