A Yom Hashoah Prayer Drama

Most days, davening is a mundane affair, a routine non-event. But today's tefilla was filled with drama. Let me explain.

I went to shul today for Shacharit, like any other day. But today, Yom Hashoah it felt wrong, dislocated, at variance with reality.

I asked myself, I felt: How are we not saying Tachanun today?

On Yom Hashoah, how can we not say:

הַבֵּט מִשָּׁמַיִם וּרְאֵה כִּי הָיִינוּ לַעַג וָקֶלֶס בַּגּויִם. נֶחְשַׁבְנוּ כַּצּאן לַטֶּבַח יוּבָל. לַהֲרוג וּלְאַבֵּד וּלְמַכָּה וּלְחֶרְפָּה

וּבְכָל זאת שִׁמְךָ לא שָׁכָחְנוּ. נָא אַל תִּשְׁכָּחֵנוּ.

This morning I stood in shul and felt I needed those words.

I needed:

יהי רצון מלפני אבינו שבשמים . לרחם עלינו ועל פליטתנו ולמנוע משחית ומגפה מעלינו ומעל כל עמו בית ישראל . ונאמר אמן

So it is Nissan and we don't say tachanun, but today the entire public space, the air we breath, is filled with the Shoah, my thoughts and emotions are Shoah, today I wake up and think Shoah. It feels wrong.

Yesterday a new student joined my class.

I asked him, as two frum men might, "Where do you daven?"

He replied: "I daven ביחידות (alone) unless I have to say kaddish."

so I asked him why he davens alone.

His reply: "How can I say the siddur. It is not true. We say ותוליכינו קוממיות לארצינו and שתעלינו בשמחה לארצינו and we are already here! It is like a man whose wife left him, and then she comes back and they renew their relationship, but all he can say to her is :"Please come back! I love you.. please return to me!" I cannot  say those words to God. It is so false, so ungrateful. So I say my own prayers."

I must admit, this thought crosses my mind frequently on chag, on the Yamim Noraim, every day. So much of our prayer seems כפוי טובה ungrateful for the divine blessings that God has showered upon our generation. The blessings of freedom, of safety, of independence, of Jewish pride, of Eretz Yisrael, of Kibbuts Galuyot. How do I request הַרְאֵנוּ אות לְטובָה when there are plentiful signs?

How do I get up on a Monday and Thursday and say the same Tachanun that was recited in the shtetl in 1882 or in 1942, bemoaning the disgrace and humiliation of the Jewish people, when we are possibly the proudest generation in 2000 years?

A friend of mine adjusts benching, saying: ותוליכינו קוממיות בארצינו and not לארצינו because, after all, we ARE here!

So, I discussed this sentiment with my son. He responded that this is a shallow approach: "Even if we are in the midst of a positive process, we are merely at the inception of the "tikkun" we need to perform religiously, in terms of Jewish unity etc. We are nowhere near!"

He is correct. We have far to go on every scale. As a nation, we are deeply divided. We certainly fall short of our collective ethical and religious aspirations (as articulated by our prophetic heritage). We have much to do until we become the אור לגויים that we need to be. The majority of the Jewish people is not in Eretz Yisrael and overseas, assimilation is rampant. Regionally, Israel is distant from the Peace for which we hope and pray.

And still, how can we utter lies in Tefilla?

How dare we not recognize the critical shift in the global status of Jewry in an era of the State of Israel, when Jews around the world live in freedom and respect?

In the meantime, there are moments in which I am left with a huge dissonance between my prayerbook and myself. There are moments when Tachanun is in stark focus like today, Yom Hashoah. There are days when it is terribly dislocated.

So, I thought, maybe the only solution is for me, personally to be more dynamic, more pliable, more engaged and active in my prayer experience. To rely on my emotions more and the siddur less. To include certain things and to omit others, not permanently, but on an ad-hoc basis.

Or maybe, every tefilla any day, has a major note and a minor note. The question is not with the prayerbook but with me! How do I bring MYSELF to prayer

And so, I spent the morning mulling this and writing the first part of this post, feeling that the siddur was quite inadequate.

But then, I went to daven Mincha.

And somehow, probably because of the thinking I had done in the morning, I resolved to make it a "Yom Hashoah" mincha, to pour in special content, to really connect.

Surprisingly, Mincha was "real". I was able to genuinely talk to God.

