The heart of jerusalem

Connecting with G-d, neighbors, families, ourselves

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Visit Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust museum, and wander off to the paths behind the plaza dedicated to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and you will come across an actual cattle car, one of the many used by the Nazis to transport hundreds of thousands of Jews to their deaths in the infamous concentration and death camps across Poland.

Engraved on the bannister opposite the box car is a powerful poem (by Dan Pagis) that was found written in pencil in a railway car:

Here in this carload 

I am Eve 

With Abel my son 

If you see my other son 

Cain son of man 

Tell him I…

Whenever I see this poem, in that place, I am always moved by its abrupt ending. What would Eve (mother of humanity she say if she were able to finish her sentence? What goes through the mind of Eve along with that of her son Abel (as in Cain and Abel) enroute to their slaughter? And where was Cain, representing the rest of humanity?

This week we begin the fifth and final book of the Torah with the reading of the parsha of Devarim, literally the words of Moshe. 

This book is also called Mishneh Torah, which means a repetition of the Torah. Moshe shares his farewell soliloquy with the Jewish people — specifically the second generation of Jews, mostly born in freedom in the desert and about to enter, at long last, the land of Israel.

This parsha is always read on the Shabbat before the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, when we commemorate the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem (by Babylonians in 586 BCE and by Romans in 70 CE). Many suggest a connection between the parsha and the ninth of Av is a verse which bears a striking resemblance to the first verse of the book of Lamentations (Eicha) which we read on Tisha B’Av: “Eicha esah levadi’; tarchachem u’masa’achem, ve’rivchem?” (“How can I bear on my own your trouble, burdens and quarrels?”) (Deut. 1:12)

This verse, describing Moshe’s apparent frustration with the Jews’ constant complaints, begins with the same word that both begins and ultimately names the book of lamentations: Eicha — a word that cries of how and why, and expresses an inability to come to terms with a painful reality beyond comprehension. This word Eicha has come to personify the pain of Tisha B’Av.

Jewish tradition notes that this is not the first place we find this word, or at least these letters. When G-d responds to Adam’s eating of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, he begins by calling out, “Ayekah?” (“Where are you?”) (Bereishit 3:9) 

Made up of the same letters as the word eicha, it is essentially the same word. So what is the connection between “where are you?” and “how does the city (Jerusalem) sit all alone?” (Lamentations 1:1). Perhaps the root of destruction and being so alone begins with the question of where we are. 

From the 17th of Tammuz until the ninth of Av, we mourn the destruction of the Beit ha’Mikdash on Tisha B’Av. But why is our focus on mourning and not teshuva (repentance)? Indeed, Maimonides (Hilchot Teshuva 6:1) makes it clear that we are meant to view all such calamities as a response to the iniquities and transgressions of our generation; additionally, the Talmud describes the transgressions of the generation that led to the destruction.

Indeed this process of teshuva begins soon after Tisha B’Av when we enter the month of Elul and approach Rosh Hashanah and then the ten days of repentance leading up to Yom Kippur. But why do we mourn first.

Consider especially that Maimonides implies that one must immediately repent to avert such calamity. And Maimonides points out that although a consequence may be well deserved, teshuva can avert disaster.

When we were in Poland I heard a story of five postcards and one little boy named Chenyo.

When the Nazis invaded Poland on Sept 1, 1939, little Chenyo was starting his first day of first grade. His uncle and aunt had made Aliyah before the war and soon received a lovely postcard from little Chenyo describing his first day of school and how exciting it all was.

Not long afterwards they received a second postcard from the family describing their efforts to leave Poland and immigrate to Palestine. At the end of the letter the father adds that they are all together and are all Ok. But no one is excited any more.

Three months later they get another postcard from their brother, Chenyo’s father, explaining that they have been moved to the ghetto and that they are all ok. But no one is talking about getting to Palestine any more.

A few months after that they receive another postcard and Chenyo’s father explains they have just arrived in Maidjanek, but he and Chenyo are together and Ok. There is no mention of the rest of the family any more. 

A short while later they receive one more postcard in which the father describes that he is in the post office at Maidjanek and he is ok.  But there is no more mention of Chenyo.

And after that there are no more postcards.

What struck me about this story was how all alone this father must have been at the end of his life, and how painful it must have been to contemplate all he had lost.

P

erhaps we err in assuming that mourning is separate from teshuva, while maybe it is the essence of what the beginning of teshuva is all about. Maimonides says quite clearly (ibid. 1:1) that the first stage of teshuva is to recognize our mistake (hakarat hachet) which is followed by regret (charatah).

Ultimately the terrible consequence of our chet (transgressions) is that we become distant. 

Whether a person’s transgression was stealing from or embarrassing his fellow human being, idolatry or adultery, the greatest pain of such transgressions is that we become distant, disconnected. When Adam and Eve ate from the tree, they were banished from Eden and become distant from G-d. And when we transgress, we become distant from our loved ones and the people we have harmed. 

This is precisely what happened when the Jewish people sank to such a morass of unethical behavior in the period of the Second Temple; the consequence ultimately was the destruction of the place that was the ultimate symbol of our connection with Hashem; we became disconnected. In mourning, we are yearning for a time when we were so much more connected, and we are recognizing the pain of how disconnected we still are. 

If human beings can be put in cattle cars while the world carries on, then we are completely disconnected as a people from the world around us whom we are meant to influence.  

And this pain, this mourning, this realization of what we have lost is critical to recognizing how far we have to go and how much we yearn to get there which is the resulting next step in teshuva:  the long journey home.

We live in a disconnected world — from nations that wish to see us isolated, to the disconnection we experience among ourselves as a Jewish people and often even the disconnections and strife we experience in our communities and families. 

Perhaps this Shabbat with all of the pain this past week has brought, we can all make an effort to become a little more connected: with our loved ones, with our communities and the Jewish people, with G-d, and maybe even with ourselves.

Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem.