From camps of Poland to holiness of Israel

The author, a Woodmere native who graduated from Shulamith Long Island and Manhattan HS for Girls, just returned to Israel from a pre-Pesach trip to Poland with her Jerusalem-based seminary class at Darchei Binah.

I wondered what the kidoshim (holy ones) were thinking from shamaim (heaven) as they saw all 100 of me and my classmates in Darchei Binah walk in and out of a gas chamber as frum Jews, completely unscathed.

My seminary took its entire school to Poland. We went to kivrei tzaddikim (graves of holy people) concentration camps, and old shuls. There were times we sang and danced, and times we cried so hard we could hardly catch our breath.

One of the more cheerful points of the trip was when we went to Rav Elimelech Mi’Lezhensk’s kever (grave) on his yartzeit (anniversary of his death). People had flown in from all over the world for the yartzeit and most people were probably exhausted; hundreds were dancing and davening and crying. There was a chassidic lady who had her own yeshua (salvation) at Rav Elimelech’s kever, and she wanted everyone else to be able to have that, too.

The rest was mostly sad — the kind of sad that pushes you forward.

As I stood in front of the ashes of tens of thousands of my brethren at Majdanek camp, I sobbed gut wrenching sobs that shook my body and my soul, considering the death of my people and the rebirth of my nation.

We heard about individuals who resisted. My principal, Rabbi Kurland, mentioned how we usually only associate the partisans as resistors, and think of everyone else as lambs to the slaughter. But, he pointed out, is it not resistance beyond imagination to die al kidush Hashem (sanctification of G-d) with “Shema Yisrael” on your lips? What shows more resistance than risking your life to bring a siddur (prayer book) into Auschwitz, so everyone can praise their creator? What is bigger resistance than being the Jew they were so trying to destroy?

Mi k’Amcha Yisrael (Who is like G-d’s people Israel)? This is the Jewish people I know: People who can cry over or give selflessly to people they’ve never met and will probably never meet. Who is so fortunate to be a part of a people that not only contains the truth, but contains such inherent kindness and strength? As I thought this, I realized that I was identifying with chessed, gvurah, and emet (kindness, strength and truth). I realized I had found our avot (forefathers) in myself. We are still the exact same Jewish people that Hashem did miracles for thousands of years ago. We still bear their traits, what they have embedded within our very DNA. I had literally uncovered my roots.

When I finally returned to Israel, I felt like kissing the ground. I couldn’t figure out if I was happier to be out of Poland, where anti-Semitism is still commonplace and rampant and you feel death in the air, or if I was happier to be in Israel where Judaism is celebrated and embraced and where everyone is striving for purity.

When I got back to my apartment, I washed negel vasser (hand washing ritual) the way you do when you leave a cemetery. Then I showered about four times. I felt dirtied. I needed to cleanse myself of Poland, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint what I was trying to remove from myself after such an inspirational trip.

I realized that I was cleaning myself of any impact that the Nazis and their thinking may have had on me in any way. I was ridding myself of any remnants of these homegrown heartless sociopaths. Only once I had removed any trace of their filth, was I able to reach out my hands and embrace the purity of the kidoshim.

They say that Jews can’t be cremated because ashes can’t mix with water the same way dust can to recreate the body by tichiyat hamaitim (resurrection of the dead). I have no source for this, but nobody has said anything about tears. Perhaps water won’t do the job, but maybe tears can help rebuild the desecrated body.

May we all be zoche (merit) to live through tichiyat hamaitim and witness the rekindling of the flame that never died of acheinu (our brothers) b’nei Yisrael.