My heroic moment came and went.  I broke into the KGB office, grabbed my passport, and took a train to the “secret city” outside Moscow. 

And as soon as I got there, I realized why it was secret.  It was a beautiful, quiet town with a lake and a beach.  And on the outskirts of town, there was a building where some physicists were doing research.  But it wasn’t the research that was secret.  This was the town where the leaders of the Soviet Union had their dachas, there secret estates.  They didn’t want anyone to see the difference between the lives of ordinary people and the lives of the rulers.

I had a wonderful day, seeing the scenery and giving my lecture.  And when I got home to New York … nothing.  Six months went by, a year, and not a word about whether the activist had been released.

 And then one day, I was sitting in my office at NYU, and I got a call from the lobby.  “There are two men here to see you”, the receptionist said.  “Can I send them up?”

Moments later, two men appeared in my office – a burly man who said he was from the State Department security office, and another many who looked terribly frightened.  “This is the man you rescued”, said the security agent. 

Somehow, the activist had made his way from Siberia to my office.  But he was still in danger.  He had been followed by KGB agents ever since I gave my speech, and the KGB agents were still standing there, on the sidewalk outside my office.

We sat in my office and talked for a while, and then suddenly the KGB guards disappeared.   It was prearranged, an unwritten agreement between the State Department and the Soviet Union, that at just the right moment, the KGB guards would “go for coffee”.

Within minutes, the activist was out of my office, tucked into a car, and on his way to the airport. “Don’t worry”, the security agent told me, “We’re taking him straight to the tarmac.  Tomorrow, he will be in Jerusalem.”

For thousands of years, Jews have ended their seders with the words “Next year in Jerusalem.”  But I never expected to hear the phrase “Tomorrow in Jerusalem.”  And I never expected it to come true.

In time, the Soviet Union fell, and Soviet Jews regained their religious freedom.  But there were no synagogues, no rabbis, and no Jewish institutions.  Chabad sent people to help the Jews in the former Soviet Union, and so did the Reform Movement.  But there were Jewish communities scattered all across the Soviet Union, and only a few people to help them.  If wanted to start a congregation in the Soviet Union, you had two choices.  Either you did things the Chabad way or do it yourself.

The Jews in the former Soviet Union were overwhelmed.  They had no money, no rabbis, no experience organizing a synagogue or leading prayers.  But they did have one thing: teenagers.  In every community, there were Jewish teens – teens who reminded you of NFTY kids – who were looking to create a new future.

So these teens created synagogues.  They were kids who didn’t have enough to eat, who’s shirts had holes in them.   But they led funerals and conducted services and acted as rabbis and temple boards.  And Judaism was revived.

There was a wonderful man back then, a man who was one of the major donors to Camp Swig and Camp Newman.   “What would it be like”, he wondered, if those kids from the Soviet Union could spend the summer at a URJ camp?”  But he did more than wonder.  He made it happen.

I was the regional president of the URJ at the time, and I got to meet those kids.  And on the last Shabbat at Camp Swig, I got to attend an incredible Bat Mitzvah – the Bat Mitzvah of a 17 year old girl who was acting as the rabbi and president of a congregation in the former Soviet Union.  “When I was 13”, she said, “Bat Mitzvahs were illegal in the Soviet Union.”

 We talked for a while, and It turned out that she was from a small town outside Odessa – maybe the same one that my grandparents came from.  And who knows.  We might even have been distant cousins.  The world is a small place, and all Jews are connected.  Every mitzvah that we do, every good deed that we do, can have an impact on the world.

If you’re a teen and you’re reading this, I have something to tell you.  Those teens from the former Soviet Union were nothing special.  They were just ordinary Jewish teens, thrust into extraordinary circumstances, and they changed they entire Jewish world.  All of you can do the same

And parents, trust your teens.  They have tremendous potential.  Working together, from one generation to another, we can change the world.

Art Grand