Forget him I can’t, though his name slips my mind – as a young boy of 11 I had left home to study in a Yeshivah, it was Detroit, Michigan – in his Shul there was a combination of Lubavitcher Chassidim, messengers of the Rebbe to spread light, love and the Chassidic approach to Judaism; and mainly holocaust survivors – older men.

I knew very very little then, having come from Kansas City, a city in which my own father was one of the Rebbe’s messengers, but lacking good Jewish education, a very minimal background, both in Judaism and Jewish culture, had I.

But this man was different – for he used to shake – his whole body, as if he was stricken by Parkinsons, his arms would move involuntary, his body would move involuntary – as kids, you accept and don’t question your reality.

But once in a while, he would shout – he would shout at us – “you guys think you’re living in a Yeshivah, you’re in gan eden, when I was a youngster Yeshivah was a hard bench!” – That was the basics of his shouting tirades, but having never been shouted at before, I didn’t take personally, much like one looking at a strange animal one never encountered before; so we asked our Rebbe / teacher, Rabbi Stein, why is he shouting? “he’s a survivor” he said knowingly.

Now what a survivor is, I also didn’t know.

But as I am older and know a lot more about life and history, an important lesson there is.

Survivors of abuse, don’t forget; as Dr. Kulick one of the preeminent American psychiatrists who came on a trip with my brother Mendy to Israel, and there Sherry Mandel, whose son was viciously stoned to death and wrote a bestseller: Blessings of a Broken Heart; told them; You can never become who you were before trauma, but you can become something new!