Judaism has at its core one word: “Why?” Nowhere is this more clear than when we tell our children they have to go to Hebrew school, and they respond with an impassioned refrain of “why why why why?” This past Sunday, our house was no exception to that rule. My ten year old son, Aaron, expressed this existential refrain with honest, heartfelt passion. Nonetheless, off he went, with his question unresolved.
Later that day, just before bed, Aaron paused the DVR to tell his mom and me a story he had heard in Hebrew school that morning. It came out of the commemoration of Yom HaShoah, the time we remember the millions who died in the Holocaust.
My son told us there had been a Rabbi imprisoned in Bergen-Belsen who had with him a small Torah scroll—small enough to fit in his pocket. The Rabbi, at risk to his life, held onto this scroll as a small symbol of hope amidst the horrors around him. At some point, another prisoner, a boy named Joseph, had reached Bar Mitzvah age. To commemorate this, the Rabbi held a quiet ceremony and gave Joseph the scroll. Amazingly, the boy’s mother was able to share this moment with her son by sneaking in from the woman’s barracks.
After the “celebration,” the mother rushed back before she was missed. Just before she left, Joseph told her “I love you.” His mother died before he could see her again. By the end of the war, the Rabbi, too, had died, but Joseph had survived along with the small Torah.
As my son told me this story, even though the boy and the Torah had survived, my wet eyes betrayed my feelings that this story did not hold forth a whole lot of hope.
Aaron continued.
He said that the boy grew up to become a scientist working on the Space Shuttle program where he designed an experiment that actually went into space. One of the astronauts on the mission had noticed the scroll on Joseph’s desk and asked him about it. After the astronaut heard the story, he asked for permission to take the Torah into space. Joseph agreed, as did NASA—so up the Torah went into space with the shuttle.
Now I was starting to see the light! This tiny surviving beacon of hope had not just made it out of Bergen-Belsen—it was actually going to fly free—straight up into the heavens!
Then my son told me the shuttle was called Columbia—and I realized what this meant. Just as the bodies of the dead at Bergen-Belsen were burned to ash—such was the fate of the seven astronauts and the Torah scroll as Columbia burned on reentry. Some symbol of hope.
Then a thought—or really a feeling--came to me—and I started to cry. But these were not tears of hopelessness. Because in that moment, watching my son tell me this story, in this house, in this family room, on this day, I understood that the ashes of that small Torah, the astronauts, the six million—they would not simply become memories of all that is bad in the world. They would also become, as the Rabbi had said, symbols of hope—hope because we are here to tell their stories. “And you shall tell your child on that day.” Only this time it was my child who told me.
