These and Those

The Learnathon for Haiti was last night, and it was a rousing success.  Some of Pardes’ best teachers taught amazing shiurim looking at many of the most challenging issues surrounding social justice and tzedakah, particularly in regards to imperatives for giving tzedakah to non-Jews and how we balance our finite resources.

The Beit Midrash is usually filled with students on Wednesday evenings for Night Seder, but last night, the learning was all for the sake of raising money for Haiti – a beautiful sight.

Donations will be accepted until the end of next week – to support Haiti via Pardes, go to http://action.ajws.org/goto/pardes

-Lauren

Tags: Chassidut, Pardes, Pardes Courses, prayer, Rabbi James Moshe Jacobson-Maisels, Spirituality, teachers

Pardes alumna Noga Fisher & her husband Warren joined us on the 2010 Poland Trip. Here are her thoughts:

“It’s been a month since our trip. During our intense 5 days I felt numb much of the time. But since then I have been thawing, thinking and feeling, and the process is far from over.

I keep trying to come to grips with the SCALE of what happened. It’s unbelievable – hundreds of thousands, millions of people rounded up, moved, transported, trained, marched, shoved, shaved, gassed, shot, shoveled… I keep trying to get perspective on the numbers – half a million in the Warsaw ghetto, that’s my entire home town of Fort Worth, all crammed into an area the size of Efrat…700 gassed at a time, that’s nearly three times the number of kids in our daughter’s high school, gassed en masse in 10 minutes…simple Jews like Levi’s grandfather being transported, transported and transported again to 13 different camps…

I especially can’t make sense of the Hungarian experience – how could it be possible that an army could march into a country, round up and dispose of a country’s entire Jewish community in 7 weeks?

It’s surreal, it’s the definition of surreal.

There is one truly real thing I can tell you: the Shabbat after our return was the best I’ve ever had. Sitting in our beautiful living room in our loving community in Israel; sitting down to a Shabbat table loaded with the best of everything; looking at my beautiful teenage children sleeping on the sofa waiting for their beautiful friends to drop by; I just cried, thought what a gan eden we live in and how truly lucky we are.

Tags: Emotions, Introspection, Noga Fisher, Poland, Shabbat, Shoah, Tiyulim

Much of what I’ve reflected upon has been inspired by R. Levi Cooper, and I’m particularly appreciative of his emphasis on the wealth of Eastern European Jewish culture before the Shoah. We spent much of our final day touring the Jewish sites of Kraków, Poland because he did not want to end our trip at a concentration camp (we’d been at Auschwitz all day the previous day). He wanted us to leave Poland remembering the glory of Ashkenazi culture before the Shoah.

For me, it worked.

—–

Last night, I attended a men’s Rosh Hodesh celebration hosted by two lovely human beings that I study with at Pardes. I’d never attended such an event before, and I didn’t really know what to expect (I’m not sure anybody else did either), but I had a wonderful time.

We were lucky to have our classmate Ira play guitar and lead us in song, and Ayal lovingly encouraged us to share words of Torah with one another, which many did. Our group included new students and older students, as well as the medic from our Negev Tiyul. A friend later commented to me upon the level of “authenticity and Jewish love” at Josh & Dave’s Rosh Hodesh event; I wasn’t the only one affected. “It was good to sing and dance with you last night,” he wrote.

I often have difficulty feeling celebratory when it’s expected of me. Earlier that day, students had been dancing around Pardes in celebration of Rosh Hodesh, and I had felt uncomfortable, but at the men’s Rosh Hodesh event that night, I suddenly wanted to sing & dance in celebration of the month of Adar – and I did.

—–

After touring Jewish Kraków, before boarding the bus for our next destination, a friend with a strong kesher (connection) to his Ashkenazi roots said to me, “I can imagine having lived here: I can imagine having been myself, living in this Kraków that we learned about today. I relate to this.”

And I said, “I don’t relate to this at all. I have pieces of Eastern European, Israeli, and North American Judaism swirling around within me, and don’t think I would have been the same person back in the Kraków of centuries past. My pluralistic Modern Orthodox Judaism didn’t exist back then. I would been raised under different influences. The shuls of Kraków are beautiful, and I stand proud of the tremendous Jewish culture that once flourished here, but… this isn’t my Jewish culture.”

—–

I’ve been enjoying Bible Raps music clips recently because somebody at Pardes sent out a link to their Purim video (Bible Raps was started by a Pardes alumnus, btw). Listening to this reflection of a 21^st century American Jew’s passion for Jewish education has resonated powerfully with me: the fusion of Jewish learning and modern U.S. pop culture feels… authentic. It feels like a fusion of… pieces of myself.

