It's the beginning of the Three Weeks, the period we mourn for the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and I'm thinking about what a friend recently said to me: "All the restrictions are so hard for me because I don't even know what I'm mourning for. We don't have the Beit Hamikdash -- so what? We have our shul. We have our community. I know I'm not supposed to feel this way, but I don't see any reason to be sad."
This is the deepest type of sadness; we don't even know that we are missing something.
A few years ago a young mother died, and for some reason I couldn't stop thinking about her two-year-old daughter. That daughter will not even remember her mother in a few years. She won't know that she is even missing her mother's love.
As Jews, we have lost the most essential connection in our lives, and we are like children who can't remember their Father's face. How can we yearn to return to a place that we don't remember?
When I first visited the new Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum, I walked through the maze of photographs and videos and felt the heaviness of families torn apart, of whole worlds disappearing without a whisper of protest. And then I saw it. It was a photograph of Jews moving into the Warsaw Ghetto. They were pulling wooden carts piled high with all of their furniture. There were chairs, tables, beds and suitcases. One teenage boy was facing the photographer, with a chair on his shoulders. His eyes bore into mine. He looked like so many people I knew. He could have been a brother or a cousin or a son.
No one understood that they'd be better off leaving their dining room chairs behind.
I couldn't stop staring at this photograph. I stood there, crying. Where did they think they were going? Why were they carrying so many heavy, useless pieces of furniture? Didn't they know they didn't need them anymore? No one understood that they'd be better off leaving their dining room chairs behind.
I felt like I was looking in a mirror. How much time do we spend buying and planning and carrying around all of our "furniture?" From the choice of a car to the decision of the material of our living room couches, we invest so much of our time making sure that we are as comfortable as possible. Comfort isn't necessarily bad; it becomes a problem when we make comfort the goal. Like the people in the photograph carrying their furniture to the ghetto, I don't realize that I'm not really going home, that I'm living in an illusion. And perhaps saddest of all, I don't see that as a nation we are cut off from the Source of life itself.
As I walked out of the museum into the glaring afternoon sun, I heard the voices of all the recordings echoing in my mind:
They took away my baby and killed him right in front of me….My own father fell during the march and I didn't stop to help him, I don't know why I didn't stop, I was so afraid….We were on the train without food, without water, without air, …..I have no one left now, no one… .I lay under mounds of dead bodies, I was only six-years-old and I climbed to the top and I saw the forest..
I drive home and try to forget the voices. Because I have to make dinner. And I have to feed the baby. And I have to finish my project. And pick up the clothes from the dry cleaner and make the dentist appointments. The voices begin to fade as my to-do list grows in my mind.
But that photograph won't go away. Those people are my family. Their losses are mine. I think of the recent terror attack in Jerusalem. What did I do after the first moment of horror upon hearing the news? I began to make phone calls. Where is my husband? Are my parents okay? Are my children safe? And when I ascertain that everyone is safe, I breathe a sigh of relief and continue the illusion that everything is okay. But it's not! People are hurt. Someone just lost a mother, a child, a spouse who was completely fine this morning. I cannot just go on with my routine. It cannot continue this way. I can't just say a prayer and go out to dinner.
But I do. And now my heart hurts as I allow myself to think about my fellow Jews. Because they are my family. And we are all lost together . During the Three Weeks and especially during the Nine Days, we decrease our physical enjoyment. We put down the furniture from our backs and stop trying to move towards the illusion of comfort. When we aren't distracted by material comforts, then maybe we can see that we are all in exile. We are disconnected from ourselves, from each other and from our Father.
And when we stop writing our ‘lists' we may begin to see that the Almighty is waiting for us to put down our suitcases and cry. He wants us to realize that even with our thriving shuls, wonderful schools and growing homes, we are only travelers. He wants us to want to come Home. And finally, He wants us to see that we are all holders of one, broken heart of our lost nation. Your loss hurts me. Your simchah brings me joy. And together, as a family, we will find our way home.
(16) Feigele, June 21, 2011 7:08 AM
Our Furnitures are our Shield!
