Rabbi Guzik - A Bisl Torah

Rosh Hashana celebrates the birth of the world. The holiday is also known as Yom Hazikaron, Day of Remembrance. How do you celebrate and remember at the same time?

There is a piece of Jewish lore about a group of Jews praying in a synagogue. The setting is Eastern Europe during a time of great antisemitism. On Rosh Hashana, as the Jews take out the Torah and begin to read the holy text, a local official bangs on the door of the shul.

It was Erev Rosh Hashana in Auschwitz and Birkenau. 1944. Rav Tzvi Hirsch Meisels and his son just arrived to the death camp.

This summer, we spent some time in New York City, where we visited the 9/11 memorial. The memorial consists of two massive waterfall pools, the surrounding perimeter donning the names of those that died.

With the murder of six hostages by Hamas, many of us have felt hope slipping away. Hersh’s parents publicly traveled the world to advocate for their son. One couldn’t help but think (perhaps naively) that their actions and their voices and their rigor would lead to bringing him home. Bringing all of them home. If anyone’s actions could do it, it would have been theirs. They tried so very hard.

This week, Sinai Temple visited the Nova Exhibition: The site in Los Angeles that replicates the music festival in Israel and the horrific events that took place there on October 7th. The exhibit highlights testimony of Nova festival survivors and is built with recovered tents, sleeping bags, cell phones, backpacks, and personal items that victims would never see again. While I went to Israel just weeks after October 7th, I left the Nova exhibit with a pummeled soul. You hear the voices of twenty-year-olds all around you and quickly understand, even for the survivors, there is no happy ending. Survivors lost scores of friends and family members and recount the nightmare of the day over and over again. There is no escape.

There is a palpable shift in the air. Summer is nearing her end and television commercials announcing “back to school” discounts frequent advertising space. I have met with multiple couples getting ready for September weddings and my calendar is nudging me to begin writing for the High Holy Days. As much as summer tries to tether us, new beginnings beckon.

This year, my birthday fell on Tisha B’Av, which is known as the saddest day in Jewish history. The day in which both Temples in Jerusalem were destroyed and the Jews were expelled from England and Spain. Other tragedies of the Shoah also occurred on this fateful day.

Over the next week, we continue commemorating the nine days, the period leading up to Tisha B’Av. Tisha B’Av is the darkest day in Jewish history in which we remember the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem along with other catastrophes harming the Jewish people.

Whether it is mourning the end of a relationship, grieving a loss, or ruminating over a fissure in a professional or personal journey, we often seek a sense of closure. A meaningful ending to something that held significant meaning. A holy goodbye to a part of our path that has sometimes abruptly, ended without warning.