—–

I’ve been taking classes on halakha (Jewish law) at Pardes this year, and loving them. Rabbi Moshe Isserles (1520-1572) of Kraków has been one of my teachers this year, and having the opportunity to visit his shul in Poland was very special for me. Out of eternal honor for this Gaon (Torah giant), his chair at shul remains empty throughout the year.

Once, R. Isserles lived and taught. Once, he was a pillar of his Kraków community; he donated his home to the community as a synagogue; he subsidized students of Torah with his own resources; and he was one of the greatest Jewish scholars of Europe.

Today, I connect to R. Isserles through his texts. Centuries later and on different continents, I apply this Gaon’s teachings as best I can to my life in modern, Western society… which is very different from the life he knew.

And increasingly, I think… I cannot save the Judaism lost in Europe to the Shoah, as much as I appreciate it, as much as I am inspired by it, but I can be a part of Judaism today. I can’t be a part of R. Moshe Isserles’ shul or community, but I can build Jewish community at my own shul.

In a previous post, I wrote that I feel… it matters. It matters that Jews visit Poland. It matters that Jews visit the sites of Nazi terrors. It matters that Jews visit the remains of Jewish Eastern Europe. But I also feel… that Jews must continue to live as Jews to honor their ancestors. I also feel… that Jews must continue to live as Jews… today.

Tags: Authenticity, celebration, community, Emotions, Heritage, Identity, Introspection, Kraków, Learning, modern Judaism, Poland, Rabbi Levi Cooper, Rabbi Moshe Isserles, Rosh Hodesh, Shoah, Tiyulim

Hello faithful readers! This is a short post to inform you about the Pardes Learn-A-Thon, going on from now until February 24th to raise money for Haiti’s earthquake relief efforts through AJWS. We’ll be taking on extra learning above and beyond our classroom hours on topics of tzedakah and tikkun olam.

Please check out our promotional video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLUxr8Bgal and donate at http://action.ajws.org/goto/pardes

Thanks for your support!

-Lauren

“Today was a good day.”

It’s not often that I find myself able to unequivocally utter these words.  But every once and a while, a day comes along that is so good that there is nothing left to say.

Today was a good day because it was the second day of Rosh Chodesh Adar – I happen to be a huge fan of Rosh Chodesh celebrations, and Pardes has particularly lovely ones.  I chose to spend my morning at the Kotel, celebrating Rosh Chodesh with the Women of the Wall. My experiences with Women of the Wall have been mixed, and I have talked about them before, but a few things happened this morning that I want to highlight.  There was a very large group of women today – larger than I’ve ever seen before – and on top of that, there was a large group of men davening with us; they stood behind the women’s section of the prayer plaza in the main Kotel plaza.  The police, who have been so antagonistic in my prior Women of the Wall experiences, formed a barrier in front of us today to protect us from a group of Haredi women who were shouting at us (incidentally, one of the women who shouted at us kept saying “if your mother knew where you were!!!!”  I really wanted to tell her that my mother knew exactly where I was, and that if she had been in the country, she would probably have been standing right next to me).  Looking around me this morning, I was able to see the growth of Women of the Wall, and also to have a little bit of hope that things may get better.

Today was a good day because it was a beautiful day.  In an absolute miracle of weather and in defiance of everything I know about the month of February, the sun came out today and it was glorious – 80 degree weather, a beautiful breeze, sun shining down over the city.  I opened every single window in my apartment this afternoon and did my best to let the sunshine in.  I walked with a friend from the Kotel back to Pardes, where we arrived just in time for community breakfast, and a skit from some of our fellow students in the Pardes Educators Program.  We sang and laughed in celebration of the onset of Adar and the coming of Purim, and we enjoyed a wonderful meal.

Today was a good day because it was the 8th annual Pardes Yom Iyun Shel Chesed, in honor of Ben Blutstein and Marla Bennet, z”l.  Ben and Marla, students in the Pardes Educators Program, were both killed in the July, 2002 bombing at Hebrew University.  I don’t know very much about Ben or Marla – but what I have learned in the past few weeks has given me a picture of two wonderful people that the world is incredibly unfortunate to have lost.  After the bombing, the  Pardes community entered a year of mourning, a process which eventually produced the annual Yom Iyun Shel Chesed.  Every year, Pardes students are asked to spend one day devoted to bringing a little bit more chesed, or kindness, into the world.  We spent our morning studying in honor of Ben and Marla, and then spent our afternoons out in the world, doing various beautiful deeds.  A large group of students volunteered harvesting oranges for Leket, another group volunteered for Save a Child’s Heart, we ran a Gift of Life bone marrow donor registration drive, and more.

