Toyota, Auschwitz and Chelm (Jewish Week)

Toyota, Auschwitz And Chelm
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Joshua Hammerman
Special To The Jewish Week

This week, I’ll be joining the March of the Living, an annual pilgrimage from Poland to Israel. The experience of the Holocaust stands alone in Jewish history, a godless counterpoint to all things sacred. Alongside the majestic peaks of Sinai and Zion, our view now includes this man-made mountain of children’s shoes, empty luggage and echoing shrieks, a clump of human refuse that dwarfs everything around it, taller than Sinai, more imposing than Zion, more insurmountable than Everest.

As I prepare to face the enormity of Auschwitz for the first time, it occurs to me that since the Shoah, rabbis have become like Toyota salesmen. What, after all, are we selling, but a product once revered, but now proven to be a grand farce? The myth has been summarily detonated, the brand exposed. Just as “Made in Japan” now has reverted to its original derogatory, postwar meaning (cheap, fake, laughable), “Made at Sinai” now feels like its “Made in Japan.”

Oh, we rabbis have been trained well. We’ve developed numerous diversionary strategies to refocus the question (“Where was God? Well, where was man?”) or simply to foster a perpetual state of denial (“We can’t know God’s ways”). Some have chosen to relinquish some of God’s omnipotence, others go much farther. But for the most part, we focus on beating home the message that Judaism still has an important function to serve, even if there’s a gaping hole under the chassis. Some deny that the hole exists, clinging naively to pre-Auschwitz fantasies. It is astonishing how many otherwise intelligent, modern, skeptical Jews buy this theological nonsense, slickly packaged by various ultra-Orthodox groups. But most rabbis, while not denying the seriousness of the challenge, prefer to set the questions aside, suggesting that maybe the next generation will solve the problem.

Over the decades, there have been brilliant attempts to deal with this dilemma. Some, like Richard Rubenstein’s existentialist “After Auschwitz,” have been powerfully honest. Such radical theologies proliferated in the ’60s, during the so-called “Death of God” era. Since then, God has survived quite nicely, thank you, but those bold theologies have yellowed with age. The question of Auschwitz remains as vivid as ever, but after 65 years, we seem to be tiring of asking it.
It makes me wonder: If Toyotas never get fixed, but for 65 years company propagandists spew forth the message that the cars are really safe, will we start believing in them again? Will the producers just wear us down until we tire of asking the questions? That strategy seems to have worked with other products. Some people actually think that cable news is really news. Some Jews believe that the same God who was silent in Auschwitz actually caused Iraqi Scuds to miss their targets in Tel Aviv. The madness has worn us down.

Perhaps the antidote to such madness is a different kind of madness.

The day after we march on Auschwitz, my group will stop off on the way to Warsaw in a quaint town called Chelm, for Jews the eternal capital of absurdity. Chelmites are mythical Jews from a real town, known for their propensity to take logic to its bizarre extreme.

Two men of Chelm went out for a walk, when suddenly it began to rain.

“Quick,” said one. “Open your umbrella.”

“It won’t help,” said his friend. “My umbrella is full of holes.”

“Then why did you bring it?”

“I didn’t think it would rain!”


A New York-based klezmer group named Golem wrote a song recently about a Chelmite who leaves on a journey to Warsaw, gets lost and ends up back in Chelm. “He’s so stupid that he thinks he’s actually in Warsaw,” bandleader Annette Ezekiel told SPIN.com. “The moral is any place can be any place else — it doesn’t matter where you are.”

But for me, it will matter a lot. I’ll be coming from Auschwitz, the darkest place in Jewish history, and then I’ll be staying over in Chelm, the funniest. Chelm will be the place where I wash my hands after visiting this countrywide cemetery, a way station before I head to Jerusalem for the second part of the March.


Two points about Chelm. First, laughter provided a great outlet for those suffering from hunger, poverty and hatred, as the Jews of Poland did for so long. But rather than laugh at real people, the Jewish genius invented a mythical community to laugh at. Not only is that practical (as opposed to laughing at Poles, who might respond by killing you), it is far more ethical to make fun of fake people than real people.


