The Real Answer to The Question

Take a look at how we are answering to the Nazis’ Jewish Question, eighty-five years later.

Photo Credit: Este Abramowitz, “Tehillim on Tisha B’av.”

Shlomo Bochner, a chassid and founder of the fertility organization Bonei Olam (Builders of the World), sent out a video last week of his trip to Auschwitz. Going with fellow Hasidim to the site of the the most systemized barbaric murder of the Jewish people, he spoke of his need to help rebuild the next generations, being the son of a Holocaust survivor himself and not having any children of his own to carry on the legacy of his parents and their faith. His ability, to take the message of the Germans in wanting to wipe us out and giving it a slap in the face with a solid 13,000 babies to date, is outstanding.

This amazing project evokes the contrast of going from Tisha B’Av right to Tu B’Av, from the ashes of our Mikdash and our sanctity as a people and our home and immediately running out of this destruction to dance in the orchards, as single women don white gowns and present themselves among the apples to be picked.

Chazal speak of this image, concretizing hope for a Jewish future and more generations. How we rebuild after tragedy and loss is an amazing thing but a necessity nonetheless. It’s an act of מדה כנגד מדה, where we take the very thing our enemies take from us—our families—and throw it back in their faces exponentially.

Once the tragedy is over, more than the tragic occurrence itself, the memories of the past embedded in our present life hold us back. Edith Eger, a renowned psychologist and 96-year old Holocaust survivor (כן ירבו), writes—at the time she was ninety-two years old—of her experiences and what they taught her in her own life and in her practice with hundreds of patients over the years, compiling her thoughts into an almost split biography-self help book entitled The Gift: 14 Lessons to Save Your Life.

In her stories of the Holocaust and those anonymous ones of her patients—a work of art which Oprah commends as changing her life “forever”—Dr. Eger prefaces how freedom is a choice. Even years after the Holocaust, she was still bound by fear and inhibitions besides for her obvious traumas and PTSD. Only decades after WWII broke out, did she learn what freedom means and how “the most damaging prison is in our mind.” Only then did she choose freedom and work on letting go of all her pain and suffering and butterfly into a new existence, as “hope allows us to live in the present instead of the past, and to unlock the doors of our mental prisons.” (Eger 6, 8)

Relevant to this idea of freedom and rebuilding: The Maharal of Prag discussed the value of math and numbers, saying that the number six symbolizes teva, the number seven symbolizes למעלה מן הטבע (going above or out of teva), and eight as neis or miracles, which is the highest level of Divine intervention. Under this numeric theme, we have six days to get from the physical state of Tisha Bav, along with its searing mental aftermath, to have a day as beautiful as Tu B’Av, when HaShem is מזווג כל הזיווגים in one afternoon, or evening, whichever sounds more historically accurate (and romantic!).

We have the six days of pure natural forces—of therapies, of human connection and companionship, of PTSD treatments, and more Mitzvah observance and loving kindness—a very mundane, unfireworks-like movement—to get us from a time of destruction to reconstruction, of crying alone to rejoicing together. We can do this together and only together—with the help of all kinds of individuals and expertises and passions.

My personal teva movement last week, in waking up to more depressing news of the morning, involved driving to the Sefardic community in Deal, NJ and picking up my own set of hostage Tehillim packets, designed by the beautiful artist who makes beautiful art, Margalit Romano. She dedicates everyday to professionally printing booklets, while covering much of their cost, from her very own home. (This is the link to ordering beautiful Tehillim from her! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1LoNI7F3PWEShAmQkkfRaJMQpGogcTGQ2h_pX0U6DXOk/viewform?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaZKBAEMm9poCLCpqZR9Exy-bIfb7HJAOkoOJlJTY9PGOisAqTxkY6OfncM_aem_01S1PRdj9SI8mXHGcfRAqg&edit_requested=true .) On my way back, I dropped them off at one of the local Jewish grocery stores here in Lakewood, asking the manager to please put them on display—pronto—and headed back to my neighborhood.

I wasn’t done yet with my journey. It was actually just the beginning, because I was really bringing all these faces and names and personalized bios and prayers to all the kids here who dedicate time each week, as they stop their bike riding and roller skating and all their childish giggles, to pray for one person. Every week, these amazing, unbelievable kids huddle on the sidewalk of my home, by the blue ice chest full of sodas and the white chair holding the Tehillim, which they swarm towards as soon as they’re out, like a group of sweet bees to a pot of honey. And they take a moment to read about another Yid—with a kippah, without a kippah—and daven to help ease their suffering.

One can say they’re only doing this for the ice cold soda I put out, along with my son who’s too small to read but big enough to carry a bunch of mini Sprites and Pepsi-Colas outside. However, the children’s questions really show how much they care. Throughout the summer, boys and girls came over to me or knocked on my door, kids ranging from age four to thirteen, asking me if they can take the soda home first and then say the Tehillim at home or  should they say it first? I also got this question a lot from a handful of kids under six or seven: “Can I say a few perakim in the booklet I took, not the whole thing because it’s hard for me?” And a few of this one: “My brother/sister wants a prize too, can I say extra Tehillim for them so they can earn something?”

Their dedication is beyond anything I’ve experienced, even as a long-time teacher, and even more so, I’m impressed by their innocence. We take the innocence of our children and their beautiful honesty and devoted praying and smack the terror back, for destroying the innocent babies and children and men and women. This is the biggest middah knegged middah that I can think of right now.

As Chazal illustrate in several sources, HaShem values the prayers of kids like no other demographic or echelon of Jewish society, and this neighborhood gang really made a major impact this summer—in their hearts, in the Heavens, and hopefully somewhere far across the ocean.

As we said last night over the one radiant flame in our pitch black room —in our crowded miklats, with the Almogs and the Andres thrown under thick, heavy blankets, under the continuously blocked sun from missiles, drones and so much smoke—ליהודים היתה אורה ושמחה וששון ויקר כן תהיה לנו!

In the times of Esther when the whole world was upon us, daggers in hand, ready to kill us on 13 Adar, ונהפוך הוא. The reality changed overnight and so did the decree above and down below. Our prayers together as Yidden—as identifying Jews of all mixes and walks of life coming together in prayer under Mordechai’s loud !לך כנוס את כל היהודים—transformed our lives of fear and trepidation into jubilation. So too for us! כן תהיה לנו.

The amount, of asifahs (spiritual gatherings) and special acts of chessed and weekly prayer groups for Israel right here in Lakewood, is astounding. We’re bonded to each other no matter whether you’re at the “middle of the road” or far off on the shoulder on your shidduch resume. We love each other and pray everyday for your return. שבויים, you are always on our minds…

As I drove back from Deal with my baby, all the gorgeous individuals and their stories loaded in my car, I felt a mix of happy and sad—sad for obvious reasons but happy how much everyone is trying to make a difference for our brothers and sisters abroad. As I was traveling on the road, I noticed a motorcycle pulling along beside me and noted how fiercely the woman held onto her friend in front of her who was zipping down way ahead of me on the highway.

As I stared at these two bodies defying gravity, or whatever force they were trying to beat at 100 mph, I thought this was a great metaphor for how we have to hang onto our prayer and hang onto HaShem so tightly to pull us out of this mess. We see no one is helping around us, a reality which should make us turn inward and upward. HaShem is All-Able—הכל יכול.

In His great and endless Ability, may HaKadosh Baruch Hu quickly drive us out of all the terrifying and inhumane killings on the road behind us, out of the horrors of this past year, and bring us into the fresh meadows and parks, where we can dance and sing and walk through the orchards, hand in hand. Speedily in our days! Amen.