The group that I volunteered with spent two hours gardening at a local community garden called Gan HaHursha.  Spending today, such a beautiful day, with my fingers in the dirt and my lungs full of fresh air, was incredibly refreshing.  We moved mulch and compost, helped fix stone borders, and pulled weeds.  For me, this was familiar work – my family has had a vegetable garden for as long as I can remember, and I’ve been moving mulch since I was old enough to hold a big shovel.  The sites and sounds and the rhythm of the work all felt like home.

Seeing a community so engaged in social justice on behalf of the memory of two people that most of us never knew was very emotional to me.  It was obvious from the first time we heard about the Yom Iyun Shel Chesed that it was an important Pardes tradition, but it wasn’t until this morning, when I heard my fellow students speak about Ben and Marla, and this afternoon, when I saw my friends swabbing their cheeks in order to register as bone marrow donors, and moving mulch to beautify a garden that will only be our community garden for another few months, that I was able to see how fully the community embraced the idea of chesed, and giving back.  It was a very moving thing to see, and left me feeling full of pride towards the Pardes community.

Today was a good day.

Tags: feminism, life in Israel, Naomi, Pardes, social justice

Auschwitz I (the main Auschwitz camp) has been turned into a museum.

I have photographs of the museum displays at Auschwitz I… photographs of human hair and human hair woven into cloth, of spectacles, frames, and lenses, of tallitot (plural form of tallit), of bowls, plates, and cups, of prosthetic limbs and canes, of suitcases with names written on them, of shoes and children’s shoes, of broken children’s toys, of shoe polish and brushes…

The remains of Auschwitz II-Birkenau (the extermination camp) have been preserved, but not restored.

I have photographs of a cattle car sitting outside of Birkenau, of our group’s march from the railroad to the camp’s front gate (the path the prisoners were forced to march), of a guard tower and views of the camp from its windows, of the prisoners’ quarters, of barbed wire fences, of crematorium remains, of the building where those prisoners marked for work were sheared, showered and tattooed, of crowded holes in long cement blocks that served as latrines for the prisoners…

—–

I’m not yet sure how to emotionally process a single murder, let alone the systematic murder of millions. Beyond this, I also have difficulty thinking of any human beings as… a separate race; as… non-humans; as… vermin; as… a plague. I have difficulty relating to the idea that a person could convince hirself that a fellow human isn’t… human.

The “Jewish Question” was a point of major discussion among the Nazis, which ultimately led them to decide upon the “Final Solution”.

I recall speaking with one of my friends during our trip about the difficulty that we shared with processing the Nazis’ evil. We discussed “racial anti-Semitism”, relative to religious anti-Semitism. Racial anti-Semitism predates the Shoah, but the Nazi manifestation of this bigotry was unlike any other. The Nazis claimed that one couldn’t leave behind Judaism because being Jewish was woven into one’s DNA.

“Imagine,” said my friend, “that somebody today were to begin a discussion on the subject of the ‘Hindu question’… it’s utterly absurd… so how then did the ‘Jewish question’ come to be taken seriously? How did it come to be… so popular? How did it come to be… so accepted? How did people convince themselves that Jewish human beings were not human beings?”

—–

It’s important to understand that the Nazis de-humanized the Jews gradually. First came the Nuremberg Laws, stripping the Jews of their citizenship rights. Then the Jews were herded into overcrowded ghettos, away from the non-Jews of Europe: out of sight… out of mind. The Nazis then implemented Operation Reinhard, systematically exporting Jews from the ghettoes to their deaths at extermination camps via cattle car.

I encourage you to click on that link about the cattle cars; it illustrates the ikar (core) of the Nazis’ strategy of de-humanization:

“There was no water. There was no food. There was no toilet, no ventilation. Some boxcars had up to 150 people stuffed into them. It did not matter if it was summer, winter, boiling hot or freezing cold. And an average transport took about four and a half days… The longest transport of the war, from Corfu, took 18 days. When the train got to the camps and the doors were opened, everyone was already dead.”

Imagine having no room to move for days on end, stuffed into a cattle car. People would defecate, and women would menstruate where they stood. People died in these cattle cars, freezing to death, starving to death… those who remained alive in the cattle cars had to stand among the corpses. When they arrived to their slaughters at the Nazi extermination camps, they were weak and ill; they were dirty and smelly… their dignities had been stripped from them; all part of the Nazis’ strategy of de-humanization.