Second, Chelm might hold the key to our getting beyond the theological quandaries of our age. If the commanding voice of Auschwitz has muffled the God of Sinai for the time being, maybe we need to pay more attention to the God of Chelm. The Yiddish aphorism, “Man plans, God laughs,” just might be the most apt theological response to an age of absurdity. It’s not that God is laughing at us; it’s simply that God has taught us that laughter is the only way one can respond to a world of unfathomable evil and unspeakable tragedy, while clinging to life and dignity. Maintaining some semblance of sanity requires a modicum of insanity, an art we’ve been perfecting for centuries, ever since we figured out how a poor peasant living in rags could be transformed into royalty through the simple act of lighting candles, drinking wine and blessing hallah. The first Jewish kid, whose life was replete with tragedy, was nonetheless named laughter (Isaac). We’ve been re-living Isaac’s story ever since.


Would you buy a used Toyota from this God? Perhaps not. But at least the divine gift of laughter gives us the courage to stare directly into that gaping hole in the chassis and laugh at the absurdity of it all, while gasping in amazement that, despite everything, we are alive.

March of the Living: Lancut and Belzec

Greetings from Chelm!

We arrived here at the conclusion of a remarkable day. Read on to find out why.

I've chronicled the experience in photos uploaded here

Find earlier photos here

We left Krakow early this morning and were on the road all day, heading east, through the rolling, lush farmlands of Galicia, toward the Ukrainian border. The small towns and villages of this part of the country has been partitioned over and over, but for the past few centuries, Jews were a large proportion of the population no matter who was in charge, be they Austro-Hungarians, Russians or free Polish...or Germans... until the Holocaust, that is. As we rolled along on a sunny, pleasant day, the grainy black and white photos suddenly gained color, and thick forests took on a fairy tale hue, the grass turned as green as could be. Poland is Europe's breadbasket, and I could see why. I could also see why the mystical threads of Judaism, Hasidism and Kabbala, thrived here. Nature at it's most natural, and most beautiful (outside of Israel, of course).

When we saw a horse pulling a plow, and I almost heard Tevye complaining about it. Yes we saw chickens, loads of chickens, and ducks and even a stork or two. We saw peasant folk aplenty. But what we did not see were Jews, in an area that was once was filled with Jews.

We stopped for lunch in a quaint town called Lancut. The buildings in Poland (frankly) hadn't impressed us too much - until we came here. The photos I uploaded will help you to see why we all felt this was one of the most beautiful shuls we had ever set foot in. Small, colorful, filled with frescoed walls with simple but beautiful artwork and calligraphy.

We sang and danced and prayed, and with the echoes ringing throughout the room, it sounded like many more than just our group were singing. We prayed Mah Tovu, which speaks of the beauty of this place of prayer, as we read its words painted over the entrance to the room. Our singing sounded like we were accompanied by thousands of angels. It got so loud in fact, that a woman came in off the street and asked whether this was indeed a prayer service, intimating that it would be inappropriate for us to be celebrating at a time of national tragedy here. Judy Altmann conversed with her in Polish, assuring her that we were praying. And I stopped for moment while leading the mincha service to explain that we are all sorry for the country's loss and feel solidarity (solidarnosc) with her. She smiled and told Judy that in fact her mother had protected some Jews during the Shoah.

Our next stop, Belzec, was as difficult as Lancut had been enjoyable, (though even through that earlier joy, we knew that we were bringing to life a dead synagogue, whose congregation had primarily been brought here, to Belzec). Nothing remains of the camp, which was destroyed by the Nazis after it had completed its work of rendering Judenrein entire stretches of Poland and surrounding countries. This was solely a death camp, not a labor camp. At least 434,000 Jews were killed systematically, and only a few hundred remained alive at any time, only a handful of them surviving the war.

