Rabbi's weekly Blog - Chabad of Basel

You won’t understand

Friday, January 30, 2026 - 7:00 AM

On Monday afternoon I was at a factory in central Switzerland. There was a demand for Kashering a production line, and the task was assigned to me. I walked around there with several of the workers among the tanks and pipes, and then we sat down to wait for the temperature to finally reach the boiling point. In the meantime, a conversation developed between us that drifted to the situation in the Holy Land, when suddenly I glanced at my phone and saw the message: “The IDF has found Ran Guiili,” and immediately after that a message from Talik, his extraordinary mother: “First to go out, last to return – our hero.”

They didn’t see the message, but they did see that I was tearing up, and they immediately asked, “What happened?”

I told them: “You won’t understand. They found Ran Guiili.” They tried to figure out whether we were relatives, maybe close friends, perhaps acquaintances, or whether they had once visited the Chabad House in Basel. Eventually they gave up and admitted that they really didn’t understand why the fact that the bones of an anonymous policeman were found in Gaza would cause me to weep with emotion—of joy and gratitude—in the Bern area.

Seven hundred soldiers searched for Rani Guiili—seven hundred soldiers, and behind them an entire people, everywhere in the world, holding its breath in sincere and unified prayer: that they would find him, that they would return his bones to his mother and to his people.

I allow myself to assume that it is somewhat jarring to read the word “bones” in the context of Rani Guiili or any other captive who was no longer alive. It is very jarring. And the truth is that for many years already—ever since the Torah tells us, in the portion we studied this week, Parashat Beshalach—“And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for he had made the children of Israel solemnly swear, saying: God will surely remember you, and you shall bring up my bones from here with you”—the Torah chooses the words “the bones of Joseph” instead of something more respectful, such as Joseph’s coffin, or simply Joseph.

Joseph the righteous—the king who cared for his family and his people, the one who was captive for more than twenty years in Egypt—“bones,” is that what he is?

The Rebbe asks this question in Likkutei Sichot, volume 26. True, in his oath Joseph used this expression about himself, as stated at the end of the verse, “and you shall bring up my bones from here with you.” But since this is not an expression of honor toward the righteous, the Torah should have said, “And Moses took (the coffin of) Joseph with him,” and not used the expression “the bones of Joseph.”

And as usual, in just a few words the Rebbe gives an inner, deep, and powerful meaning to the choice of the word “bones.” One can say that this is precisely what the Torah intends to emphasize: that in the Exodus from Egypt, Moses took with him the “bones of Joseph”—bones are called so because they are the essence and the strength of a person and of a living being—he took Joseph’s very essence, Joseph’s core being and purpose.

The Rebbe continues in the discourse to explain beautifully what Joseph’s essence was—what was the most essential thing about Joseph that Moses in fact brought up with him from the land of Egypt, so that it would be with them throughout the journey in the desert and serve as a source of strength and power.

The body of Rani Guiili has returned, but far more than that: his essence has returned, and it breathes into us a spirit of strength and self-sacrifice, love of Israel and devotion of soul. Not only him—every one of the heroes of the war, for whom a very significant circle was closed this week, brought with him strength in his very bones.

A bone is a simple thing, and therefore there is a similarity between one bone and another. A bone does not tell you about the different shades of human beings; a bone does not see differences. It only reveals the essential point, which is quite similar among people—and especially among the people of this nation, the people of Israel.

This is what Talik, Rani’s amazing mother, said in the eulogy this week: “Over the course of these two years I have heard many eulogies for the heroes of the War of Revival, and every eulogy reminded me of you. The same values and the same spirit—as if they copied you one by one.”

And what always amazes me most: all these people—all the fighters and the captives, the fallen and the living, all these Rani Guiilis—are all ordinary people, standard, everyday people, people who live alongside us even today. And somehow, in one moment of truth, their essence emerges and is revealed; the divine overcomes the animalistic, the spiritual rises above the material.

In that essence they showed everyone that we are one people, one big family that weeps and is moved together with anonymous members of its own—from Bondi Beach to Meitar.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Zalman Wishedski

Be a miracle, and the Almighty will make a miracle for you

Thursday, January 8, 2026 - 7:59 AM

He did not manage to keep everything while he was there in Soviet Russia at the end of the 1950s. He tried, but it was simply too difficult. As a result, his kitchen was not fully kosher, because obtaining kosher products was extremely hard, almost impossible. And their bedroom was not necessarily kosher either, because getting to a mikvah required real self-sacrifice.