The Nazis’ process of de-humanizing the Jews was insidiously gradual, taking place over a period of ~10 years. They consciously stripped the Jews of their humanities, step by calculated step.

—–

We value our privacy today; and where more so than in the restroom? The prisoners at the Nazi camps were granted no such privacy.

At Auschwitz II-Birkenau, shivering in the frigid night cold, looking down upon the crowded cement holes that served as latrines for the Nazis’ prisoners, I had difficulty imagining what it would have been like to have been stripped of the most basic of human dignities.

Standing there, overwhelmed by four incredibly time-intensive days of cold, snow, wind, walking, busing, learning, seeing, praying, talking, thinking… I began to better appreciate what Rabbi Levi Cooper meant by ‘de-humanization’.

And I couldn’t stop shivering.

Tags: anti-Semitism, Daniel Brill, Death Camp, dignity, Emotions, humanity, Poland, Rabbi Levi Cooper, Shoah, Tiyulim

A poem inspired by the 2010 Pardes Poland trip by Cheryl Stone:

MAJDANEK

Breathe deeply my dear

  Breathe

We have long since been forgotten

  Breathe

They will not remember

The guard tower watches over us

  Protecting

The city pulses nearby

But we are already dead

  Breathe

The light brushing of blue

  on the walls

  on the ceiling

small, crisp, cool sky

Visions of poppies, peonies, lilies

  springs first blooms

The chimney looms over our last home

Ashes burn the sky

Why the charade? 

Why the antechamber to hell?

Are their hearts too soft?

Can they not just throw us into the pits?

Yes, their hearts are the Devil.

They do not do the work themselves

Our fathers, our brothers do the work for them

Breathe deeply my dear

  Breathe

One last breath

So glorious it was to live

Why did they not tell us?

Why did we not know

  that every moment

    could be

       would be

          the last

Were the words buried in those ancient texts

  that only only old men understand?

And here we stand

naked

before our sisters

before evil

before God

Breathe

  It was a miracle

Tags: Cheryl, Death Camp, poem, Poland, Shoah, Tiyulim

I’ve been busy recently, but that’s not the only reason it’s been taking me so long to write this post.

Last week I had a conversation with a chevruta (study partner) on the subject of how we perceive & relate to the presence of G-d (it was a class assignment). We discussed a difficulty that we share in expressing our thoughts on G-d — the inherent limitations of language. The two of us feel that words somehow trivialize our experiences of the Divine — that we can’t translate something so complicated & nuanced into language, which comes filtered through the human mind.

I’m finding that writing about some of my trip to Poland is like this. I’m having difficulty describing some of my experiences in words.

My father asked me how visiting Shoah sites in Poland was different for me than visiting a Shoah museum in the USA or in Israel. It was a question that I’d already asked myself, and it is a question that I have difficulty answering — in words. On one (superficial) level, it was no different than visiting a Shoah memorial; on another level, it was… something I can’t seem to find the language for.

—–

The memorial at the Belzec Death Camp serves an important function, preserving the memories of those who perished there at the hands of the Nazis… The camp isn’t large because it was never intended for anything other than murder (it was 1 of only 6 Nazi extermination camps); it was a machine designed for death, and it successfully served its function and was dismantled. We have only one survivor’s testimony of the horrors at Belzec; that’s why we so rarely hear of it (unlike Auschwitz, for example).

[Ground Zero is now a memorial of a terrible event that took place at its site. People from around the world come to see it... and New Yorkers can visit it whenever they like -- some pass it regularly on their ways home and to work.]

Before WWII, there were more than 3.5 million Jews in Poland; today the Polish Jewish community is comprised of ~4,000 who are aware of their Jewish identities. No Jews pass Belzec on their ways home and to work. I feel… Jews need to visit. I feel… Jews should honor their own. I feel… this matters.

—–

Belzec is not a museum (Auschwitz is a museum); it is a memorial (with a small museum attached to it).

Mass graves lie throughout Belzec, but nobody is quite sure where their boundaries are. The Poles drew a grid over the camp and drilled at the corner of every square to determine where the mass graves might be. If their drills hit human remains at any point, they would mark the surrounding four squares as part of a mass grave. One can well imagine that some human remains were missed with this method, and one may well be bothered by the defilement of a drill striking human (JEWISH) bones lying below the surface of the earth. Rabbi Avi Weiss saw the memorial being developed at this site, and he saw bones poking through earth, revealed by the digging and construction. Rabbi Levi Cooper refuses to enter into the memorial (which I describe below). Some experiences, he says, are not worth the cost.