Then, as we began to say Kaddish for the victims, Judy told us that she had found a plaque memorializing her village (all the Jewish communities that were sent to Belzec are memorialized at the site). This brought closure to one of the great unknowns of her family's life. If her village had all been brought here, as was now confirmed, this is where her sister died. She had never known this before. It was a cathartic moment for her, bringing her to tears. Our group has bonded closely with Judy, so this became a tear-filled, cathartic moment for the teens as well. Many came up to comfort her. Some of us walked back to that spot and I photographed it for her (see it among the uploaded photos). We chanted the memorial prayer, so that now Judy's sister would be properly memorialized, at her own place of burial. We all felt fortunate to have helped her fulfill this quest, as painful as it was, and to achieve some closure.

It was just another example of the remarkable sensitivity of the teens in this group. It is a privilege to be sharing this time with them.

Following Belzec, our group drove another couple of hours to Chelm, where we rest tonight, just a few miles from the Ukrainian border The hotel is actually nicer than the one in Krakow, but some of you may recall that I was concerned about riding in an elevator in a place known to Jewish legend as being unable to distinguish up from down. Well, sure enough, when we entered the lobby, one of the elevators was being worked on - out of order. And when I rode the other one, I discovered to my dismay that there is no inside door. Welcome to Chelm.

Yes, this is an emotional roller coaster - with a tough day upcoming tomorrow, but many more highs than lows to come. But I am learning much more about the Holocaust than I ever knew before, and the shtetl world we left behind. The grainy black and white is gone forever now.

Laila Tov from the tired man of Chelm

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman

March of the Living: The March

Imagine an Olympic village in the shadows of Ground Zero. That is in essence the March. I've uploaded nearly 200 photos from today - at http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=fazo8qdab.0.0.v784x5cab.0&ts=S0474&p=http%3A%2F%2Fpicasaweb.google.com%2Fjoshuahct%2FMarchOfTheLiving2010&id=preview#

Scroll down half way and you'll find today's photos.

The weather cleared and was beautiful and sunny, if a bit windy at times. A perfect day for a leisurely stroll... even one from Auschwitz to Birkenau. Not just any stroll, but one including nearly 10,000 of our closest friends. It was a celebration of Jewish life. Our kids really got into it, trading pins and meeting up with Jewish teens from all over the world. They had never seen so many Jews in one place before (until next week, when they'll see that many in front of them in Jerusalem traffic). They felt great about being Jewish.

For survivor Judy Altmann, her return to Auschwitz might actually have been one of the happiest days of her life, for she got the message resoundingly clear, that not only will her people live on, but so will the story she has spent most of her life telling. We will remember. The next generation will remember.

The recent tragedy in Poland was also remembered appropriately. Our group wore black ribbons that our hotel staff procured for us - they were very grateful for our consideration of their loss - and there were several reminders of the tragedy in today's program, including a moment of silence. There was singing, but it was muted somewhat in deference to the people of Poland.

The program followed the pattern on many Yom Hashoah programs (except with big names like Natan Sharansky and Dudu Fisher on the bill). You can see the entire ceremony streamed at the website of Jewish Life TV http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=fazo8qdab.0.0.v784x5cab.0&ts=S0474&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jewishlifetv.com%2Fhome.php&id=preview
Early wake up tomorrow - we are headed for Chelm (and other places). Internet permitting (and in Chelm we might have to make due with two cups and a string), I'll upload more photos and commentary.

But make sure to take a look at today's, to get a real flavor for the event:
http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=fazo8qdab.0.0.v784x5cab.0&ts=S0474&p=http%3A%2F%2Fpicasaweb.google.com%2Fjoshuahct%2FMarchOfTheLiving2010&id=preview# - scroll down half way.

Laila Tov

See below for video of Sharansky speech, plus two songs, including (bottom) "What Will Become of the Memories."

March of the Living: A Visit to Hell

(click on photos to enlarge)

From March of the Living 2010

From March of the Living 2010

From March of the Living 2010

While Poland begins to absorb the shock of its terrible loss, the March of the Living takes place tomorrow. This is a national week of mourning here, as declared by the government. In a statement released not long ago, MOTL states:

We join our Polish brothers and sisters in their time of sorrow, and express our deepest sympathies for their loss. Our thoughts, hopes and prayers are with them during this difficult time. During the March of the Living, we will express our solidarity with the Polish people over their loss by observing a moment of silence in honor of those who died in this tragic accident.


