From Darkness to Light

Friday, June 29, 2018, is a day I will long remember.

It started with an extra early wake-up and breakfast at our hotel in Krakow, Poland. Some two hundred and fifty sleepy NFTYites, their staff and those of us who were afforded the privilege of accompanying them on their trip through Eastern Europe tried to shake the sleep from our eyes. We boarded buses and began the trek to the Polish town of Oswiecim, some 40 miles away.  For the NFTYites, it was their first visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and you could feel the apprehension in the group.

It was a somewhat gray day, and a bit on the cool side temperature-wise.  In truth, that

added to the gloom that must inevitably be a part of a visit to these sites, which our Eisner group educator Sapir called "one of the most efficient factories in all of human history. Their product was death - most especially the death of Eastern Europe's Jews."  After several hours of walking around the massive Birkenau camp, a brief lunch break, and then several more hours at the Auschwitz museum, a tired, emotionally drained and dour group reboarded the bus for the return trip to Krakow.  Following some quiet time to decompress and prepare for Shabbat we gathered, some 300 of us for Shabbat dinner. Then it was back on the buses to return to Krakow's Jewish quarter. I immediately recalled last year's Shabbat evening experience during which we attended services at Krakow's Tempel Synagogue, an ornate, massive worship space which on that Friday night played hosts to thousands for a Shabbat service offered as a part of Krakow's annual Jewish Festival, an event I would love to partake of sometime down the line.  It was a mob-scene, and it was as much an "event" as it was a Kabbalat Shabbat service to welcome Shabbat.

However, this year's experience was different. We were still heading to the Tempel Synagogue. It was still as magnificent a worship space as I remembered from a year earlier. However, this time, we were to be the only ones present for a Kabbalat Shabbat lead by staff members for the 6 NFTY in Israel groups - representing alumni of five URJ Summer Camps as well as other NFTY in Israel participants. (An event connected to the Jewish Festival had taken places in the hours before our arrival.) Having already had a long day, with an early wake-up, the bus rides, and especially the visits to Auschwitz II-Birkenau, it would have been entirely understandable had there been a quiet, somber mood in the congregation.
Sitting in a magnificent synagogue which had seen its Jewish community decimated in the evilest act of human cruelty and banality in human history our teens responded in the most spirited, almost defiant way to the songs, readings, and prayers we shared together.  It was as if they'd formed a secret pact. It was as if they'd agreed that our worship that evening was going to be a living response to the horror that Krakow, Poland and the Concentration, Work and Death Camps scattered around Eastern Europe had seen in the mid-20th century.

I was sitting with a number of the other faculty chaperones. To a person, we found our breath taken away by the enthusiasm, passion and unbridled ruach (spirit) in that sanctuary. It was as if our teens were telling Hitler, his henchman, and all those who tried not only to crush but to completely obliterate the Jews of Eastern Europe. THeir unbridled joy and infectious spirit was a cry - we are alive! And we have returned to be a part of bringing Jewish life back to this long-silent community.

As a community, we were, after a long and full week bone-tired. Yet the energy in that sanctuary proved to be a spiritual stimulant like few I have experienced in my life. The heart, spirit, and soul in that community left me with a hope that I had felt had been dimmed by the day's earlier events. 

Click here for a video from Shabbat in Krakow

Our teens constantly teach me and touch me. On Friday evening, June 29th, they took me to a spiritual place of hope for our Jewish future and our people resilience I all-too-often find hidden in our complicated times.

Thank you NFTY - thank you to the Eisner, Crane Lake, Jacobs, Harlam, and Greene Family Camp groups and the other NFTY participants for this incredible opportunity. It is one I shall not soon forget.