The Heartbeat of Sinai

Chaim Lindenbaum, a 77-year-old from Haifa, was diagnosed with aggressive leukemia in 2022. Doctors said his only chance of survival was a life-saving bone marrow transplant. Dr. Daniel Levi, who had joined Israel’s bone marrow registry after moving from Peru, turned out to be a match—despite not being related.

With just a week to prepare, Levi donated stem cells for the urgent transplant, coordinated by Ezer Mizion, the world’s largest Jewish bone marrow registry. The procedure succeeded and Chaim wanted to thank his benefactor but donor rules required the men to wait a year before Levi’s identity could be revealed.

A year later, Chaim Lindenbaum and Dr. Daniel Levi were anxious to finally meet.  They scheduled to meet after Simchat Torah on October 7. The meeting never happened. Daniel Levi and his young family lived in Kibbutz Be’eri and on October 7, when terrorists infiltrated the kibbutz, he answered the frantic calls from the medical clinic. He raced to treat the severely injured.

As his wife Lihi, 34, daughter Emma, 5, and son Liam, 2, were hiding in a safe room for seven hours, Levi calmly texted her, “I love you” while Hamas terrorists opened fire.  After treating many people and saving lives, Daniel was killed on October 7.

Dr. Daniel Levi, of blessed memory

Chaim never had the chance to meet the man who saved his life, but he did meet his family. A few weeks after the tragedy in Be’eri, someone at Ezer Mizion was trying to arrange the long-awaited meeting and repeatedly tried to contact Levi—without success. When she checked his file and saw he was from Be’eri, she investigated further and discovered he had been killed. Despite the heartbreaking news, she reached out to Levi’s widow, Lihi, to see if a meeting was still possible. In an emotional meeting, Daniel Levi’s widow fulfilled what her husband had hoped to do for over a year: embrace the man whose life he had saved.

“He left, aside from his two beautiful kids, his blood, which is my blood.”

Bending down to little Emma, Chaim explained, “I was very sick – my blood was sick. And today I’m healthy, thanks to your daddy’s blood… I was very sad, I wanted to thank him. His blood system is in my body. In compatibility we were like brothers.”

He added that a part of Levi still lives on in him: “He left, aside from his two beautiful kids, his blood, which is my blood.”

Unity at Mount Sinai

This principle is not limited to Chaim Lindenbaum and Daniel Levi.

When the Torah describes the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai—the most seminal moment in history—it says, “the people camped in the desert, and Israel camped by the mountain.” The wording changes from plural to singular, and Rashi explains this shows that the Jewish people were united “like one person with one heart.” This unity was critical to receiving the Torah. Just like then, our unity today is an important part of accepting the Torah anew on Shavuot.

The Jewish nation was a caring family, a united people, instead of just a gathering of disparate individuals. Indeed, no Jew can fully observe the totality of Torah unless the nation is united as one. All Jews are obligated in the 613 commandments but no single individual can observe all of them because one can’t simultaneously be a man, woman, Kohen, Levi, live in Israel and outside of it.

The Talmud teaches “Kol Yisroel areivim zah la’zeh – every Jew is a guarantor for each other.”  Only through this principle can Jews fulfill the entire 613 commandments.  By being guarantors for the other, we can perform mitzvot for each other and thereby fulfill it all.

It is not a coincidence that the Hebrew word for guarantors – areivim – is the same Hebrew root for “mixture”.  When we guarantee one another and have each other in mind, we become a mixture together.

Antisemitism and Its Solution

There may be another way to understand the message of unity. The name of the mountain where we received the Torah—Sinai—comes from the Hebrew word sinah, or hatred. The Talmud (Shabbos 89a) teaches that from this mountain, hatred for the Jewish people came into the world.

Why are Jews hated? Historians and thinkers have offered many answers, but no single explanation fits. Antisemitism has shown up in all kinds of times and places—whether Jews were wealthy or poor, assimilated or religious, living in Israel or in exile.

The hatred began at Sinai, when we accepted the Torah and the responsibility to live by its values.

Our sages teach that the hatred began at Sinai, when we accepted the Torah and the responsibility to live by its values. The Torah teaches eternal truths and high moral standards, and that makes many people uncomfortable. As Jews, we are meant to be a light to the nations, a moral compass, and that mission has always made us stand out.

The sinah—the hatred—began at Sinai, 3,337 years ago. Since then, we’ve faced hatred, lies, double standards, and persecution. But we’ve never given up.

How have we survived? What’s the secret to our strength?

The answer also comes from that moment at Sinai. The Torah says we stood like one person with one heart. Our unity gave us the power to face anything. And it still does today.

As we prepare to stand at the mountain again to reaccept the Torah, the sinah from Sinai continues to rage in Israel, on college campuses, in some offices of Congress, and in too many countries around the world.  Our response now must be as it was then, to turn to one another with a sense of unity, love and oneness.

By recognizing that we are brothers and sisters, and aspiring to live as a loving family, the Jewish people will continue to thrive.

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