Yom Tov Memories: The Shofar Of Bergen-Belsen Rosh Hashanah has come and gone on the calendar, but it never really goes away. It always takes me back several decades to my birthplace, the Hungarian city of Szeged. My father, HaRav HaGaon HaTzaddik Avraham HaLevi Jungreis, zt”l, was a visionary. Long before the ba’al teshuvah movement of recent times, he reached out to everyone. In Szeged he built a shul, a mikveh, and a school for children. With his beautiful long beard and rabbinic hat and coat, he was a strange sight in that secular city. But “strange” quickly gave way to beloved. My saintly father became the much-loved spiritual leader of the Jewish community. He was blessed with the most magical voice. When he chanted the prayers, they penetrated the deepest crevices of one’s heart. They made one’s soul soar to the greatest heights. No one could daven like him. It was not only his voice but also the genuine tears flowing from his eyes that gave an added dimension to every prayer he chanted. Every Rosh Hashanah I would arrive early to shul with my saintly mother, Rebbetzin Miriam Jungreis, a”h. But as early as we came there were always some elderly ladies already there, weeping as they recited their tefillos. Nowadays if you go to shul and see someone crying with such intensity and devotion you would be prompted to go over and ask, “Is everything OK? Is someone sick, G-d forbid?” In my father’s shul it never occurred to us to do that. Of course the women were crying. It was Rosh Hashanah – how could a Jew not cry on such a sacred day. when the life of every person hangs in the balance? It’s a different world today. Yes, we know it’s Rosh Hashanah, we know it’s the Days of Awe, we know it’s Yom Kippur, but we do not feel it. Our grandmothers may not have been learned or sophisticated but they genuinely feared G-d and their tears ascended to their Maker. My revered father was not a chazzan but his voice rang with love of Hashem. And he inspired those who heard him to love Hashem as well. Memories, Crossing oceans and continents, penetrating the darkness and yet basking in the sunshine of Torah. It’s all part of my mind’s journey at this time of year. Darkness? How can Rosh Hashanah exist in darkness? Are not Rosh Hashanah and darkness contradictory terms? Come with me to Bergen-Belsen. Allow me to introduce you to my father. It’s Rosh Hashanah. But where is one to find a shofar in that satanic place? Over there, there were only demons. But the demons of Bergen-Belsen did not realize with whom they were contending. There is no power on earth that can silence our shofar or the hearts and souls of our people. Our shofar is the shofar of Torah, the shofar of faith, the shofar of Mashiach. Time and again throughout the long painful and bloody centuries our enemies tried to destroy us but we triumphed, our shofar in hand, awaiting that final call of Redemption. Even those who stood on the lines to the gas chambers sang “Ani Maamin – I believe in the coming of Mashiach and even if He may tarry I believe.” In that hellhole of Bergen-Belsen my father and the other rabbanim held a secret meeting and concluded that a shofar must be obtained. They were determined that Rosh Hashanah would not pass without the sound of the shofar. There was a black market in the camp and things could be acquired for the right price, especially if those “things” were Jewish ritual items. They were all in the junk pile waiting to be destroyed. So it was through the heroic efforts of our people that 300 cigarettes – powerful currency in the camps – were collected to buy a shofar and a machzor. But there was another problem. One shofar could be heard by multitudes but surely one machzor would not suffice. So once again our rabbis designed a plan. Everyone would learn at least one prayer to be recited from memory. But which prayer, which Psalm, which berachah? Surely all the supplications, all the Psalms, all the blessings in the machzor are holy. So which one should it be? The decision was made: “Bochen Levavos – let us pray to Him who searches and tests our hearts on that Day of Judgment.” Yes, we invited G-d to come to Bergen-Belsen and examine our hearts in order to see for Himself that despite our pain and suffering we had not faltered one bit in our faith and our love for Him. Adjacent to our compound was a Polish camp (the Nazis often kept nationalities separate). Somehow our Polish brethren got wind of our treasure. So when Rosh Hashanah came and the piercing cry of the shofar was sounded, they crept close to the barbed wire fence separating us to hear the ancient call. The Nazis also came running and beat us mercilessly. But even as the truncheons were falling on our heads we cried out, “Blessed is the Lord our G-d who has commanded us to listen to the sound of the shofar.” Many years later I was lecturing in Israel in a village in Samaria called Neve Aliza. It was late summer, just before Rosh Hashanah, and I felt a need to tell the story of the shofar of Bergen-Belsen. When I finished, a woman in the audience got up. “I know exactly what you are talking about,” she said, “because my father was the rabbi in the Polish compound. You may not realize this, but your shofar was smuggled into our camp in the bottom of a large garbage can filled with soup and my father blew the shofar for us.” I looked at her, momentarily speechless. “And that’s not all,” she went on to say. “I have the shofar in my house, here in Neve Aliza. When we were liberated, we blew the shofar again and my father took it with him. Today I have it here in Eretz Yisrael.” With that, she ran home and returned a few minutes later with the shofar in her hands. We wept and embraced. Here we were, two little girls from Belgen-Belsen holding that shofar in the hills of Israel. The entire world had declared us dead. Millions of our people had been slaughtered but the shofar, the symbol of Jewish piety, triumphed over the flames. And G-d granted me the awesome privilege of rediscovering that shofar in the ancient hills of Samaria to which our people had returned after more than two thousand years of wandering, darkness, oppression, and Holocaust. The call of the shofar is eternal. Its magnetic allurement cannot be explained. It is not musical. Those who lack understanding might describe its sound as primitive. But when the Jewish people hear the cry, it’s familiar. It awakens us. We heard that cry before and we remember it. We heard it at Sinai when it entered our souls and it is forever embedded in our collective memory, in our inner hearts, in our very neshamahs. Consider what we have been destined to hear with our own ears and see with our own eyes. We Jews have traversed the world, surviving long, tortuous centuries. Many of us have forgotten our past but even the most assimilated among us have never forgotten that shofar, that call that pierced the heavens and the earth. Our generation has been blessed to behold that which our zaidies and bubbies could only dream of. We heard and saw the chief rabbi of the Israeli army, Rabbi Shlomo Goren, of blessed memory, blow the shofar at the Kotel and in Hebron and Kever Rochel after long centuries of exile. Its sound remains as fresh and inspiring as it was at Sinai. From Belgen-Belsen to Eretz Yisrael and back to Sinai; that would seem to be sufficient reason for every Jew to stand in awe and say, “Hineni, here I am, ready to serve my G-d.” May the sound of the shofar that will summon us to welcome Mashiach be heard speedily in our own days. I would like to take this opportunity to wish all our readers “G’mar Tov” – a blessed, good conclusion this High Holiday Season.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 19:42:56 +0000
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