And so, I am sharing some of my thoughts/kavanot (in very telegraphic form) that came to me as I recited the שמונה עשרה:

ראה בענינו - God see the suffering of your people, see the bitter suffering of the Holocaust, the crematoria, the gas chambers, the cattle trucks, the starvation, the death marches, the intimidation, the cruelty and torture ... The indescribable horrors .... and גאלינו make sure this never happens again! redeem us ... for ever!

רפאינו - Heal the survivors. Heal the children of survivors. Heal our nation. Close our divisions. As nature closes a wound, and broken  flesh heals and becomes one again. God, give us unity.

ברך עלינו bless this year. No war. No terror, no Gaza. Bless us. ואת כל מיני תבואתה - Just 70 years ago people foraged for food and could not find it. People died of starvation. Look at the plenty we have to day! We are so blessed! 

תקע בשופר גדול ... לקבץ גלויותינו   - A mere 70 years ago, Jews wandered the globe, homeless, with no place to take them in. Now we have a home. Jews have returned to Israel - over 6 million of us. How would we have managed without Israel after the Holocaust? How would world Jewry have raised its head of not for the pride of the State of Israel? There is more to do! Bring world Jewry home to Israel. Let us build our Jewish state together.

השיבה שופטינו - the force of Law. The Nazi regime began by destroying law, making evil, racist laws. But we must create a society of lawfulness. A law that stems violence and harm, punishing the guilty and guarding the innocent, a law that protects the weak, that ensures equality, that excoriates racism and discrimination, that protects free speech, that protects religion, that ensures our morality. And we must protect our judges and the importance of law  אלמלא מוראו איש את ראהו חיים בלעו

בא"ה מלך אוהב צדקה ומשפט - How did You - השופט כל הארץ allow such evil, injustice, barbarity? Hashem. Please reinstate your status as מלך אוהב צדקה ומשפט.

ולמלשינים - In the Shoah, people who were informants led to the death of so many. Oh! the power of language to kill! And now, today, hate-speech abounds, evil talk, evil intent. Betrayal, antisemitism. God! Please fight that hate! Uproot and destroy it מהרה תעקר ותמגר ותכניע במהרה בימינו.

על הצדיקים ועל החסידים - The saints: the mothers who went to their deaths comforting their children, the rabbis who led their faithful despite the hardships, the people who prayed daily in the Camps and Ghettos, the people who kept human dignity, who shared their food, who risked their lives. What faith they showed! What love of God and Man despite the depravity all around.. ותן שכר טוב לכל הבוטחים בשמך באמת ושים חלקינו עמהם - these are the holiest of the holy. And those who lost faith. That was also אמת They could not lie about God after what their eyes had witnessed.

ולירושלים עירך - One walks out of Yad Vashem into bustling Jerusalem! Who would imagined that איכה ישבה בדד is now העיר רבתי עם - Amazing! The phoenix from the ashes. ובנה אותה בקרוב...בנין עולם ... we have further to go. We are just beginning.

את צמח דוד - God. we thank you for Jewish government, for independence. For the pride of having a nation State. So critical after the Shoah. As Ruby Rivlin said last night; Israel will never leave Jews abandoned. דם יהודי אינו הפקר

שמע קולינו ... self explanatory

רצה ה' אלוקינו את עמך ישראל - God! Please love your people Israel. Please never reject us the way you did between 1939 and 1945. ותפילתם - All those prayers and tears that were offered during those years by faithful devout Jews. Where did they go? תָּשִׂים דִּמְעוֹתֵינוּ בְּנֹאדְךָ לִהְיוֹת. וְתַצִּילֵנוּ מִכָּל גְּזֵרוֹת אַכְזָרִיּוֹת.

 מודים אנחנו לך - we have so much to be thankful for. For our families, our wives and children, our parents, peace and prosperity .... (and please ...keep going... count your blessings!) ועל כולם יתברך ויתרומם

שים שלום - Amen!!

עלינו ועל כל ישראל עמך

ברכינו אבינו באור פניך

Yes!

And so ... as the afternoon progresses, tefilla comes into focus. The prayerbook regains relevance. In fact, it seems perfectly tuned to the spirit of the day!

Sometimes prayer comes to us. At others we have to create the prayer.

The Sefer Torah From Auschwitz

For Yom Hashoah

NYTimes has a great story (link) about a Sefer Torah from Auschwitz.

The Public Sphere: Chol Hamoed & Yom Hashoah

Tonight is Yom Hashoah.

