Temple Emanu-El

Upon Coming Home
Rabbi Jonathan Miller
Temple Emanu-El
Birmingham, AL 35223

I have just returned back from Prague, in the Czech Republic with 21 of our Temple teenagers and 9 adults who went to tend to them. To say that we had a wonderful experience is an understatement. Everyone had a superlative time. And for some of the young people, it was transformational. You can see it in their eyes. They experienced Jewish life in ways that are different from what they know here in Birmingham, at Temple Emanu-El, in our religious school, at the Levite Jewish Community Center, in the Day School, or at summer camp. For the first time in many of the young people’s lives, they got it--they better understand the vast sweep of Jewish history, the degradations and the glories of Jewish life, the tenuousness that each generation has had to endure to link itself to the past and to the future, and their place in this divine drama between God and human history. That is a lot in a five day trip. So tonight I will share with you my thoughts and reflections and our experiences. After all, these are our congregation’s children, and this was our congregation’s trip.

I am grateful to the Rabbi Grafman Endowment Fund for Temple Emanu-El Figtree Fund for making this trip possible. This fund was set up by JoAnn Hess Morrison a generation ago to encourage young people to experience Judaism most fully. She loved Judaism and children, and her legacy will remain with the children for generations through the Endowment Fund. And future years’ trips will be named in memory of Leah Marks, whose sister Lauren joined us this year. Leah died tragically last December in an automobile accident. Her father, Barry, lovingly has set up a fund to enrich Leah’s peers and to honor her memory. What wonderful things we can do as a Temple when we combine our passions and our resources and our hearts! I felt that Leah was with us every step we took along the way, and her shortened life will be a blessing to children for many generations to come. I am also grateful to our chaperones, who traveled at their own expense; my wife Judi, Dr. Debbie Wiatrak, Jerry Glandon and Roberta Shapiro, Brad Siegal, Diane Wiener, Irene Ekstra, and of course, Judy Borisky, our travel agent who made sure that everything would be just right. And the kids were great.

As you know, I love to travel. I learn new things and observe the world with a keen eye. This is the first time I have taken children, not my own, oversees. And I had the pleasure of observing the world through their eyes. What a terrific time and experience it was for me to see the world open up to them. Most had not been across the ocean, and Prague was their first experience with castles and cathedrals and spires and medieval cobblestoned streets. It was also their first experience with yellow stars, Jewish ghettos, anti-Jewish hatred and concentration camps. So it was a thrill, and a sobering wake up call to the agonies of the Jewish experience in Europe under Christian anti-Semitism, Nazism, and Communism. I imagine that the kids are still sorting it all out in their heads. That is the nature of a good trip. It is not to get a suntan or to have the thrill of bungee jumping. A good trip is meant to bring us back enriched with the ability to see the world differently—to understand things better—to get to know ourselves on a different level. And this trip, for our children, was all that packed into five days.

When we got on the bus to Atlanta, I had an “oh-oh” moment. It is daunting to be responsible for 21 kids, but they rose to the occasion. I was afraid that I would feel like Moses with the children of Israel in the desert. He cried out to God, “Why have you dealt ill with Your servant, and why have I not enjoyed Your favor, that You have laid the burden of all this people upon me? . . . I cannot carry all this people by myself, for it is too much for me. If your would deal thus with me, kill me rather, I beg You, and let me see no more of my wretchedness!” (Numbers 11:11-15) But I never felt that. I enjoyed being with the kids. It was an opportunity to be their rabbi and their companion. We joked and teased and learned to appreciate each other in new ways. That for me was the best experience.

We divided our trip into fourths. Two of the days were general Prague days. We visited Old Town, the Castle, the Charles Bridge, Wenceslaus Square and a bunch of churches and beautiful sites. Prague is enchanting. We heard a lecture delivered by Jire Pehe, a political scientist who escaped the Iron Curtain and came back to be Vaclev Havel’s chief political advisor. His mother was Jewish. He learned about his Jewish roots when he was fifteen. He has a Jewish mind and a Jewish heart, but no Jewish identity, which is something the kids had an opportunity to think about. He was a present day loss to the great gifts that Judaism offers the world.

Two of the days were Jewish days. We toured the Jewish ghetto area of Prague, visited ancient synagogues and the cemetery and learned about Jewish life in the medieval world. We saw the overwhelming and powerful memorial to the Jewish community of Czechoslovakia, the names of every Jew who perished during the Holocaust is written on the walls of the Pincus Synagogue. All the kids went looking for family names, the Weiners and the Weils and the Shapiros and the Mullers—every child found a connection to someone who perished. And we went to Terezin (the Thereisenstadt Concentration Camp).

