“But the most important renewal of life is that which occurs on Rosh Hashanah. Because that is when all life of the previous year returns to its essential source and a new life, such as was never known before, emerges from the void to sustain existence for an entire year.”
– Tzvi Freeman
This Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of my first year in the Land of Israel.
I have thought about this day for years. Like most aspects of my Aliyah experience, I did not expect it to look like this.
Israel entered into a three-week lockdown on Friday, September 18th, several hours before the beginning of Rosh Hashanah.
No large family meals, no packed services, no travel to friends and family.
Life is halted and we are still.
I’m not going to say this is exactly how I would have wanted it. I hoped to attend Selichot services for the first time at the Kotel. I was excited to see friends across the country.
While I am upset, I was reminded of something last Wednesday: my freedom.
My garin (group) went on a socially distanced trip to a spring near the Dead Sea. Garin Tzabar wanted us to have one last opportunity to get off the kibbutz before the lockdown.
We drove through Jerusalem and began our descent into the Judaean Desert. Our bus stopped in Mitzpeh Yericho so we could soak up the view.
We were met with an overwhelming panorama of the ancient city of Yericho (Jericho), one of the oldest cities in the world. Across from the city was the Dead Sea, followed by the Land of Moab which is in modern-day Jordan.
I appreciated the lookout; however, I did not understand its full significance.
Once returning to the bus, I listened to a voice message from a friend that knew that I was traveling to Mitzpe Yericho.
The mountain from which I stood was the first sight the Jewish people saw when they entered the Land of Israel. This was their first glimpse of the land they were promised.
Those who remember learning Torah in their stuffy synagogue basements will recall that Moses was not allowed to enter the Land of Israel.
Deuteronomy 33 (46-52):
"He (Moses) said to them: Take to heart all the words with which I have warned you this day. Enjoin them upon your children, that they may observe faithfully all the terms of this Teaching.
For this is not a trifling thing for you: it is your very life; through it you shall long endure on the land that you are to possess upon crossing the Jordan.
That very day the LORD spoke to Moses:
Ascend these heights of Abarim to Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab facing Jericho, and view the land of Canaan, which I am giving the Israelites as their holding.
You shall die on the mountain that you are about to ascend, and shall be gathered to your kin, as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his kin;
for you both broke faith with Me among the Israelite people, at the waters of Meribath-kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, by failing to uphold My sanctity among the Israelite people.
You may view the land from a distance, but you shall not enter it—the land that I am giving to the Israelite people."
I stood at where Moses could only gaze.
I may be under a lockdown; however, there is no place I would rather be stuck, the Land of Israel.
I continue to think about my babushka, about the Shoah.
The war reached Kamianets-Podolsky in the summer of 1941. My babushka’s mother Esther, my great grandmother, did not see a future for her and her children among Ukrainians and Germans. Her husband, a soldier in the Soviet military, thought otherwise.
“She didn’t know what to do and she said when they start bombing all this, father came home once, and he said, ‘Esther, this is going to be over. Just watch the kids. Don’t worry about anything. Don’t go anywhere. It’s going to be over soon.’ But she didn’t listen to him.”
“[My mom] saw people are running in the direction of railroad station, Jewish people, and she asked them ‘where are you going? What’s going on?’ And they said that there is a train [that] came and they take people away somewhere...And my mom decided that we have to go. Just like that. She, literally she was telling me, she was carrying me, my old grandmother, she was just holding up her, and my brother was running after us. And we all left, just like that.”
They took the clothes on their backs and began the difficult journey eastward, away from the genocidal tyrants.
Esther had a gut feeling. She acted on a whim. The massacre took place about a month later. My babushka and her family would be with the other 23,600* if her mother decided to stay. In that cursed pit.
My babushka, her mother, grandmother, and brother ended up in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
They were lucky and convinced an older Kazakh woman to let them live in her cow barn.
“I remember opening the door and mooooo! And there was one room that didn’t had all the roof, and my mother and grandmother...they covered it with cow’s shit. This is a building material what they use. Cow shit dries off and it’s like building material.”
They built a bed by creating a perimeter of stones on the ground. They then filled the stone structure with straw. My babushka told me about the mice and lice that crawled within the bed.
One picture remains of my grandmother during this period.
She is on the left and her brother, Isaac, is on the right. Their heads are shaved due to the lice. My babushka is looking away from the camera. She is too young to understand their reality. Her brother looks directly into my soul.
This is a picture I have seen for many years; however, I recently developed some questions. Why would her mother pay to have this picture taken? They couldn’t even afford a proper home. They were starving in that barn. What’s the reason?
Remembrance.
Not to remember a moment, to remember her children.
Freedom’s light was flickering into smoke. I will never know for sure, although I believe that Esther commissioned this photograph because she did not know if her children would survive. She needed to capture their faces.
Esther is most likely sitting behind the photographer, looking at her children. What did her face show?
May no one know this pain.
I once asked my babushka if they ever regretted being Jewish. Not today, but during their time in Kazakhstan.
They would not have had to flee if they were Ukrainian, Russian, or German. They would not have lived in a mice-infested cow barn if they were not Jewish. Esther’s children would have had food and clothes if they were not Jewish.
Did my babushka regret it?
“No! Never!”
I think about Rosh Hashanah of 1941 compared to Rosh Hashanah of 2020. I think about my babushka and her family in that barn, staring through the holes in the roof. Hungry, tormented, but proud Jews. Jews dreaming of their freedom.
Today we no longer have to dream. We have to act.
Never again is not just some slogan. Never again means that we are proud of who we are. Never again means a Jewish state.
A strong Jewish state.
We will no longer depend on the goodwill of our Christian and Muslim rulers for our security. Never again.
We will build that state in the land that was promised to us.
I will accept nothing less.
So on this Rosh Hashanah, I am thankful for the new life I am creating for myself and our people. A new life "such as was never known before."
I sit in the same place. There is no place I would rather be.
What a blessing we have.
שנה טובה
Shana Tova