(For more on the Shoah see this Post)

Yom Hashoah is not something that one can avoid here in ISrael. Every radio station and TV station broadcasts only programming related to the Holocaust! By law, there are no commercials on TV or radio. Public places of entertainment are closed. The entire atmosphere takes on a sombre mood. Tomorrow at 10:00 there is a 2 minute siren that ushers in a moment of contemplation and national silence.

I drove home from work this evening, The radio on every channel discussing the Shoah. Along route 1 - the major Tel Aviv-Jerusalem Highway there are electronic signs that routinely carry warnings of bad road conditions and traffic alerts. Tonight the electronic sign read so simply:

נזכור
ולא נשכח

(Let us Remember ... and not Forget!)

Once again I find myself commenting how powerful it is to be a Jew here in our own country. A person lives in many concentric circles: Family; Community; Town; Nation.
In London, I was aware that my Jewish identity could be expressed on the personal, familial and communal plane, but no further. The public zone is neutral, or British in character.
Here in Israel, there is a phenomenal force that never ceases to astound me by its power, and that is the texture of the National, the collective spirit; the ability for a Jewish Israeli culture to affect the "Reshut HaRabim", the פרהסיא; the street, the public zone, the national tone and mood. This is an all-encompassing, and penetrating emotive force.

It manifests itself in positive ways too. On Chol Hamoed, back in London, my Dad went to work. Yes, we ate Matza, or in the Sukka, but the culture of Christmas penetrated the street far more than the atmosphere of Pesach or Sukkot. When one went on a Pesach hike, we felt that we were the only people exisiting in a strange bubble of Pesach. But here, the entire country is overwhelemed by a festive feel. On Pesach we stopped at a gas station and I went into the shop at the Petrol Station to buy a drink. I saw some chocolate that I couldn't believe was Kosher LePesach so I asked about it. The lady behind the counter gave me an offended look as she responded; "Everything here is Kosher LePesach! It's Pesach!"

Everyone feels the powerful atmosphere of the national culture, and when that culture is Jewish, ona sad day like Yom HaShoah, or on a festive day like Pesach, it feels so so right. It feels like home.

Chol Hamoed Pesach 1945

This is a sad story. Maybe it is inappropriate for Chol Hamoed and simchat Yom Tov. However it is also inspirational as it tells the tale of incredible devotion to Judaism in the face of unbelievable suffering and adversity. This is the Chag of Avdut to Herut (See my next post!) and in that sense, this piece may be read as suffused with the spirit of Pesach... as you will read. I cannot ever daven Mussaf on Chol Hamoed Pesach without thinking about Mr. Finkelstein and Vehikravtem. Maybe this story will give us extra impetus to recite Hallel with full fervour, thanking God for giving us freedom and safety in our day and age.

The piece comes from (Prof. Rabbi) David Weiss-Halivni's autobiography, as he describes life in the Nazi work/concentration camps. He was fifteen years old and working in a very long tunnel with German guard at the entrance and this is what he retells:

"I passed by the Todt (German Guard) as he was eating his scheduled snack, his meal between meals. In characteristic German style, he ate at the same time every night and, what's more, he ate the same thing every night: a thinly sliced sandwich containing some greasy substance that stained the wrapping paper and made it transparent. He and his eating habits became as much a feature of the tunnel as the chila (wagons) and carrying the drills.

This time, however, our meeting was different. His sandwich was wrapped in a page of Orach Chaim, a volume of the Shulchan Aruch, Pesil Balaban's edition. The Balabans began publishing the Shulchan Aruch, the Jewish Code of Law, in Lemberg in 1839. The first publisher was Abraham Balaban, and after his death he was succeeded by his widow, Pesil. Pesil's edition of the Shulchan Aruch was the best; it had all the commentaries, including that of Rabbi Shloma Kluger. As a child of a poor but scholarly home, I had always wanted to have her edition. We had a Shulchan Aruch, but it wasn't Pesil's. Ours was also old and torn. It was my ambition as a child to own a Vi/ner Shas (a complete set of all the Talmud's volumes), Pesil's Shulchan Aruch, and a set of "Rambams," a complete set of Maimonides' major legal writings. Here, of all places, in the shadows of the tunnel, under the threatening gaze of the German, a page of the Shulchan Aruch, with fatty spots all over it, met my eyes.

