If you were to ask someone what gives them their inspiration, most would say something about an experience they had or maybe mention a few of their mentors. I wouldn’t imagine anyone saying the Holocaust.
I recently was given the opportunity of going on a week-long trip to Poland led by Rav Natanel Lebowitz and Rav Jake Vidomlanski from Yeshivat Lev Hatorah. As soon as we touched down in Poland, we began our journey.
We started off in the Warsaw cemetery, or “Eretz HaChaim” (land of the living) as Rav Lebowitz referred to it. The cemetery truly was full of stories and life. We read “The Dash” by Linda Ellis and truly thought about “…Are there things you would like to change? For you never know how much time is left that can still be rearranged. If we could just slow down enough to consider what is true and real…”
We then made our way to and prayed at the “wailing wall” that is the remainder of the Warsaw Ghetto where so many of our grandparents cried out to God.
At night, we brought the light of the chanukiyah with us to the frightening darkness of Treblinka extermination camp.
We walked through the gates of Auschwitz-Birkenau where over a million were torturously murdered. But we got to walk out.
We went to the children’s forest where we stood alongside mass graves. At that point, we received letters of support from our parents and grandparents. Mine included a list of 10 of my grandmother’s first cousins, ages 4-19, who were murdered in the Holocaust. Six million is a hard number to comprehend, and at that moment I realized I couldn’t even grasp 10. I tried to understand the number 10, though, as I slowly swapped out the names of the relatives I’ve never met for people who are a part of my life today. We sang “HaMalach HaGoel” as we stood there.
We saw death camp after death camp where we heard about the horrors and how our families were greeted by their hair being shaved and being stripped of their clothes. There were rooms filled with literally tons of hair and over 40,000 pairs of shoes. We discussed how you can never walk in another person’s shoes and how it’s interesting that the bottom of the shoe is called the sole. We talked about how much our parents and families do for us and how we need to learn to say thank you; Rav Vidomlanski led us in a unique prayer of, “Esa Enai El HaHorim,” meaning we raise our eyes towards our parents. We finished up our journey through the camps at Majdanek, where we saw the quote, “May our fate be a warning,” alongside a huge pile of ash. Yes, ash. We sang “Ani Ma’amin” in a crematorium where we proclaimed that even in a place like this, we know God is with us.
Throughout the trip we focused on the Holocaust and death, but we also focused on what it meant to truly live as we visited many great rebbeim. We prayed at the shul of the Rama. We came together with Jews from across the world in song and prayer at the grave of Rav Noam Elimelech. I experienced my most powerful Simchat Torah in the freezing cold in the middle of the winter alongside a destroyed shul in Dukla as we made a Siyum HaShas and danced with a recently discovered fragment of a Torah scroll from the destroyed shul. The scroll begins on the Torah portion for Hoshana Rabbah, which is the day that Dukla Jewry was torn away many years ago. We finished off our trip in Yeshivat Chachmei Lublin, the founding place of Daf Yomi, where we made a Siyum HaShas along with the finishing of the 13th cycle around the world.
This was an immense week that left so many of us immersed in thought about what to do with everything we’d seen and heard. Of course we should remember the experience and the lessons, but, God forbid, don’t let it remain just a memory. I personally had my own takeaways from the trip. I realized how much appreciation we need to show to those around us for all they give to us. I realized how much time we waste and that it’s time to start using it. I realized that we were all given immense gifts and that it’s time to make use of them. I learned about the power of one voice, and that it’s time to start using ours.
It’s a scary time we’re drifting into. Yes, Judaism is definitely at a peak: There are Jews around the world and the most Torah study ever is taking place. But in the past year, how many people were victimsof anti-Semitism? I don’t know the answer, but I do know that the answer is scary. Even in America, a place we thought would remain safe, week after week we are being proven wrong. We think about the Holocaust and the following phrase comes to mind: Never again. Rav Lebowitz said one line that keeps ringing in my head, “It doesn’t have to happen again to still be really really bad.”
Wherever you derive your inspiration from, remember why it inspired you. Remember what you experienced and remember what you learned, but don’t let it remain just a memory. It’s time to start standing up for our friends and families. People give us so much, why don’t we do good with it all? We throw away so much time, why don’t we use it? We have incredible gifts, what are we going to do with them? The sheer power of our voice is unimaginable, isn’t it time we start using it?
Inspiration is nice, but it’s nothing without action.
Mikey Finkelstein is a current shana aleph student at Yeshivat Lev HaTorah.