Terezin is not Auschwitz. Terezin is not a gruesome place. Today people live there. It was a fortified town constructed at the northwestern boundary of the Austrian Hungarian Empire to be a barracks for the infantry. In 1942, all 4,000 of its residents were moved out, and 50,000 Jews were placed in their stead. The living conditions were horrible. There was little sanitation and lots of disease, inadequate food, and menial labor. Families were separated. And when the camp got too crowded, people were shoved into boxcars and sent to the east. Of the 15,000 children who were interned in Terezin, only 200 survived the war. One of them, Elishka, was our guide. She lived in Terezin for two years, was then sent to Auschwitz and then Bergen Belsen, where she was liberated. We were all saddened by the cruelties these human beings suffered. It is astounding to try to imagine not just the number of people killed at Terezin or in the transports. But if you try to add up all the scientists and musicians and playwrights and doctors and philosophers and entrepreneurs, the story of Terezin is the story of the squandering of human life and human potential.
Our kids were moved by the two worship experiences we had. We prayed in the makeshift, underground (not beneath the surface, but beneath the Nazi radar screen) synagogue in Terezin. A German rabbi created a synagogue in what appears to be an outside, single car garage. On the walls were three quotes from Jewish tradition that I remember: “Know before whom you stand” (you stand before God and not the SS); “Cause us, in Your mercy to gaze again upon Zion” (a touching response to being able to only gaze upon the fortifications of Terezin); and “Pour out your wrath upon the nations who do not know You” (I suppose the only form of revenge the Jews could muster in Terezin was the desire for God’s vengeance upon the wicked.) We read some readings and recited some prayers and ended by singing HaTikvah.

On Shabbat, we walked, in a roundabout way to Beit Simcha, the Reform Synagogue. It is in a basement below an apartment building in a residential area of Prague. The 30 of us overwhelmed the small quarters, and we were at least two thirds of the assembled congregation. A young 23 year old Czech Jew chanted the service in Hebrew and Czech, and our kids were enraptured by the intimacy of the service. After Nazism and Communism, Judaism was still alive in that basement setting.

I was honored to deliver the sermon. The parsha was Tetsaveh. The beginning of Tetsaveh was the instruction to bring pure oil from crushed olives to keep the Ner Tamid, the eternal light burning. I spoke to the Czech congregation, and to our kids, about the commandment of keeping the light burning. The light doesn’t burn by itself. It is not Tamid, eternal, unless we bring ourselves to its service. And what is required? Sometimes, crushed olives, olives that have been broken burn the most brightly. We as a people have been crushed at times, but that makes our light shine ever more brightly. And the continuation of the flame depends upon the Jews here in this little synagogue, among the Prague Jews and among the Birmingham Jews. I know that this trip helped to keep the light burning.

I want to close tonight with words and sentiments from the kids themselves. I asked each of the kids to write a thank you note to the Temple that we will keep in our Temple’s archives. I will read from three that I received. Nothing could be more uplifting for me, or for you.

Between the opera and the endless cups of coffee at the cafes I was completely immersed. This trip also further introduced me to my Jewish roots. I was face to face with the graves of medieval Jews learning of their legacy and past. My time at the concentration camp was somber yet sweet. It hurt to further know the horrors of the holocaust yet I felt some sense of relief finally seeing a concentration camp and not just blindly guessing what one was like.

I cannot explain to you how much this trip impacted my life. Before this trip, I was not necessarily “proud” to be Jewish. I was at a point in my life, where all of my friends have there “awesome” church groups, go on a new retreat every weekend, etc. and then there was me, who when my friends would ask me about convention they wouldn’t understand, and it frustrated me that they didn’t see how cool it was to be Jewish. I felt like no one would understand. The majority of my friends are Christian, so this too took away from being completely proud of being Jewish, when you’re constantly surrounded by Christians.
This trip turned my life around. I saw how lucky I was because I Jewish. How much my ancestors and my heritage have been through, and how far we’ve come, as a whole. I walked through Terezin with a peer of mine, who also comes from Christian background, and we both kind of woke up together. Realized how cool it was to be Jewish and how “PROUD” we both were to be JEWISH!! I walked out of that concentration camp with so much excitement of being Jewish.

That night I wanted nothing more than to find a Star of David necklace so I could wear it around my neck all the time. I’m wearing it right now actually. And it feels weird when I have to take it off to go to bed or shower. This is such an incredible opportunity for all of us teenagers. This trip has locked inside me the desire and the want to raise my children Jewish. And I will. This is a promise to myself I’m not sure I would have said sincerely before this trip.

The thing that affected most me the most on the trip was going to Terezin. I feel, that after witnessing firsthand what happened to our people and seeing how we came back from a horrible time to being even stronger then we where has made my faith even stronger and run deeper. Going to services on Friday night was also amazing for me. To sit and pray with fellow Jews, that even though did not speak our language, I think we understood ourselves perfectly. We all have the passion to, as the Rabbi said "To keep the flame burning". After this trip, I know I will do everything I can to keep that flame burning and never let it go out.

Congratulations to all of us on a job well done!

Shabbat Shalom

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