Today was rainy and cold, and our group spend several hours touring Auschwitz / Birkenau. Knowing that the victims had no warm bus to return to, the teens were patient and resilient. The visit hit a deep emotional chord in all of us - for some that took the form of more outward emoting, but everyone was cared for - and this evening, the teens have had a chance to "process" this difficult day.

Earlier in the day we held morning services at the Tempel Synagogue, where we had gone on Shabbat. The synagogue occasionally opens for foreign groups like ours. This congregation was totally wiped out in the Holocaust. So when we said the mourner's kaddish this morning, each of us said it in memory of the person who used to occupy that seat. And again, as we did yesterday (but this time just our group), we danced the Krakow Niggun, created by
Shlomo Carlebach after the Holocaust.



Before the service, we had some moments outside the temple (waiting for the caretaker to show up with the key), giving our Kulanu group a chance to send this video greeting:


This evening, we ushered in Yom Hashoah with a program back at our Krakow hotel, as students read poetry and we heard from survivor Judy Altmann, who today returned for the first time to the place where she last saw her parents and where she lost 22 members of her family. Earlier. she had found the building in Birkenau where she had stayed, barrack 14, and described to the kids how she was able to scrounge for food in order to survive. This evening, she tearfully thanked the staff and teens for giving her this opportunity, and she called upon us to remember the victims not as emaciated prisoners and ashes, but as they were at home, before the Holocaust, surrounded by their loved ones. I'll be sending along her message to the community back home for the Yom Hashoah program on Monday evening.

From March of the Living 2010

The trip to Auschwitz took about an hour. As the bus we passed small rolling towns outside of Krakow, it was hard to believe that we were approaching the place we had heard about all these years. It is too soon for me to give many details, but as you look at the photos you'll see how expansive Birkenau is. That is where the bulk of the killing took place, and those barracks that remain are close to their original - inhuman - condition. Auschwitz, a mile and a half away, is more compact and dressed up. It was originally a Polish military training camp, so the facilities are more substantive, built of an orangy-brick vaguely reminiscent of some neighborhoods in Queens. But what went on inside those buildings was simply the greatest crime against humanity of all time. We went there second and spent time at the museum, seeing up close the machinery of mass murder - how efficient it was. At the tours conclusion, we walked into a gas chamber, staring up at the vents through which the Zyklon B was deposited into the room. We saw the ovens as well, as you can see in the photos.

Tomorrow: the March.

I've uploaded a number of new photos from today; those pictures will speak far louder than my words.

Click on the photo below (or here) for the complete, updated photo album with over a hundred new photos, and click on any of the photos to enlarge. Once you are on the page, scroll down for most recent photos. A slide show of these same photos can be seen below that.





To everyone back in Stamford, a meaningful and reflective Yom Hoshoah, from here in Poland.

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman

The March of the Living in a Grieving Nation

Krakow - In a stunning historic twist, the March of the Living this week has been transformed into an extended shiva call. While maintaining our original purposes for being here, to remember the Shoah and express solidarity with the Jewish people everywhere, now some attention must be turned to our hosts. This week we are not only mourning our own tragedies. Simply because we happen to be here as emissaries of the Jewish people to the world, we are playing a role in several different healing processes.

Although we recall very different tragedies, everyone here in Poland this week, Jew and Pole alike is crying tears of loss. Both here and in Israel on Sunday nations will stand in silent attention for two minute memorial sirens. And those tears, if shared, could help mend the long term wounds that have divided Pole from Jew.

We need to recall how the hand of friendship extended to Jews from a Pope native to this very city did so much in healing those relations, as did the policies of the late president Lech Kaczynski, who visited Israel not log ago. Now it’s our turn to return the favor.

We’re not doing anything heroic, mind you, and the teens are having an incredible time. But now new lessons must be added to the lessons of the Shoah…like how to go up to the clerk at the desk of our hotel and say “I’m sorry” in Polish.

