REDEDICATION IS THE THEME OF HANUKKAH ON THE EIGHTH AND FINAL EVE WE READ THIS TALE OF RIVKA. IT IS ABOUT REMEMBERING AND REDEDICATING OURSELVES, THE OBJECTS & SPACES WITH WHICH AND IN WHICH WE LIVE OUR LIVES.
This is the year we become adults in the community. This is the year of mitzvoth, good deeds, to honor parents, help the needy and to visit the sick among us. Leah, a young lady, asked her mother what special thing she should do this year. It doesn’t have to be big, her mother explained, just helpful, not hurtful, something which brings honor to yourself and your family and which brings happiness and peace to others.
The year of bat mitzvah and bar mitzvah are important rites of passage in the life of the young Jewish woman and the young Jewish man. Leah, along with classmates, were planning their projects this year. One day a woman came to speak in class. Her name was Mrs. Oh. She was a Holocaust survivor. Leah had never before heard a survivor speak in person. None of the students had.
Mrs. Oh began to tell her tale. She, like the students, had gone to a school, had friends, joked, laughed, cried and played little tricks on one another. One time when she was supposed to be studying she and her friends decided to sneak into the circus which was travelling through town. My parents found us. It wasn’t hard because I had decided to dance with one of the bears. How could you miss me?
BUT THEN EVERYTHING CHANGED. THE NAZIS CAME TO TOWN. We were all forced to live in one section of the city. We had very little food to eat. One by one people were taken away. WE were living in fear. Would we be next? I couldn’t stand it anymore. My best friend Rivka felt the same way. We plotted together, obtained forged papers and escaped by hiding in the town’s sewer pipes underground.
The students and Leah listened intently. The room was very quiet. Here was someone who, when she had been their age, was running for her life. Mrs. Oh continued. We managed to get to the trains and hide out on a car. We didn’t know yet where we would go. At one stop the Nazis got on and asked for everyone’s papers. Rivka had lost hers when we were scurrying to board the train. I…I…I never saw her again after that said Mrs. Oh…again the class was silent. Mrs. Oh waited a couple minutes before she could speak again.
I was able to escape from that train at one of the stops. I hid in the forest. I found others hiding there. We helped each other to survive during the war. Mrs. Oh then showed a video of something she was very concerned about. It was a picture of Torah scrolls lined up in a warehouse, each labeled with a tag and an ID #. The tags were put there by the Nazis, she explained. They were going to put them in a museum about extinct races of people.
That night as LEAH was falling asleep she could not get the picture of the TORAH scrolls out of her mind. The TORAH should not be collecting dust on a shelf she thought. The next day she asked her teacher what would happen to the scrolls. If we could just bring one of them here, LEAH thought outloud, we could dedicate it to RIVKA who lost her life in the Holocaust. We could continue to tell her story that Mrs. Oh told us and share it with the congregation. When Leah and her fellow students researched the information they were given about the TORAH scrolls they found out that these were not for sale but that they could be loaned to a community. The class decided to visit a museum where they could see some of the rescued scrolls and other items which had been part of the period in history known as the Holocaust. They set up a memorial fund to help classes go to visit the museum every year and called it the RIVAKA MEMORIAL FUND.
ALL AROUND THE WORLD THERE ARE MUSEUMS THAT REMEMBER THE HOLOCAUST which the Jews experienced. There are museums which also document the slaughter and genocide of other groups of people. We challenge each of you at least once a year at this time to visit a museum of your choice and take a young person who is emerging towards young adulthood. ..LEST WE FORGET to BRING HARM TO NO ONE…SO THAT OTHERS MAY SURVIVE AS GOD INTENED THEM TO.
MAY WE DEDICATE A PORTION OF OUR DAYS TO RIGHTING THE WRONGS WHICH WERE SUFFERED IN THE PAST SO THAT PEACE WITH JUSTICE MIGHT PREVAIL IN THIS WORLD.