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Short Summary
Main recommendation: When facing a difficult period, repeat and internalize the phrase "Baruch Gozer Umekayem" from the morning prayer Baruch She'amar, understanding it as "blessed is God, who makes a decree and gives the strength to endure it." Rabbi Paysach Krohn tells the story of Rabbi Alexander Ziskind Portugal, who found this meaning while imprisoned in solitary confinement during World War II.
Key Points
- Rabbi Alexander Ziskind Portugal, a Romanian rabbi, and his wife sheltered over 400 boys and girls during the war to save them from the Romanian army and camps.
- After his arrest and solitary confinement, he was stripped of his yarmulke, kapote, and glasses, leaving him disoriented.
- He was troubled that the word "gozer" (decree) appeared in Baruch She'amar, a prayer otherwise about God's positive deeds, so he could not reconcile it.
- His resolution came from reading "umekayem" as deriving from "kiyum" (existence), so the phrase means God gives you the strength to endure a difficult decree, not merely that He 'fulfills' it.
- After arriving at this insight, he said he now knew he would be released in three or four days, and he was; he told this story every year on the anniversary of his release.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions: Underline or mark the phrase "Baruch Gozer Umekayem" in your siddur, and recall it during difficult times such as waiting for a child, waiting for a shidduch, waiting for a job, or any hardship.
- Context for the meaning: Gozer usually signals a bad decree, while kayem normally means "fulfill," but the rabbi's reading draws on kiyum, meaning existence and endurance.
- The phrase is the speaker's own framing of the rabbi's insight, presented as a source of strength rather than a formal halachic ruling.
- The story is relayed secondhand: the speaker's cousin heard the rabbi tell it in a speech and passed it on.
Bottom Line
Difficult decrees come with the strength to endure them, and the speaker suggests holding onto that reading of Baruch Gozer Umekayem as a lasting source of resilience.