Our Polish guide spoke to us this evening about today’s events, calling it a nightmare from which he hoped the nation would soon awaken. He gave us background on the people involved, the political system and the meaning to Poles of the Katyn_Massacre. He broke down when mentioning Kaczynski in the past tense, or when describing the others who perished on the plane, who represented the entire Polish political spectrum. We asked what we could do. One girl asked how to say "I'm sorry." I asked him whether it might be a good idea for us to wear black ribbons while marching at Auschwitz on Monday. He cried again, saying that yes, the Polish people will be paying attention. I don’t know if we’ll be able to pull it off, since everything in the country is closed on Sunday in the best of times, but I hope that the March organizers are on the phone right now calling Riverside with a very big order of black ribbons, because from such small gestures come great healing. We recalled Bill Clinton’s attending the funeral of Yitzchak Rabin and how his simple words “Shalom Haver” (“Goodbye Friend”) bought Clinton a lifetime of love and trust from the Israeli people (who, as the current White House occupant knows, do not easily give their hearts to politicians).

We are here. We have chosen to be here to represent the Jewish people. This is our moment to say “Shalom, Haver.”

Only someone devoid of a soul could sit in this beautiful city and not feel Poland’s pain tonight. Walking in the main square of Old Krakow this afternoon, with Polish flags and black ribbons sprouting everywhere, the faces of the shopkeepers were a study in numbed sadness. This morning, when we heard the news at services (see more on that below), I commented that the portion contained Aaron’s response to the sudden, tragic deaths of his sons: stunned silence. The faces on the street today were the faces of Aaron. And since relatively few here speak English, there was no way to communicate sympathy, except through a fleeting sympathetic glance. Now I know that all we need to do is say “Przepraszam” (pshehprahshahm), “I’m sorry,” and we’ll have played an important role in the Polish healing process - and in our own as well.

If we blow it, especially if we blow it because of ancient anger, however justified, for past Polish action (or inaction), we will be guilty of handing Hitler a posthumous triumph. He will have robbed us of our humanity.

-------------------------------------------

Now, some notes on our New England Group's second day in Poland:

Our group spent a most extraordinary Shabbat here in Krakow. We learned of the tragedy this morning during services held at the progressive Tempel Synagogue, a beautiful and ornate testament to the vibrant diversity that was Jewish Krakow before the Holocaust. It is now an empty shell (though painstakingly restored since the war) and no longer an active shul, so the service this morning was conducted by March of the Living groups who happened to be staying in Krakow. We were joined by a group of about a hundred from Australia, along with groups from France, Israel and Long Island. The service reflected different styles, Ashkenazi and Sephardic, Orthodox and Liberal (though the women sat separately) and some of our teens had parts. We had our first taste of the other side of the March experience, the side that is not sad but life-affirming, the chance to share a moment with Jews from around the world. It was thrilling to share this service today with these other groups, and the geographic and denominational differences just didn’t seem to matter.

A highlight was our singing and dancing to the special Hasidic melody known as the Krakow Niggun, put to the prayer El Adon. Suddenly the echoes returned of that time when the sanctuary was filled with Jews who actually lived here. For a fleeting moment, at felt as if there never had been sadness at all – as Shlomo Carlebach visualized when he was inspired to write that melody right here. It was beautiful.

The portion this week, Shemini, contained the inexplicable tragedy of the sudden deaths of Aaron’s two sons – on a day and weekend when we mark the unspeakably horrors of the Shoah as well, now, of this Polish tragedy, the portion gained a sudden added relevance.

In truth, everything has more relevance now, most especially prayer. I was privileged to lead Kabbalat Shabbat last night at our hotel, and the very act of praying as Jews on the ground where a generation ago our people were butchered so mercilessly added a new sense of urgency to the prayers. And the knowledge that those same victims prayed so relentlessly for a salvation that never came added a tone of complexity as well. But more than anything, there was a feeling of celebration and togetherness. We ended the service with a special Kaddish for the 6 million, something that we’ll be doing throughout the week.

