In a recent piece on the Chilean miners who were rescued after sixty-nine days of being trapped underground I speculated that their lives would be changed forever by the realization of their own capacity for bravery and discipline. But a chance comment from a good friend regarding a recent gathering of some of the most prominent refuseniks from the former Soviet Union called my conclusion into question.
The bravery of the refuseniks far eclipsed that of the Chilean miners: The latter were thrust into a situation; the former chose a course that could have and often did result in long imprisonment in the Soviet Gulag. The heroism of the refuseniks inspired the worldwide movement to free Soviet Jewry. I have good friends whose journey to full Torah observance began in that movement.
My friend attended the gathering because he made a number of trips to the Soviet Union during the refusenik period. He confided that he felt saddened to find so many of his former heroes looking so gray and old with nothing of their former fire evident in their outer appearance. He added that few had achieved anything in Israel commensurate with their former heroism.
The first observation strikes me as somewhat superficial — nothing more than an observation on the ravages of time. We might feel the same sadness at an Old Timers baseball game as we contrast the graceful athletes of our childhood memories with the old men now before us. But that does not diminish their former glory.
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