| |
| | | | | | | | | | |
The Reconsecration of Holocaust Memorial Scroll No. 12
Shabbat Emor 5759
This Torah Scroll which we dedicate today, what meaning has it? As some of you know from conversation with me or from reading the extensive coverage by Adam Goldman in last Sunday's Progress, this rabbi had to overcome considerable reluctance before reaching the enthusiastic embrace of the concept of our synagogue becoming a home for this or any Torah Scroll whose use would be other than regular ritual reading. I think it may be instructive to explain both the reluctance and the enthusiastic embrace.There were three obstacles which had to be overcome and they were these:
1) Like other written items containing the name of God, Jewish tradition has longstanding rules and regulations for the proper and respectful treatment of such items when they are no longer fit for use. Thus, prayer books, Bibles, Chumashim, sacred works of Oral tradition - that have become worn, even photocopied sheets containing the name of God - all of these are referred to as "Shemot" - meaning writings with God's name. They are never simply tossed into the trash, but are placed into archival storage - Geniza's - until they can be ritually buried in a Jewish cemetery. If even a xeroxed sheet with a Bracha on it must be handled with such care, how much more so must a Sefer Torah which can no longer be used nor restored but handled with care and respect - not only because it contains God's name but because of its symbolic value as embodiment of the ancient covenant between God and the people Israel.
Should such a Torah be put on display when display is not the traditional norm for handling defective scrolls?
2) The reason we were able to obtain this scroll, the reason the Capon family was able to obtain it for us, was because 1564 scrolls had been pillaged by the Nazis and deposited in the Mishle Synagogue in Prague - with other ritual objects - intended all together to become part of the museum to the vanquished race. Those scrolls were later lovingly transported to the Westminster Synagogue where they have been carefully preserved, catalogued, and distributed to worthy institutions throughout the world, their own communities of origin no longer in existence.
To me, it has become axiomatic that, in Emil Fackenheim's famous formulation, we must not hand Hitler posthumous victories. If we are to display this scroll, we must be certain that we are not, in any way, shape or form, doing what Hitler intended to do.
3) Here I risk giving offense, but so be it. I have on occasion visited a home where the hosts proudly show me some ritual item on display: a kiddush cup from grandfather, a set of candlesticks from some great aunt. Similarly, I have been in synagogues with museum displays that include tefillin (phylacteries), tallitot (pryaer shawls), or havdalah spice boxes, and the like. What saddens me about all of these displays is the implication that these items are no longer used. The sadness is even greater if the implication coresponds to fact in that particular home or in that particular synagogue. To me it is a deep source of sadness when Jews relegate to museum displays living objects of ritual power as if they were merely remnants of a distant and archaic past, one we only wish to remember behind a glass. Forgive me, but tallitot are for praying with, as are those weird looking tefillin. Spice boxes are for use in saying goodbye to Shabbat. Kiddush cups are for the sanctification of this day, still a living and meaningful option for a Jew living in 1999 in north central Virginia. Basically, Torah scrolls are for our communal ritual re-enactments of the Sinai experience and the chain of its transmission through the generations. These rituals and the objects that we employ to undertake them, constitute the core of meaningful Jewish living in our time. It pains me to see them displayed as if they are fossilized remnants from a disconnected past.
Those were the obstacles I needed to get by in order to feel as I do that the acquisition of this Torah - with its unique and sorrowful past - is a great blessing. To display this Torah in a synagogue that pulsates with life as does ours - is not to do what Hitler intended, but the opposite. Westminster Torah Scroll #12 now joins its story to the story of our small but dynamic and growing community. It becomes for us a tangible, visible means to accomplish an essential but difficult task: to remembers a time in recent history full of unspeakably evil deeds and unbearable catastrophe - without being overcome by the same. As such, to display it as a memorial, to use it to teach that most difficult of historical periods, to read from it on the rare ritual memorial occasions that allow - is to treat it with high honor and appropriate respect.