We had lunch today in another old shul, the Isaak Synagogue, with frescoes of Hebrew tests lining the walls. Then the teens had processing sessions, as they will constantly on this trip, to discuss their experiences with one another. In the afternoon, many took a walking tour of the vibrant Old Town, which although subdued on this tragic day, still was vibrant and lovely. The weather had been cool since our arrival, but the walk began in bright sunshine – and ended in a hailstorm. That’s right, hail. It was brief, but long enough to make us wonder which of the nine remaining plagues would follow. But undaunted, we huddled for protection under the large umbrellas of a café on the square. Those pellets of ice just turned into another icebreaker. Soon they were gone, the sun reappeared and we walked the short distance back to our hotel, as streams of locals were pouring out of an impromptu memorial to their slain president held at the nearby cathedral. They walked past us with those sad 9/11 eyes.

Now we will know what to say to them.

Hammerman on Ethics: Keeping an Undeserved Bonus

Hammerman on Ethics: Keeping an Undeserved Bonus

(The Jewish Week)

Q. My boss has decided to give me a big bonus for something I only helped with; another worker deserves it more than I do. But I need the money, and she is pretty well off. What's the right thing to do?

A. Maybe your contribution was more integral to the success of the project than you realize. But, regardless, you should be forthcoming. Not only does our tradition demand honesty in how we conduct business, but it's really the most practical professional decision you can make. more

MARCH OF THE LIVING - #1

It is just before Shabbat here in Krakow, and I wanted to rush to you our first day's report from the March of the Living. I've uploaded a number of photos from our first day of touring. You can find them at my Picasa account: http://picasaweb.google.com/joshuahct/MarchOfTheLiving2010#


Check for updates through the week - and please forward the link to all those who know people on the trip.

Our flight was delayed somewhat but otherwise uneventful - except for the fact that we were on a plane with hundreds of Jewish teenagers from across the US, flying on the airline of the Jewish state into the very place where Jews were marked for extermination just a generation ago. That, one could say, was eventful. For a planeload of teens, it was remarkably civilized. Of course they filled the aisles and socialized late into the night. But no complaining - maybe on some level they all understood the irony of their taking this journey, one that only a few decades ago was taken by boxcar under much different circumstances. People could bear the lack of legroom and delayed departure, knowing that this was a very different journey to the very same place.

We hit the ground running (once the Polish airport authorities could find a ladder long enough for this jumbo plane - another delay, but a comical one), meeting up with the rest of our staff and heading out to see some crucial sites. In the photos you will see photos of the old Jewish ghetto area, as well as Oscar Schindler's factory (white building, we did not go in), the memorial at the Plaszow forced labor camp, also made famous from Schindler's List and the Rema Synagogue and cemetery. If you look closely at the wall of the cemetery, you can see it is constructed from tombstones desecrated by the Nazis. But the synagogue (founded by the family of the great Rabbi Moses Isserles of Shulchan Aruch fame) still stands as it was before the war.

At Plaszow, we heard the first of what promises to be many inspiring messages from Judy Altmann, a most articulate survivor, well known to many in Stamford, who has joined us and on Sunday will be returning to Auschwitz for the first time.

In ten minutes, I'll be leading Kabbalat Shabbat services for our New England group, about 90 strong, situated here in downtown Krakow at a quaint hotel (and I will tell them how proud I was to see how they helped one another get their luggage up the stairs... yes, stairs.) Setting the tone for this trip - having Shabbat be the ice breaker, in effect, is a daunting task.

For the parents in the group - all your kids are having a great time. We are all in good hands. The Poles are curious about us but everything is very friendly.

Best wishes from Krakow, Poland, and wishing everyone a Shabbat Shalom.

Meanwhile, you can read my pre-trip musings:Toyota, Auschwitz and Chelm. How has the Holocaust turned rabbis into Toyota salesmen... and what can we do about it?

Toyota, Auschwitz and Chelm

Toyota, Auschwitz and Chelm
By Joshua Hammerman

Tomorrow, I’ll be joining the March of the Living, an annual pilgrimage from Poland to Israel.

The experience of the Holocaust stands alone in Jewish history, a godless counterpoint to all things sacred. Alongside the majestic peaks of Sinai and Zion, our view now includes this man-made mountain of children’s shoes, empty luggage and echoing shrieks, a clump of human refuse that dwarfs everything around it, taller than Sinai, more imposing than Zion, more insurmountable than Everest.