Yet he was a Jew whom the Chabad chassidim in Chernivtsi trusted.
He was invited to farbrengens and underground prayer gatherings. The chassidim spoke to him many times, encouraging him to make the extra effort to have a kosher kitchen and a kosher bedroom. He always answered: “It’s impossible, here it’s impossible. With G-d’s help, when I get to Eretz then I will be able to, and with G-d’s help I will immediately keep everything kosher.”

Once, at a farbrengen, he turned to my grandfather, who had only recently returned from the Gulag, where they had not really succeeded in “re-educating” him, and said:
“Reb Moshe, it is well known that what a chassidic farbrengen can accomplish, even the angel Michael cannot. Please, take a small cup, say l’chaim, and bless me that I should be able to leave this place and reach Eretz Yisrael.”

My father, may he live long, who remembers this as if it were yesterday, tells that my grandfather, Rabbi Moshe - whose fortieth yahrzeit we marked just last week - took quite a bit of mashke and said to him:
“You are asking for a miracle. You are truly asking for a miracle. Because in those days, even dreaming of leaving Russia for the Land of Israel was a miracle in every sense.”

And then my grandfather cried out with love from the depths of his heart in Yiddish:
“Be a miracle, and the Almighty will make a miracle for you.”
Give Him a kosher kitchen and a kosher bedroomת and He will give you an exit from Russia.

The meaning and the connection were not explained to me; the story was told to me as I have written it. I reflected on it. In Chassidut we learn that a miracle is a “suspension of the laws of nature.” That is, when a miracle occurs, the Holy One, blessed be He, folds up the laws of nature: water stands still instead of flowing, the sun stands still in Gibeon, a sick person whom nature gives no chance recovers, and those whom nature predicts will not have children are granted a miracle and embrace a baby.

So my grandfather, as I understand it, was crying out to him: overturn your natural order for the sake of G-d, and in that merit you will be granted that G-d overturns the natural order for you.

In Likkutei Sichot, vol. 16, the Rebbe explains that the Egyptians did not believe in a higher power that intervenes in the laws of nature. Yes, there is a G-d who created the world — but from that point on, it is governed by natural law. The Nile was the symbol of this belief. While in the Land of Israel one depends on rain from Heaven to survive, Egypt has a source from the earth that sustains it — the Nile. As Rashi explains in Parashat Miketz: “The Nile rises within them and waters them, because rain does not fall in Egypt regularly as it does in other lands.”

In other words, the Egyptians claim there is no need to pray for a miracle — there is no miracle. There is the Nile. There is the river.

Accordingly, when Pharaoh decrees, “Every newborn son you shall cast into the river,” he is essentially saying: educate the Jews that the source of life is the river, the Nile — nature, the water that already exists — and not a higher power.

Moses, by contrast, seeks to serve G-d and to pray to G-d.

And the secret is quite simple: as long as we submit to the laws of nature and live only by them, our lives will follow the path of nature. From the moment we raise the banner of faith in G-d — who brings everything into being, who has the power to overturn the laws of nature and perform miracles — we live on the path of miracle.

That is likely what my grandfather was saying to that Jew:
You want a miracle? Be a miracle — and G-d will make a miracle for you.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Zalman Wishedski

The code of release

Thursday, January 1, 2026 - 12:01 PM

A moment before Yosef died and left his brothers and their fate in the hands of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, he gave them the code of release from that land. At the time of Yosef’s death, life was still good. They had autonomy in the land of Goshen, and as members of the family of Yaakov and Yosef they were honored and respected citizens of Egypt. But when Yosef told them, “G-d will redeem you from Egypt,” it was clear that the good life was about to be over, and soon they would be in a situation that would require redemption.

In the few sentences that Yosef said to them in his last minutes, he repeated twice the phrase pakod yifkod: “G-d pakod yifkod (will surely remember) you and bring you up out of this land.” Our Sages in the midrashtaught us that this word combination was the code that Yosef gave his brothers, so that when the time would come they would know to identify the redeemer. And, indeed, what Moshe Rabbeinu said to them when he came to take them out of Egypt was “Pakod pakadeti” – I have surely remembered.

The exile in Egypt, being the first exile of our people, teaches us about our national and personal lives today. The prophet Michah, when he speaks about the future redemption, says so explicitly: “Like in the days of your going out of the land of Egypt, I will show him (the Jewish People) wonders.”

I learn from that, that in every exile, difficulty, descent, falling and challenge – big or small, personal or national – the code of the transition from exile to redemption is there, having been prepared ahead of time.

This is a great help, and helps us cope, because the very knowledge that together with the difficulty and downfall there is a secret code, ready to take one up and grow, is enough to give us the strength to continue to cope, move ahead, and act. Sometimes we have to search for the code, and sometimes we just have to wait until it comes to us, but always, always we must live with the belief that it exists, and that someday it will come into use.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Zalman Wishedski

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