Yizkor Simchat Torah Sermon 5781 “Tattered Shoes”
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Yizkor Simchat Torah Sermon 5781 “Tattered Shoes” By Rabbi Tara Feldman I am sitting here in Jerusalem thinking about shoes. When I pack for Jerusalem, I never bring heels. You see, Yerushala’im is a walking town, a Birkenstock, crocs or grubby sandals kind of a town, a place in which one’s feet undergo a lot of wear and tear. Today, we are completing Sukkot, the first of our shalosh regalim, our three pilgrimage holidays. Shalosh regalim literally means the thre e feet, reminding us that since ancient days, three times a year (on Sukkot, Pesach and Shavuot), pilgrims would make a journey to the holy city. The Hebrew word for holiday, hag, has obvious connections to the arabic word haj, teaching us that our core defining holidays are all about making a sacred journey on our own two feet. On this Yizkor of Simchat Torah, in which we are called to hold both joy and grief, there is another reason that I am thinking about feet and shoes. It is because of a poignant newly arising story from the museum at Auschwitz, where this past July a note was found—a little piece of paper—in a child’s shoe on which was written the name Amos Steinberg. This name defines the shoe’s owner and also all that is left of a boy, born in Prague in 1938 and killed with his mother at Auschwitz. Late last month, the museum at Auschwitz linked this little note found inside that child’s shoe to a suitcase in its collection in storage, a suitcase that belonged to Ludwig Steinberg. Steinberg’s name is written on the suitcase as is his transport number. 1 1 Researchers believe that Ludwig Steinberg, is Amos’s (the shoe owner's) father, a man who was deported to Auschwitz on an earlier transport than his wife and son. Miraculously, he survived and in 1949 emigrated to Israel. His Israeli relatives have explained more to the Auschwitz museum staff about Ludwig’s history. Upon arriving in Israel in ’49, he changed his name to Yehuda Shinan. Besides becoming a teacher and principal, he worked as a cantor in several synagogues. And, so, a note left in a little shoe links the death of a young boy and his mother in the gas chambers of Auschwitz to the story of a man, Ludwig Steinberg, who continued—against almost unfathomable odds—not only to survive but to flourish…the story of a family that only endured but experienced rebirth in the land of Israel. Yehudah Shinan died in 1985, 36 years after his arrival in Israel (double chai!), leaving behind six grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. On this pilgrimage festival, I am thinking of life journeys and those of the generations who have come before. I’m thinking of tired feet and of the blessings that have been left for us. V’zot Habracha—We have arrived at the last parsha in our yearly cycle of Torah reading. When God says to Moses: זֹאת ָהאֶָרץ ֲא ֶשׁר נְִשַׁבְּעִתּי ְלאְַבָרָהם ְליְִצָחק וְּליֲַעקֹב ֹ ֵלאמֹר ְלזְַרֲעָך ֶאְתּנֶנָּה ֶהְרִאיִתיָך ְבֵעינֶיָך וְָשָׁמּה לא ַתֲעבֹר This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I will assign it to your offspring. I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you shall not cross there. Deuteronomy 34:4 Moses is told that only the next generation can enter the Promised Land. Our journeys are linked, inextricably to the the journeys of our loved ones who have come before, and every Yizkor invites us to return on a sacred pilgrimage to the visions and aspirations of those we are remembering today, to the work that they began but—like Moses in this week’s parsha—were not able to complete. Yizkor invites us back to their life’s work and their dreams as if in a sacred circle. Another signature element of this holiday (also involving the feet) is the ritual of hakafot, the seven circles made round the synagogue or, in these strange times, perhaps outside. Last night and again this morning, I could hear the voices rising from the field across my street as the seven hakafot were made. I know that neighborhood field from which these voices arose. It’s a dusty one, not a 1https://www.sun-sentinel.com/florida-jewish-journal/fl-jj-childs-shoe-auschwitz-fathers-suitcase-20201007-vr whcnjyobgmxf45lhnrejjjua-story.html 2 spot to which you would wear fancy shoes. So on that note, one more Simchat Torah story, still on the theme of shoes. Talmud teaches that the angels in heaven cannot—on their own—start singing God’s praises. Instead, they must wait each morning, until we, down below, have first initiated the act of prayer. Then, once we have begun, the Heavenly Host can join in. But what often happens on the morning of Simchat Torah, taught the Baal Shem Tov, is that we Jews, we humans, sleep in a bit. For Simchat Torah is not only a holiday of dancing but of a L'chayim! or two). So teaches The Besht one Simchat Torah morning: With all of Am Yisrael asleep, the angels find themselves with nothing to do. They are just waiting around for the prayers from earth to rise up and reach heaven. Thus, even though it’s a holiday, the angels decide they will do some heavenly tidying up just to pass the time. Usually, when they clean up heaven’s floors, the angels come across holy items—a page torn off from a prayerbook, a fringe that came loose from a tallit, a klaf gone missing from a mezuzah, a discarded kippah But on this particular morning, the … angels find heaven littered with old torn up shoes: a scuffed loafer, a broken heel, a worn sandal, a shoelace... Confused, they decided to ask the archangel Michael, the eternal advocate of the Jewish people, if he knows what this is all about. “Yes!” says the angel Michael. “This is, indeed, precious merchandise. in which impoverished, simple Jews danced הקפות For these are the remains of last night’s hakafot with Torah scrolls in their arms. Most of them did not know Hebrew. They didn’t know how to pray ” And so in front of all the assembled Hosts of Heaven, the angel Michael proceeds to sort the … tattered shoes by communities: “These are from Lublin. These are from Mezeritch. These are from Krakow.” Then he explains to the assembled angels, “Usually we wait for prayers from below to arise so that on holidays such as this we can create a crown for the Almighty from the prayers of the people of Israel, but this morning we will not make a crown for the Holy One out the prayers of Am Yisrael. Instead we will create an even more glorious crown. We’ll make a crown from these tattered shoes, those worn by simple Jews who danced last night with all their might—with the Torah in their arms.”2 On this morning of remembrance, I invite you now to consider the life journey, the “pilgrimage” of one person whom you are remembering this morning, to think of those tattered shoes and to acknowledge the hardships, the sacrifices, of that journey taken by your loved one to witness the pilgrimage that was their life. —Silence— On this Simchat Torah/Shemini Atzeret, may we do the mitzvah of atzeret, of ingathering the fullness of memory, remembering the journeys of those who came before—their joy and their tears The shoe discarded at Auschwitz. The tired feet of those who trekked through desert heat to … arrive in Jerusalem. May we remember the dreams of those who had the spiritual courage to leave home, to forge new paths, to wander, to learn, to dance. This Yizkor Simchat Torah, may we see these “shoes”—these journeys, however simple—even with their tattered edges, even with their essence and destination still unfulfilled as forming God's crown. … And may this Shabbat V’Zot HaBracha imbue our hearts with hope and fortitude to continue the journeys of our loved ones making their lives and their legacies an eternal blessing. 2 http://www.ulpanor.com/, from its weekly email blasts with stories and teachings to share 3 .