As the horrific plan to exterminate the Jews began to unfold, Hitler’s troops entered a Polish town charged with rounding up the Jews and sending them to a ghetto. As the Nazi soldiers began forcing the residents of this town out of their homes, two very brave and wise sisters, ordered their daughters, Rose and Gusta, to run away. Rose and Gusta did as they were told. While their mothers would perish in the Holocaust, Rose and Gusta survived. After running from their town, they were taken in by strangers and hidden from Nazis until the nightmare ended.
Tomorrow afternoon, Rose’s great-grandson, Jacob Albright, becomes a bar mitzvah here at Ramat Shalom. As Jacob takes hold of our Holocaust Torah and carries it around the sanctuary during his service, we will all get a chance to see a miracle unfold before our eyes: a great-grandson of a woman who amazingly survived the barbaric attack on European Jewry, carrying a Torah that remarkably found us after its community was murdered by the Nazis. Given the horror that swept through Europe and killed 6,000,000 and destroyed countless communities, it is truly miraculous that Jacob and our Holocaust scroll will come together 70 years after the end of the nightmare.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.” While Jacob carrying a Torah around our sanctuary as he becomes a bar mitzvah might appear to be “common” – once you know the backstory it is anything but “common”. It is a miracle.
Making this miracle even more powerful is that, in addition to Jacob, we also celebrate the bar mitzvah of Todd Levan this weekend. Seventy years after WWII, not one, but two young men stand proudly on our bimah, leading their community in prayer, proving that Judaism is alive and well.
On top of this, commemorating the Holocaust at Auschwitz yesterday were two of our own students, Grant Besner and Zoe Giardina. Not only is Judaism alive and well, but our children have it in their hearts to return to one of the darkest places on earth to honor and remember the 6,000,000. This is miraculous.
And, as if this is not enough, I received word this week that many of our college students are taking on Jewish leadership positions on their campuses, becoming powerful voices for the Jewish people and Israel. Mazal Tov to many of our students including Julie Cole who was elected President of Washington University’s Hillel, Lindsey Sigal who was elected Secretary of FAU’s Owls for Israel and selected to be the Tikun Olam Intern at FAU’s Hillel, and Emily Bernstein who continues to be a leader at UF Hillel. I am also extremely proud of and excited to learn that so many of our college students will be traveling to Israel in the coming months.
Yesterday was Yom HaShoah/Holocaust Remembrance Day. We stopped to formally remember the horrors of the Holocaust that we never will forget. Today, with the help of Jacob, Todd, our teens on the March of the Living and our college students taking leadership positions on their campuses, we appreciate the fact that “Am Yisrael Chai”, the Jewish people is very much alive. And, after all that we have been through, this is a beautiful miracle.
