A Tale of a Suitcase, Sent With Love From A Chabad Shliach in Ukraine
As stories of danger, heroism, and heartbreak flood the world over the war in Ukraine, some small points of light outshine the dark. This story was written by Rabbi Zalmen Wishedski of Chabad of Basel, on a simple suitcase sent with love.
There is much talk about the lifesaving activities Chabadniks are involved in these days. Some Chabadniks have orchestrated the convoys leaving the Ukraine; others have made sure that people will have what to eat; some are still providing food inside Ukraine, and yet others are taking in refugees throughout Europe and, of course, in Israel.
The stories are very moving; some give you the shivers. They awaken admiration, pain, joy, a shrinking feeling – all at once.
But I, for myself, was emotionally moved by a different story, a tale of a suitcase. That’s the way I am – I get excited about the small stuff.
Leah is a Jewish girl who was living with her Jewish girlfriends in Kiev, without her family. When the bombing started, she and her friends showed up at the doorstep of my brother and sister-in-law – Rabbi Pinchas and Dina Wishedski – in Kiev and were welcomed in as a matter of course. They stayed with my brother and sister-in-law for a few days. Then her friends went home to their parents, but Leah stayed.
With her, Leah had brought one suitcase, into which she had packed all her worldly possessions – her entire life.
On Motzai Shabbos, about two weeks ago, she wanted to join the first convoy that my brother and sister-in-law got out of Kiev. There was room for her in one of the vehicles, but there was no room for her suitcase. There was also not much time to decide. Leah got hold of some plastic supermarket bags, put some things in them, and got into the car for a twenty-hour ride to the border. And from the border – who knows how many more hours and where she would go. So there she was, just with the clothes she was wearing. The convoy crossed the border safely, Baruch Hashem. Some of the people in it came on aliya in a flight that left Romania a day after they had left Ukraine, and Leah was one of them. Yes, with a supermarket bag.
The next day, another rescue convoy left Kiev. This time, the trip was more difficult, more dangerous. This time, my sister-in-law, the shlicha Dina Wishedski, who organized the convoy with her husband, knew that Leah had packed her whole life into that suitcase and made sure there was room for it all along the long and dangerous route. Leah didn’t know that.
Leah didn’t know, but Dina, who remained in Romania to care for the many refugees who were coming through, made sure to care for Leah’s suitcase as well.
Leah didn’t know, but a day later, the suitcase arrived at her doorstep, in her new abode in the Holy Land, via good and devoted couriers.
A tale of a suitcase. I got emotional about it – that’s the way I am.
