Eva Kor was sent to Auschwitz, and as she and her sister, Miriam, two 10-year-old girls, exited the train, an SS guard snatched them yelling “Twins.” And just like that, torn away from a mother they’d never see again, the girls were sent off with the other children subjected to Dr. Josef Mengele’s medical experiments. 

Mengele would take one twin, inject the child with a poison or a bacteria cocktail, and study how they died. Then he’d execute the child’s twin and perform simultaneous autopsies. Such was the fate of some 1,400 pairs of twins. 

And Dr. Hans Munch was Mengele’s friend and colleague at Auschwitz. 

***

Jesus informs the Scribe in today’s Gospel that he is “not far from the Kingdom of God” because the Scribe “answered with understanding.” 

The Scribe understood that the greatest commandments were to:

1. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. 
2. Love your neighbor as yourself.

Not far but also not there. Close but not complete. Almost but not arrived. Why would Jesus say that the Scribe was not far from the Kingdom; why didn’t He say that the Scribe was in the Kingdom? 

Said differently: why isn’t the Scribe’s understanding of God’s Greatest Commandments enough? 

***

Somehow, perhaps through dumb luck, or a strong immune system, or defiance, or God’s grace, Eva Kor did not succumb to the deadly injection, and after the Soviet Union liberated Auschwitz in 1945, Eva and Miriam immigrated to Israel. 

***

Understanding that you must love God and others is not the same thing as loving God and others. 

Knowing you need to do something and doing something are two different things. 

Grasping the concepts involved in cooking a delicious meal and cooking a delicious meal for friends and family are not the same. Understanding how to remove a cancerous mass and surgically removing a cancerous tumor are not the same. Knowing how to speak French and conversing with a barista in a Parisian cafe are not the same. 

And so understanding that you must love God and others, and loving God and others are not the same thing. 

Knowing that you must love and choosing to act with love are not the same. 

To move beyond merely being not far from the Kingdom to actually arriving in the Kingdom, I believe we must mobilize our understanding into action, actualize our faith into deeds, do in the here and the now what we grasp in the confines of our consciousnesses. 

So how do we act out these commandments?

To love God with our heart . . . to feel a personal and emotional connection to Jesus. 

To love God with our soul . . . to align the invisible, intangible, part of our being towards the one who created us.

To love God with our mind . . . to orient our intellect towards the Alpha and the Omega. 

To love God with our strength . . . to dedicate the muscles and tendons making up our physical casings in an outward gesture of faith in the Creator. 

And to love others as ourselves . . . .

***

In 1993, Eva Kor visited with Dr. Munch at his home in Germany. Instead of being the evil tormenter she expected, the old man was a gracious host who revealed horrific details of his work at the concentration camp previously unknown to Eva. Eva was struck by his candor and his consideration for her. At one point, the old Nazi scurried into his house to fetch a pillow to make Eva more comfortable while they spoke. 

So moved by this encounter, Eva penned a forgiveness letter to Dr. Munch. It took her four months to finish the letter. When speaking about the letter, Eva said “What I discovered for myself was life changing: that I had the power to forgive. I refuse to be a victim.”

The POWER to forgive. 

Power—the ability to do something or act in a particular way. 

***

Understanding the Greatest Commandments is not enough. We must use our power, our ability to do and act in a particular way, to actualize these commandments. 

Can we use our power to love God with our heart, our soul, or mind, our strength?

And can we be like Eva Kor and love our neighbor as ourselves?