It was the height of the Communist regime in Russia, and all religious activity was strictly forbidden. Numerous rabbis had already been exiled to Siberia. Nonetheless, there were a handful of brave individuals who risked their lives and taught Torah to Jewish children, they organized communal prayer, they provided kosher meat, and they built ritual baths, etc. They risked their lives to keep the embers of Judaism alive.
Reb Michael, a Chasid, was one of these courageous and defiant Jews.
Every day the Chasid's wife urged him to flee, but Reb Michael pushed off his departure for he knew he was the only Jew in town who could organize a minyan for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.
"Fine, But as soon as Yom Kippur ends, you're leaving!" She insisted.
After Yom Kippur, Reb Michael tells his wife, "I can't leave, I need to take care of a Sukka for the Jews here...."
On the first night of Sukot, each person took a different route, arriving at Reb Michael's sukka at staggered hours throughout the evening. One after the other they snuck in, made Kiddush on the wine, washed their hands, ate a piece of challa and departed hastily.
After the first two days of Sukot, Reb Michael realized the time had come for him to leave. That night he took some food and went out to his sukka in the back of his house.
Suddenly he heard loud knocking on his front door. Reb Michael jumped up and started in the direction of his house. But what he heard next stopped him in his tracks. "Open up! Police!" a harsh voice demanded.
He heard the police announce that they had come to arrest him, and his wife's reply was that he wasn't around. Fine!, they told her, they would search the house for themselves. Thank G-d he was in the sukka.
Stealthily, his heart beating wildly, Reb Michael tip-toed till he reached the street, he then broke into a run in the direction of the train station. In the meantime, his wife's only prayer was that her husband not arrive home in the middle of the search.
For several days she was unaware of his whereabouts. Then a letter arrived from her brother who lived several thousand kilometers away, informing her of his guest....her husband.
Reb Michael knew it was the sukka he had built that was his salvation.
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