Finding a Torah in Poland
A Schechter School Trip Has an Unexpected Twist
The Solomon Schechter of Westchester’s class of 2007 traveled to Poland. In the normal course of events, any such high school trip would be memorable, but this trip included events that touched all the travelers even more than anyone could have expected. Here, in a narrative excerpted from emails sent home to parents, the school’s headmaster, Elliot Spiegel, tells the story.
Allow me to share the normal images that stay with a traveler on such a journey as this: Entering the Krakow ghetto by bus on our first night in Poland as Schindler’s List plays on the bus video and looking out at the very same scene in real time. Climbing the hill at the Plaszow Death Camp, swaying to the dirge of Eli Eli and trying to understand the grim reality beyond the vacant valley before us. Chanting Kabbalat Shabbat in the Isaac Synagogue before a gutted aron kodesh, dim lights, little heat, our prayers echoing through the bare synagogue, yet still thrilling to the sounds of Shabbat where it has been welcomed for nearly 300 years in joy and light. Standing in the emptiness of Birkenau with a cold wind in our faces, chanting the prayer that “All Israel are brothers and sisters,” then unfurling the Israeli flag and raising our voices in a tear-filled yet defiant Hatikvah. Speeding east through the Polish countryside; forests, villages, fields slipping endlessly by, the movie Escape from Sobibor now playing on the bus video with its scenes of cruelty and courage, arriving at the isolated village of Sobibor near the Ukrainian border, trudging through the forest with only the trees as silent witnesses, coming to a clearing, bowing our heads in tribute to those who lie beneath the snow and whose memory we have come such a long way to honor, repeating over and over: Never Again! Walking through the shtetl of Wlodowa at the Belarus border, making ourselves dance in the now-empty synagogue to the words Am Yisrael Chai with new conviction and determination and singing with renewed pride in our hearts and strength in our voices. Walking slowly, deliberately through the nightmare of Majdanec – where no words matter – seeing our students reach out to each other for comfort. Visiting the exquisite synagogue of Tykocin near the Lithuanian border, following the short journey of the Jews of Tykocin, walking through the Lupochovo Forest, standing before the grave of the Jewish community of Tykocin, a community that had existed for 500 years and then vanished here in an instant on a hot midsummer’s day in 1941. Our plane speeding down the runway and as the wheels lift off the ground the cabin filling with cheers of relief, release and excitement.
These, Dr. Spiegel writes, are the images Jewish travelers to Poland expect; they are powerful and troubling and they will inform the students’ understanding of the Holocaust for the rest of their lives. But then, needing some down time to make sense of the intensity of what they had seen, the travelers decided to stroll through the square in the middle of the old section of Warsaw.
Some of our students noticed an antique shop and in its corner what looked like a sefer Torah, propped against the wall, open and upside down. Some became very agitated and asked what,if anything, could be done. The staff decided to visit the shop the next morning to see for ourselves. Rabbi Harry Pell, the school’s director of informal education, and I, accompanied by our guides, set out on our quest. We asked the owner of the shop to carefully take the scroll from the window; it was clear to us that the Torah had been there for years. We asked to inspect it. What we first noticed took our breath away. It appeared that the Torah had been rolled – who knows how long before – to the weekly portion of Yitro – the week’s portion. Some suggested that this was a sign, that it was meant for us to come to Poland at this very moment. It was certainly one of those coincidences that make even the most rational among us wonder.
As we inspected the scroll we noticed first the silver engraving on the etzi chaim, the two wooden spindles to which the scroll is attached. We saw that the Torah had been commissioned by children to honor the memory of their father in 1936, just three years before the beginning of the Shoah. We next saw that from Yitro back to Beresheit, at the beginning of Genesis, the Torah was in excellent condition and beautifully written. From Yitro to V’zot Habracha, the last parashah in Deuteronomy, the last book in the Torah, however, was a different story. Although the book of Leviticus was intact, only a few badly damaged columns of Numbers remained and Deuteronomy didn’t exist at all. We had only three fifths of a sefer Torah.
None of us, however, had any doubt about what we had to do. We negotiated a fair price, which included an antique yad for the Torah. We paid, wrapped the Torah in a coat, walked through Old Square in the snow, hailed a cab, and returned with our prize.
The students were eager to hear our story; they were joyous at the news that their class had fulfilled the mitzvah of pidyon sh’vuyim, rescuing one who has been imprisoned. Over lunch I spoke about how Poland is too often a journey of regret, powerlessness, sadness, and anger. But that we had been given the opportunity – the privilege – of taking back for the Jewish people something that had been taken away, and that even more, the responsibility of using our lives for the betterment of our people, our country, and the world was the real reason for our trip.
The frail, half-destroyed and incomplete Torah was a symbol of what our people suffered 60 years ago. But when we will repair this Torah and re-complete it over the months and years ahead it will again be a symbol of strength and hope, continuity and completeness. I explained to the students that this Torah would be their graduation gift to their school – one like no other before or, I suspect, after. And that when we dedicate it later this year we will dress it in a mantel with the following words:
RESCUED FROM POLAND BY THE CLASS OF 2007 20 SHVAT 5767 FEBRUARY 8 2007
At the end of what had become a true seudat mitzvah, I offered a simple toast. We stood, some with tears in our eyes, and raised our glasses, teachers and students together, we cried out with voices filled with pride, determination and optimism, “Am Yisrael Chai – the Jewish People Lives!”
A few weeks later, Dr. Spiegel updated the story. It began on the trip’s next stop, Israel, when the travelers spent the first Shabbat in Jerusalem.
At services on Shabbat morning, after reading parashat Yitro from a kosher sefer Torah, the students unwrapped the Torah they’d found in Poland. Twenty students divided the aseret hadibrot, the Ten Commandments, which appear first in this parashah, and each read one line. This was the first time in nearly 70 years that this Torah had been read and used.
The Torah is now in the school’s beit knesset, its synagogue. Dr.Spiegel will consult with a professional sofer, a scribe, to learn how best to restore it.
Some have asked about the provenance of the Torah; what is the family name of the children who dedicated it in 1937 and from what community did it come? Alas, this we will never know. The memorial only states that “His children dedicate this Torah on the occasion of our father’s first yartzeit, 5697.” But perhaps this is not a bad thing. I can picture generations of our students imagining just who these people were, what community they might have lived in, and what ultimately befell them. Thus, the mystery of the origin of our special Torah will continue to be a source of inspiration for our students.
Dr. Elliot Spiegel is headmaster of the Solomon Schechter School of Westchester in Hartsdale, New York.
