On Sunday, more than a hundred people stood in the aisles of their gathering place, most of them weeping. It wasn’t a funeral, at least in the usual sense of the word, but it was an event so profoundly moving that few were left untouched. We all stood, in our synagogue, on the final day of Passover, in the presence of a Torah that had been hidden in Auschwitz and has only now been recovered and restored. [First though, it’s important that you know that the Torah is the central road map of Judaism – all traditions and laws, ideals and values, emerge from these five books: Genesis (B’reshit), Exodus (Sh’mot), Leviticus ( Vayyikra), Numbers (Bemidbar) and Deuteronomy (D’varim.)] It’s an amazing story and best told by our rabbi, who is responsible for bringing this moment to us. The story, in his words, appears at the bottom of this post.
Even the most spiritual person – one who easily connects to G-d, needs help sometimes. Praying, feeling any connection at all, takes work and concentration. But this day — this day — we were in the presence of something so remarkable that the sense of holiness was everywhere. I know this sounds way over the top – but stay with me. Here’s what happened:
On Sabbath (Saturday), Monday, Thursday and holidays, we always read from the Torah during services. On Regular Sabbaths and weekdays we make our way through the five books; on holidays we re-read selected excerpts that relate to that particular festival. On this day, closing Passover, we read the prescribed passages, and then, a dear, gentle member of our congregation who is himself a Holocaust survivor took this special Torah, which contained four panels that had been hidden in Auschwitz and began to walk slowly up one aisle and down the other so that everyone who wished to could reach it. As he walked, another congregant – with an exquisite and soulful voice, sang Ani Mamin, the prayer that, witnesses told his family, his own great-grandfather (as had so many other Shoah victims) sang as he marched to his death at the hands of the Nazis. Orthodox services include no musical instruments, just voices, so only this sole, mournful chant swept our friend along as he made his way through the synagogue.
There was no other sound in the room. Silently, each of us moved to the aisle to touch this sacred representation of so much pain and so much faith. Silently, we watched as it passed and made its way to the stand where it would rest as it was unrolled, and read. As its cover was being removed, our rabbi urged us all to "move closer" – leave our seats and, from each side of the mechitza (room divider), gather near. He was right. Imagine looking at, seeing before you, a Torah panel that had been smuggled into Auschwitz and hidden there as long as it was a death camp. It’s such a feeling of reverence, sadness, mourning and privilege that you need to imagine it for yourself; it’s not possible to describe. I will tell you ,though, that almost everyone was either teary-eyed or weeping openly. And so it went as the Torah was read, wrapped, silently marched through the congregation one more time and placed in the Ark until it could be returned to those who gave us the privilege of being in its presence.
This all sounds VERY melodramatic, I know. I myself had often argued that our identity as Jews can’t be built upon the suffering of those murdered six million – that we must feel our faith as a positive force, not only as a continuation that honors their suffering. But not this day. This day we all shared a connection with those who died, many who must have been our ancestors, whose grandchildren would have been at our weddings and bar mitzvahs, who really did belong to us – and who read from the thousands of Torahs that, unlike this one, did not survive the pillage and flames. Every time the Torah is returned to the Ark, the congregation sings a song about it that ends:
It
is a tree of life to those who hold it fast and all who cling to it find
happiness. Its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are
peace.
This day – we all heard these words in such a different way, understanding what these few pages must have meant to those who had hidden them for so long.
I can’t tell, if you weren’t there – if it’s possible to understand the experience — at least at the hands of my limited skills as a writer. But I wanted you to know about it — that it’s possible still to find such a moment of clarity and understanding. That even someone like me, so reluctant to place meaning in things — even articles representing faith like prayer books or even Torahs, can be shaken to the bone in the presence of something that bears witness both to the pain of our ancestors and, so powerfully, to the power of the faith we share with them.
Here’s our Rabbi’s story of the history of this Torah (I’ve included links to clarify a couple words):
This past Sunday, as we prepared to recite Yizkor*, we first gave honor to a
special Torah that was visiting with our congregation.
Here is the story of the Torah and how we came to have it with us on this
one occasion.
Two days before Pesach I stopped in the Silver Spring Jewish Book Store to
buy some gifts for Pesach, when I saw this Torah which said on the mantle,
“Rescued from Auschwitz.”
The owner of the store is a sofer and a rabbi and a very good friend by the
name of Menachem Youlis. Rabbi Youlis told me that the Torah was being given to
the Central Synagogue in New York City on Wednesday April 30. The Torah was
being donated to them by Alice and David Rubenstein and had been lovingly
restored by Rabbi Youlis through his Save a Torah Foundation.
