By: Renée Rockford
President & CEO
I remember writing the story of Holocaust survivor Kristine Keren. As a child in the ghetto of Lvov, Poland, she and nine other people hid for more than a year in the five-foot-tall sewage and rat-infested tunnels beneath the streets. After a heavy rain, the water would rise so high that her parents, constantly bent over, held the children up – keeping them above the water so they could breathe. She shared her story in the book The Triumphant Spirit.
This week, I heard in person the story of freed Israeli hostage Avinatan Or, taken by Hamas fighters on October 7 from the Nova Music Festival. He spent more than two years in the tunnels under Gaza—two years without light, beaten, starved, and isolated from the world. And yet he stood before the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly in Washington, D.C. to speak with stunning clarity and strength about what he endured and what kept him alive.
Their stories echo the themes in this week’s Torah portion, Toledot, where hiddenness and revelation intertwine. The parashah is filled with moments when truth lies beneath the surface—identities concealed, blessings disguised, intentions unclear.
Rivka receives a hidden prophecy: “Two nations are in your womb… the elder shall serve the younger.” Yaakov enters Yitzchak’s presence disguised, his identity unknown, and Yitzchak, blind and vulnerable—must perceive reality without sight.
Toldot teaches that even in times of darkness and situations of concealment, identity and destiny are not erased. Avinatan says he reminded himself every day in captivity that though all seemed lost, his captors could never rob him of his mind or his humanity. Like the figures of Toledot, the people in these stories survive, sometimes by faith, sometimes by memories, or sometimes by sheer human courage. Toledot teaches us that even in the most obscure moments, destiny continues to take shape beneath the surface, and that the divine promise of presence—sometimes silent but never absent—is with us in the darkest places.
Please email Renée Rockford at rrockford@jewishcolorado.org with questions or comments.