Carrying your possession gives you a sense of protection, kind of a shield against evil. No one should be able to touch you while in your home!!! how right or false is that statement. Yes, when at Yad Vashem or at any other Jewish Museums, looking at those photos with people starring at you, you can feel their pains and hear their cries and you cant help thinking that some of them were your family and your heart breaks into pieces, and at that time you are asking G..d, why? why? why? what was the purpose for it? if there is good in any bad situation, what was the good there? I'm still asking. Getting back to Beit Hamikdash, if not for stories and photos, how could we remember our past that should never be forgotten in order to prevent such future atrocities! We have to stop our routine once in a while and think about it.
(15) Pam, June 21, 2011 7:08 AM
The deepest type of sadness
Thank you for this eloquent explanation and reminder. Though I don't live in Israel, my daughter is there for the summer, after visiting Poland (where people were still, and incredibly, hostile to the Jewish children on the trip). It hadn't initially occurred to me that she'd be there for this time of mourning, and I know it's more meaningful to her there than to those of us here where it's somewhat easier than in the rest of the world to be Jewish (thank you, Hashem, that we are Jews AND Americans). My daughter said, before she left for the summer, "I thought about how I know that while I won't die this summer, that if I did, it would be okay because I would be in Israel." Not as eloquent as a non-17-year-old might be, but her point was heartfelt, especially in light of the terrorist events that later took place while she was in Jerusalem. Well, I don't need to explain my feelings on hearing that news -- twice. Thanks again for the honesty and insight in this article.
(14) martin d., July 30, 2008 9:36 PM
This inspires anger as well as well as empathy
Woeful empathy because others perceive
the pain of the doomed and survivors,
anger at those who remain inert in the
face of such ultimate agonies,both
academics and lay people who do not and will not listen to the messages of history.
Tracey Anderson, August 13, 2018 6:26 PM
We As Individuals Make The Change!
In youth we're taught people are good, to give the benefit of the doubt Instead I ask parents to teach keen discernment, that You don't need other's approval, that your value to protect is your most sacred gift! All the Innocents will never be forgotten nor will the hienous perpetrators! With eyes wide open Fight lifelong! It's our only worth in being.
(13) barry rappaport, July 29, 2008 12:41 PM
an inspiring article
i dont usually comment but this was an article of sadness, i have visited Yad Vashem and feel that g-d watches over all his people regardless of their affiliation, jews are not judges but will be judged favorably in gad eden, love to all my fellow jews and mankind whereever you are
(12) Anonymous, July 29, 2008 2:17 AM
Yasher koach. Thank you
All of the comments are on target- especially yours, Sonia. I often think, too that one of the most difficult parts of the golus(exile) is not even missing the Beit Hamikdash or even understanding that we don't know what it is that we are missing. It is pathetic really.
It is a common thought amongst the rabbeim that moshiach is on his way imminently. Although it is awesome to even think of this it is also exciting for me because I think of the Jewish people coming together- connecting for the first time in many millenia and coming together to finally see " what it is that we have been missing."
(11) Mariana, July 28, 2008 9:34 AM
Thank you for your sensitive thoughts
I value your views and regard it as something that speaks about you as a person. You experienced the terrible heartache and tragedy of the Holocaust with such sensitivity and emotion that I want to applaud you. I recently visited Yad Vashem also, I am from South Africa and not a Jew, but read a lot of books on the subject. I just wished I could spent some more time in listening to the recordings in the museum. By hearing the names of all the children being read out, I could only cry for all the precious lives that were lost, lives of people that I did not know, but by reading about their terrible sufferings, their lives still touched me, even after their deaths.
Yad Vashem is to me, a foreigner, something special and I think your letter speaks to us in a very unique and personal way.
(10) shira, July 28, 2008 9:29 AM
wake up to the illusion
I know the tremendous danger lurking, but thank you for the reality check that it is here and I need to get out of my own illusion. In addition I'd like to respectfully add that a child always feels the loss of a parent no matter how young they are.
(9) Marc Milton-Talbot, July 28, 2008 5:16 AM
A borrowed book
A friend lent me a book about the Holocaust containing a lot of photos.What made the greatest impression on me wasn't the usual horrendous photos that we've all probably seen before,but pre war Germany etc family photos.One that struck me most wasn't the usual one of an Orthodox Jewish family,but a scene of young Jewish couples enjoying themselves on a north German beach in their swimming costumes.They looked just like everybody else on that beach,not some alien subculture.Ordinary people doing ordinary things.Looking at their happy faces,what chilled me was the thought they could have no conception on that happy day at the beach in the 30s what would be in store for them later.
