A Soulful Journey

“But after what he had seen of the scaffolds of Plaszow and Auschwitz, she would never take him to a children’s playground without growing hysterical at the sight of the swing frames.”  - T. Kineally , Schindler’s List   What we bring with us from our past stays with us forever.  We are the product of our environment.  That is why it is so important to remember that we are not all the same.  We have different vulnerabilities and tipping points.

The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history....   Before long the nation will forget what it is, and what it was."   -Thomas Butler It is our duty to study, grow and learn.  Every day. That is why we are the eternal people. Do not forget. Remember. Learn.

"Man who does not believe in God is like a frog that puffs himself up and makes himself rather ridiculous.  But as man is not a frog, if he puffs himself up to the size of a superman he becomes a dangerous creature, a wild beast which, before ultimately being destroyed, destroys others." -Ignaz Maybaum

Abraham Joshua Heschel was shocked when he read that man was defined as a composite of iron, phosphorus and other chemicals in a Nazi Germany textbook.  It indicated that a human being was only worth a few dollars. It was then easy to understand that they were on the road to dehumanizing people. A human being is of infinite value. It cannot be gauged by weight, minerals or even money. We are all far deeper, more complex. We are the creations of the Almighty.

Elie Wiesel told of a woman who lived in the Carpathian Mountains during the time of Hitler. She had heard that people in Warsaw rebelling and fighting back. She exclaimed, “They should be quiet not protest. The war will end and everything will be all right.” At this point in his address, Elie Wiesel turned to President Clinton who was sitting on the dais and said, “I have recently visited Bosnia and cannot sleep at night. Why don’t we intervene?  There are those in America today who say we should do nothing about this was the slaughter, just as the woman in the Carpathian Mountains counseled inaction in the face of the Nazis.”  And then Elie Wiesel resumed his story: “This woman never knew that the war against Hitler had come to an end, for she perished with her entire family in Auschwitz.” He paused for a moment and concluded, “That woman which my mother!”

My father, of blessed memory, once gave me his scenario of messianic days:   Gog is on his throne, Messiah is at His right hand.   The villains of world history are brought to justice.   Hitler, Torquemada, Chemielnitski, Haman and Stalin are brought forward.   Their record is read: God turns to the Messiah and asks him: “Do you forgive?”   Messiah turns to the Jews and asks them: “Do you forgive?”   The Jews respond “Forgiven!” My father was a soft man.   But when he spoke about Europe and the Nazis he used language such as this: Zei zenen gangen in unzer blut biz iber di knee .   “They marched through our blood up to the knees.”   His expression was fierce.   –Rabbi Jacob Chinitz

"One historian summarized the Jewish experience in America.  "This is the first land where the Jews didn't automatically have to fear the police."  His meaning was that, for too long, authority and the individuals who wield power were capricious, arbitrary, rapine.  Holocaust chronicler, Dr. Raul Hilberg, put it another way when he writes in capturing the logic and horror of some 1700 years of experience with the "civilized" western world.  "The Church said you may not live among us a s Jews. "  The result was conversion, exclusion, or ghettoization.  Then Hilberg continues: "After the Church, the State  said you may not live among us."  The consequence: More ghettos, often violence, sometimes expulsion.  "The Nazis then said you may not live."   -Michael Zedek

During the Nazi Holocaust there were also people who managed to maintain compassion and freedom during a living hell.   One of those was the strong young Dutch Jew Etty Hillesum.   After she perished in Auschwitz in her late twenties, her diaries were found and published as “An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943.”   On September 23, 1943 she wrote in a letter to her friend Klaas: All I really wanted to say is this: we have so much work to do on ourselves that we shouldn’t even be thinking of hating our so-called enemies.   We are hurtful enough to one another as it is….and I repeat with the same old passion, although I am gradually beginning to think I am being tiresome.   It is the only thing we can do, Klaas, I see no alternative, each of us must turn inwards and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others.   And remember that every atom of hate we add to this word makes it still more in...

While running from the Nazis, Rabbi Morris Shapiro stopped on Friday August 7, 1954 to pray at the graves of his uncle and father.   “I did not pray to survive but rather that I should die repentant.”   This is why visit the graves of loved ones before the Holy Days.   Even though they are gone from sight we still communicate our love and sorrow to them.

A few months before she chose to leave a safe kibbutz in Israel to parachute into Nazi territory in order to organize Jewish resistance, Hannah Senesh penned a quote from a Jewish writer in her diary: “All the darkness cannot extinguish the light of a single candle, yet one candle can illuminate all the darkness.” This has been true since the beginning of time.  Even  Adam learned the power of one candle against a sea of darkness.

Emmanuel Ringleblum was a chronicler of the doomed Warsaw Ghetto.   In one entry he told of a child who tried to collect an extra lunch at a public “soup” kitchen.   “When discovered, the child begged with tears in his eyes to be allowed to have two lunches, because he did not want to die like his little sister.” Can anyone say the words “not on my watch” without cringing?

Akiva, a young student, comes before Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Meisels, a posek (rabbinic expert).   It seems Akiva’s best friend, Moshe Rosenberg is a brilliant student.   But Moshe has been “selected” to die.   The Nazis were insistent that all their numbers tallied at the end of the day.   The question: Could Akiva offer up his life in pace of Moshe? Akiva said, “I have seen the destruction of my family…led away to be burned while I am alone and bereft.   In what way am I better than they?   What is my life now worth on the face of the earth?   But if I can still have the merit to do one exalted thing….perhaps I can save dear Moshele, whose life is worth much, whom the world needs.”        - Rabbi Phil Scheim Imagine what a world with such pathos would look like.