This tattooed Torah Scroll, what meaning has it? It should recall for us a specific Jewish community. That twin town, Frydek-Mistek, straddles the Ostravice River, with Frydek on the Northern, Silesian bank and Mistek on the southern, Moravian bank. Jews lived in both towns but shared one small synagogue, located in Frydek. The census of 1930 revealed 430 Jews. Today, only the Hebrew cemetery, established in 1882, and the synagogue, now used for prayer by Seventh Day Adventists, remain as visible signs of an eradicated Jewish community.
We remember that community of Jews - similar in size to our own. Rather, we remember that there was a community in that hilly country some 20 kilometers from the Czechoslovak-Polish border. In truth we know little about the Jews of Frydek-Mistek. Were they Hassidim, followers of a mystically inclined, charismatic rebbe? Or were they mitnagdim, opponents of such a trend? What did they do to earn their livelihoods? How did they get along with their non-Jewish neighbors? All we really know is that we now possess a Torah scroll, once a means for their expression of allegiance to God and the Jewish faith.
This tattooed, partially defective scroll, what meaning has it? The Torah insists - as a matter of unshakeable principle - that we remember, that we remember both the beneficent and the evil that has befallen our people. "Zachor Et Yom Hashabbat L'Kadsho - Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy!" On the one hand, our tradition bids us to remember the Shabbat and its creation as a divine act of love and as a sign of the unique covenant between God and the people Israel.
On the other hand, our tradition teaches: "Zachor Et Ma Asah L'cha Amalek - Remember what Amalek did to you!" Remember the evil deeds of Amalek and Amalek's descendants, among them, Haman, and Hitler - who sought to dehumanize us and destroy us. The Sabbath we remember "to make it holy" and to make the holy and sacred part of our lives. Amalek we remember so that we may do everything in our power to prevent his evil goals from being achieved.
It is immensely important that this memorial scroll help us not only to recall the dark and chaotic period of holocaust night but that it stir us. It is essential that it allow us an awareness of the darkness and gloom and death and that awareness give way to a positive, life-embracing, faithful Jewish response. The Torah passage which we will hear shortly (Deuteronomy 4:30-40) begins with an acknowledgment of gloom: "BaTzar L'cha Um'tza-ucha Kol Had'varim Ha-eleh - In your distress, when all these things had come upon you...." It concludes with an awareness of divine sovereignty - a verse incorporated into the prayer Alenu - and the ongoing convenantal bond between God and Israel. As in our Passover Seders, we begin with degradation and end with praise - as we must.
Ultimately, our Jewish response to the horror of the holocaust must be a commitment to remember and a commitment to positive, vigorous, and serious Jewish life - in spite of the many forces that would wish and have tried to snuff it out. It is wonderfully coincidental that we schedule this dedication on Shabbat Emor, a Shabbat during which a 13-year old Jewish boy, Justin Goodman, will, like his father before him and like Jewish boys for generations - ascend the bimah tomorrow as a Bar Mitzvah - as a full member of our prayer quorum, as a faithful member of the people Israel. There is no better response to holocaust night than that.
To the enemies of our people, we best respond by positive determination to remain faithful to the traditions of our ancestors, by becoming Bar Mitzvah, and Bat Mitzvah, by creating Jewish families, by engaging in the study of Torah and the practice of religious ritual, and by performing deeds that bring honor to God and our people.
We read in the Torah portion of this Shabbat (Leviticus 22:32): "V'Lo T'chalelu Et Shem Kadshi V'Nikdashti B'Toch B'nai Yisrael...You shall not profane My holy name, but I shall be sanctified among the children of Israel..."
May this scroll which we dedicate this Shabbat serve as a reminder of the community from which it came and of the many who perished during the days of holocaust. And my it goad us to live lives that hallow the name of the Almighty. Ken Y'hi Ratzon. May it be God's will.
- Rabbi Daniel Alexander