(8) Sonia, July 28, 2008 1:05 AM
In an Ecclesiastics poem and my apologies I can't name the verse
We have a right to experience joy and connect to ourselves and that includes paying attention to our comforts. It was this exactly that the Nazis and their collaborations sought to control, and remove in denying our right to comfort to the point of food, water and our very existence.
Those chairs, tables, and furniture represented the normalcy of life, of family and the Shabbos and the love and connections that had meaning in life.
I would have preferred everyone man, women and child fight the Nazis all the way in every way. But how confronted by men in steel helmets, uniforms, guns, weapons, horses, dogs, and fight against whom when country after country the Germans invaded succumbed within days and enjoined in the war against the Jews?
As a sole survivor, a baby survivor, maybe my response to the article is different than it might otherwise have been.
But sadness is not the way for the Jews.
While remembering is essential - so is recovering from sadness in order to live.
I still struggle to understand my God given right to be happy even though buying myself furniture somehow represents a challenge to be overcome.
That is the challenge.
(7) Rivky, July 27, 2008 2:51 PM
wow!
That was a veery inspiring article! It is so true that the saddest part of this exile is that we dont fully recognize that it is one!
(6) Joey, July 27, 2008 2:14 PM
Fascinating take
This gave me a new perspective on the whole idea of fasting or material deprivation---the need to not just give up the material for the spiritual, but to realize first how much the material blocks the spiritual and see how much you need to grow. Thank you for this article and your insights, and God bless!
(5) Dorrin Rosenfeld, July 27, 2008 1:44 PM
WOW!!!
That story is so inspirational. Thank you! It's so easy to get carried away with daily responsibilities, we often ignore the WHY - why are we here, why us, why now? A little perspective can make a huge difference.
(4) Andrea, July 27, 2008 12:37 PM
i will never forget....shoes and rings
my own family was safe and sound in canada and the us during the second world war. our only casualty was my great uncle albert, who was shot down in the Dambusters raid and is buried with his colleagues in the german town where the plane went down.
when I went to yad vashem, i had no personal stories to recollect, but what did it for me was the pile of wedding rings and the shoes. wedding rings are not big, but the pile was so big....to get a pile that big was a lot of fingers not any longer in the rings, and the shoes came alive in my head because i imagined the feet that belonged in them.
i always understood on an intellectual level, but the gut wrenching that began when I watched 'night and fog' in a university film class was ultimately completed in yad vashem. who can say why night and fog in particular made me want to puke all over the york u theatre (although i contend that while i had seen stills of bodies, i had not seen footage of lifeless bodies and watching an arm flop out of the bulldozer before it's body fell into the grave it was being shovelled into was seriously shocking to me.
it was those shoes and those rings that made me think of the whole horrific war on a very personal level. i dont know why...but it did. all these years later, with a greater understanding of how important klad yisrael is to me and to all of us as jews, i think of those who perished as family and not strangers.
(3) Robert Stewart, July 27, 2008 9:40 AM
What do we see?
Do we see the people or do we see where they are going? Do we see what they lost? Are we learning anything from them?
(2) Anonymous, July 27, 2008 9:40 AM
THE PAIN OF LOSS
Thank you for your timely article. When I went to shul this past Shabbos, all I heard (from both men & women) was how difficult they find adhering to the laws of the 3 weeks (& especially the 9 days). How can''t they miss having the Beit HaMikdash to daven in- being so much closer to Hashem bringing the karbanot? Why aren''t the yeshivot reminding our children what they''re missing? For weeks, we''ve been reading how Hashem was ever present at the Mishkan and the joy Bnei Yisrael had "serving" Hashem & how "we" were one. Instead of furnishing a showplace home (that we really furnished for others to be impressed-not our joy), perhaps we could give the money to tzadaka so that people could have the necessities.
(1) Kelly Woo, July 27, 2008 1:58 AM
I don't know why......
but this article struck a chord with me and brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for helping me to understand.