The page was from the laws of Passover (Orach Chaim 434). The question on the page deals with whether an agent can nullify the leavened bread of a household before Passover, which is the subject of a disagreement. On the one hand, why not? After all, isn't there a general rule: "A man's agent is like unto himself" - everything we can do a proxy can do for us? However, the Ran-a fourteenth-century scholar-argues that since bittul (the annulment) is a result of hefker (abandonment), the nullifying is considered a kind of disowning or dissolving of ownership, which cannot be done through an agent.

Upon seeing this wrapper, I instinctively fell at the feet of the guard, without even realizing why; the mere letters propelled me. With tears in my eyes, I implored him to give me this bletl, this page. For a while he didn't know what was happening; he thought I was suffering from epilepsy. He immediately put his hand to his revolver, the usual reaction to an unknown situation. But then he understood. This was, I explained to him, a page from a book I had studied at home. Please, I sobbed, give it to me as a souvenir. He gave me the bletl and I took it back to the camp. On the Sundays we had off, we now had not only Oral Torah but Written Torah as well. The bletl became a visible symbol of a connection between the camp and the activities of Jews throughout history. It was not important what the topic was, whether agency or any other. Perhaps it was symbolic; who knows what mission we were supposed to fulfill there? The bletl became a rallying point. We looked forward to studying it whenever we had free time, more so even than to the phylacteries. It was the bletl, parts of which had to be deciphered because the grease made some letters illegible, that summoned our attention. Most of those who came to listen didn't understand the subject matter, but that was irrelevant. They all perceived the symbolic significance of the bletl.

The bletl was entrusted to a Mr. Finkelstein-I believe his name was Moshe, from Mateszalka, a town in Hungary where my father had been in the ghetto. Mr. Finkelstein was "a Jew who always prayed"; his lips always moved. I have a feeling that he wasn't sure after reciting his prayers once if he had recited them correctly. Or maybe he recited them once in the Ashkenazic pronunciation and once in the Sephardic. Having the bletl around in the camp was dangerous. Someone caught with it would be considered to be carrying contraband. Mr. Finkelstein volunteered to keep the bletl and, of course, produced it every second Sunday, when we were off. He must have carried it on his person; I'm sure he slept with it. The bletl was always with him and secure. Knowing that the bletl was with Mr. Finkelstein, we felt secure as well.

ALL THIS continued until February 1945, when we were transferred to Ebensee, part of the Mauthausen complex in Upper Austria… Ebensee was the worst extermination camp anywhere in Germany or Austria… The daily toll of dead, I believe, sometimes reached as high as eighty in our block alone. I DIDN'T see Mr. Moshe Finkelstein in Ebensee, even though he was also there. I must confess that the bletl was not on my mind. The sheer need to survive under constant torture drove out any other interests. In Ebensee we didn't have second Sundays off; there was no possibility of learning. The episode of the bletl was blocked out of my memory. As the Talmud says, "Subsequent troubles cause the earlier ones to be forgotten." And troubles there were. Ebensee appeared like a bottomless inferno devouring all who entered it.

One day, while I was mixing cement in the big amphitheater-a kind of working plaza where chilas of all sizes and from all directions raced at me, this time to pick up cement-I spotted Mr. Finkelstein. He saw me as well. We tried to make contact, but it wasn't easy. We had to pass in front of kapos, each of whom had his own turf, which he guarded jealously against intruders. Finally, we made contact. He asked me whether I knew the prayer "vehikravtem" by heart. It was Passover, 1945. It was the first day of Chol Hamoed, the intermediate days of Passover, and he wanted to know the exact formulation of the sacrifices performed in the Temple service of old and recited in the Musaf prayer. Sacrifice was on Mr. Finkelstein's mind. How appropriate! He himself was a sacrifice; so were we all, lambs waiting for the slaughter. I told him the formulation and asked him about the bletl. He tapped his hip, and that was enough of a sign that, despite the horrible conditions, which killed perhaps as many as ninety percent of us, the bletl was safe and secure. We parted with a "gut yam tov" greeting.

Subsequently I heard from the Betlamer Rav that soon after we parted, Mr. Finkelstein collapsed. Before there was time to remove the bletl from his body, he was taken away to the crematorium. When Mr. Finkelstein's body went up in smoke, the bletl went with him."

"The Book and the Sword" - A Life of learning in the Shadow of Destruction.
by David Weiss Halivni
pgs 68-72