I chose to enter the memorial. There was only the slightest moment of doubt in my mind at this choice. I wanted to see the memorial that stands at Belzec today.

—–

Belzec is sloped, and the center of the memorial has been dug into the hill — a horizontal path through the earth, lined by uneven concrete walls topped with twisted iron bars that rise above the visitor as xe walks between them towards two opposite marble walls; one of which lists the first names of Jews who died at Belzec (I found the name ‘Dawid’), the other of which bears a quote: “EARTH, DO NOT COVER MY BLOOD; LET THERE BE NO RESTING PLACE FOR MY OUTCRY!” (Job 16:18).

The site of Belzec around this path and central memorial has been entirely covered with large artificial rocks resembling ash, preventing new plant growth.

There are other aspects to the memorial, but these are the ones I remember most clearly.

—–

How did I feel at the Belzec memorial, knowing what it was? How might I have felt at an identical memorial constructed elsewhere… in NYC perhaps… or Jerusalem? How did I feel knowing that I walked along a path dug through the remains of Jews who had been exterminated by the Nazis as soon as they entered Belzec? How did I feel about not seeing any physical evidence of their bodies? How did I feel about seeing a beautifully constructed Shoah memorial in Southern Poland that serves to educate mankind of the Nazi horrors? How did I feel? How do I feel?

I feel… it matters.

Tags: Death Camp, Emotions, Memorial, Poland, Rabbi Avi Weiss, Rabbi Levi Cooper, Shoah, Tiyulim

Celebration #1:  Tu B’shvat

For me, it feels like Tu B’shvat in Israel all year round because of the multitude of dried fruits all over the place, but during January, they really hit their peak.  It’s time to go back to the fresh fruits, in my opinion… I’m ready for springtime.  Nonetheless, I attended two different Tu B’shvat seders and had a chance to reflect on my community, what it means to live in the Israeli environmental fabric, and what our connection is to the larger world.

Does Tu b’Shvat have the same place in the Israeli psyche as Groundhog Day?  As in… can the weather now tell us how soon spring is going to arrive?  This past Shabbat was dreadfully cold and rainy – probably the coldest it’s been since I’ve been here – and I’ve been piling blankets upon blankets on top of my bed in an effort to stay warm.  I refuse to cave in and buy a space heather, because by golly, spring is just around the corner!  Maybe by Purim…

Celebration #2:  Mea Shearim Wedding

I’m now volunteering in Mea Shearim on Tuesday afternoons at a place called Ezrat Avot that offers different kind of programming and services for senior citizens, and I’m involved in chopping vegetables for their healthy meals on wheels program.  It’s the kind of work that is really satisfying after a long day of sitting in class – you chop for two hours, and you can see the concrete effects of your labor.  That usually doesn’t happen in Gemara class…

Anyway, as I was leaving Ezrat Avot last week and walking toward the center of town with friends, we heard loud music just up the street.  It sounded like a recording – we joked that in Mea Shearim, they do their Shabbat cleaning on Tuesdays – and as we walked up the hill, the music got louder and louder.  We could tell that it was drifting to our ears from over a high wall, and we saw some kids looking down onto whatever was behind the wall from their balconies.

Suddenly, a random woman approached us and said to us in Hebrew, ” The chuppah’s that way – it’s very beautiful if you want to see!”  We had nowhere to be, so it was time for an adventure.  We found a small archway where Hasidic kids and teens were crowded, watching the wedding below, and we stood as close as we could to peer down into what looked like a parking lot.  The chuppah was the only symbol that I noticed that marked the day as different from any other day, although the 15 or so young girls in attendance were all wearing the same matching gold dress with colored polka dots.

The entire ceremony was in Yiddish, of course, so we couldn’t really follow exactly what was going on, but we knew the anticipation was building before the kallah (bride) arrived, and she sparkled in the crowd in her bright white dress, in contrast with the dark tones of the rest of the men and women.  The kallah was covered from head to toe – her veil probably reached down to her stomach and was entirely opaque – so two women, presumably her mother and mother-in-law to be, led her in her seven circuits around the hatan (groom).  We remarked at how scared she must have been – an entire ceremony focusing on her, and she can’t even see what’s happening around her!  In a few short minutes they were wed, and the hatan led the kallah out from under the chuppah as we remarked how that was the first time either of them was touching a member of the opposite sex outside of their immediate families.

Now I’m preparing for the next celebration – Purim! – by learning Megillat Esther trope from a very Ashkenazi-sounding recording.  I DESPERATELY need costume suggestions – got any?