I was overwhelmed by being in the presence of this Torah. I couldn’t stop
thinking about it. Here was living proof that our Torah is eternal. The Nazis
tried to destroy us physically but they could not destroy the Torah.
The next week I mentioned the beauty of this Torah to my friends, Secretary
William Cohen and his wife Janet Langhart Cohen and they graciously offered to
ask David Rubenstein to lend us the Torah so that we could read it in our shul
before it went to New York. David Rubenstein generously agreed.
And so we had the honor of reading from the Torah in our synagogue on the
last day of Pesach.
Before Yizkor I told the congregation the story of this Torah.
The Torah was recently found in the city of Oswiecim which is where the
death camp of Auschwitz was located.
I had learned about this city and its Jewish life from my rebbe, Rabbi Avi
Weiss. He knew this town well because his father lived there till he was 16.
It is likely that Rabbi Weiss’ father had actually heard this Torah being
read.
There was a tradition amongst the survivors of Oswiecim that two days
before the Nazis came to burn down the synagogue of Oswiecim the Torahs of the
synagogue were taken and buried in separate metal boxes in the Jewish cemetery.
The Nazis took a perverse pleasure in destroying Sifrei Torah in terrible ways
that purposefully desecrated the Torah.
Many had tried to find these Torahs and indeed, the spot where the
synagogue stood was excavated but no Sifrei Torah were ever found.
So Rabbi Menachem Youlis thought that perhaps the tradition told over the
years was correct. Maybe there really was a Torah buried in the cemetery.
He traveled to Oswiecim to check the cemetery but he did not find even one
Torah.
When he returned home he was despondent. But then his son told him, “Maybe
the cemetery was bigger back then…” Lo and behold the original cemetery was
built over and today it is just twenty-five percent of the size that it once
was.
So Rabbi Youlis took his metal detector and started searching the original
cemetery by looking under the homes where the cemetery originally was.
Lo and behold, he found a metal box. He opened up the metal box and found
a Torah scroll.
There was only one problem…the Torah scroll was missing four panels.
Without these four panels, the Torah scroll could not be kosher…. Where could
these panels be?
He took out an ad in the local paper and asked if anyone had panels of a
Torah from before the war.
The next day he received a call from a Priest who said he had four panels.
The panels were an exact match in pagination, style and content. Obviously
they were originally from the Torah he had found buried in the cemetery.
Rabbi Youlis learned that the Priest was born a Jew—named Zeev—and was sent
to Auschwitz. Before the Torah had been buried in the Oswiecim cemetery these
four panels had been removed and smuggled through Auscwitz by four different
people.
As each person who had a panel was about to die they passed along the
panels. Eventually the four panels made it into the hands of Zeev who guarded
them as a Priest for over 60 years.
Rabbi Youlis lovingly restored the Torah and made it kosher once again. He
added these four panels to the entire Torah. The four panels were all selected
for a good reason:
The first panel contained the Ten Commandments from the book of Exodus.
The Ten Commandments contain with it the word Zachor—the obligation to always
remember.
The second panel spoke about the curses that will befall the Jewish people
on the day the God hides His face from us. These curses came true during the
dark days of the Holocaust. But we know that since these curses came true, the
blessings that Hashem promises us will also come true.
The third panel contained the section from Parshat Pinchas that spoke about
korbanot—sacrifices, burnt offerings—that were offered to God.
The last panel contained the Shema from Deuteronomy. In that same panel
was also found the Ten Commandments from Deuteronomy.
The Ten Commandments from Exodus say, Zakhor et hashabbat, remember
the Shabbat.
Explain the rabbis, Zakhor ve-shamor bedibbur echad neemru, at the
same time that remember was said, so was the word shamor, to guard.
At the same time that we have an obligation to remember the past we also
have an obligation to guard the memory of the korbanot of the shoah—the
victims of the Holocaust.
When Rabbi Youlis looked at this Torah he noticed that the word
shamor (in Deuteronomy) was missing the letter, vav. The Torah
had been originally written without this letter included in it. The vav,
has a numerical value of 6, but it also represents the six million. Rabbi
Youlis added the vav to the Torah and thereby made it kosher. By adding
the vav to this Torah he also symbolically made an eternal memorial to
the memory of all those who perished from the town of Oswiecim and in
Auschwitz.
Now that the Torah is kosher it will be guarded and watched by the Central
Synagogue, where it will be read from every Yom Kippur. And every other year it
will be taken by 10,000 students as they march through Auschwitz on March of the
Living. And every time it is used the six million will be guarded (shamor) and
remembered (zachor).
*That’s a memorial prayer for loved ones recited on several holidays each year.