As I prepare to face the enormity of Auschwitz for the first time, it occurs to me that since the Shoah, rabbis have become like Toyota salesmen. What, after all, are we selling, but a product once revered, but now proven to be a grand farce. The myth has been summarily detonated, the brand exposed. Just as “Made in Japan” now has reverted to its original derogatory, postwar meaning (cheap, fake, laughable), “Made at Sinai” now feels like its “Made in Japan.”

Oh, we rabbis have been trained well. We’ve developed numerous diversionary strategies to refocus the question (“Where was God? Well, where was MAN?”) or simply to foster a perpetual state of denial (“We can’t know God’s ways”). Some have chosen to relinquish some of God’s omnipotence, others go much farther. But for the most part, we focus on beating home the message that Judaism still has an important function to serve, even if there’s a gaping hole under the hood. Some deny that the hole exists, clinging naively to pre-Auschwitz fantasies. It is astonishing how many otherwise intelligent, modern, skeptical Jews buy this theological nonsense, slickly packaged by various ultra-Orthodox groups. But most rabbis, while not denying the seriousness of the challenge, prefer to set the questions aside, suggesting that maybe the next generation will solve the problem.

Over the decades, there have been brilliant attempts to deal with this dilemma. Some, like Richard Rubenstein’s existentialist “After Auschwitz,” have been powerfully honest. Such radical theologies proliferated in the ‘60s, during the so called “Death of God” era. Since then, God has survived quite nicely, thank you, but those bold theologies have yellowed with age. The question of Auschwitz remains as vivid as ever, but after 65 years, we seem to be tiring of asking it.

It makes me wonder: If Toyotas never get fixed, but for 65 years company propagandists spew forth the message that the cars are really safe, will we start believing in them again? Will the producers just wear us down until we tire of asking the questions? That strategy seems to have worked with other products. Some people actually think that cable news is really news. Some Jews believe that the same God who was silent in Auschwitz actually caused Iraqi Scuds to miss their targets in Tel Aviv. The madness has worn us down.

Perhaps the antidote to such madness is a different kind of madness. The day after we march on Auschwitz, my group will stop off on the way to Warsaw in a quaint town called Chelm, for Jews the eternal capital of absurdity. Chelmites are mythical Jews from a real town, known for their propensity to take logic to its bizarre extreme.

Two men of Chelm went out for a walk, when suddenly it began to rain."Quick," said one. "Open your umbrella.""It won't help," said his friend. "My umbrella is full of holes.""Then why did you bring it?""I didn't think it would rain!"

A New York based Klezmer group named Golem wrote a song recently about a Chelmite who leaves on a journey to Warsaw, gets lost and ends up back in Chelm. "He's so stupid that he thinks he's actually in Warsaw,” bandleader Annette Ezekiel told SPIN.com. “The moral is any place can be any place else -- it doesn't matter where you are."

But for me, it will matter a lot. I’ll be coming from Auschwitz, the darkest place in Jewish history, and then I’ll be staying over in Chelm, the funniest. Chelm will be the place where I wash my hands after visiting this countrywide cemetery, a way station before I head to Jerusalem for the second part of the March.

Two points about Chelm. First, laughter provided a great outlet for those suffering from hunger, poverty and hatred, as the Jews of Poland did for so long. But rather than laugh at real people, the Jewish genius invented a mythical community to laugh at. Not only is that practical (as opposed to laughing at Poles, who might respond by killing you), it is far more ethical to make fun of fake people than real people.

Second, Chelm might hold the key to our getting beyond the theological quandaries of our age. If the commanding voice of Auschwitz has muffled the God of Sinai for the time being, maybe we need to pay more attention to the God of Chelm. The Yiddish aphorism, “Man plans, God laughs,” just might be the most apt theological response to an age of absurdity. It’s not that God is laughing at us, simply that God has taught us that laughter is the only way one can respond to a world of unfathomable evil and unspeakable tragedy, while clinging to life and dignity.

Maintaining some semblance of sanity requires a modicum of insanity, an art we’ve been perfecting for centuries, ever since we figured out how a poor peasant living in rags could be transformed into royalty through the simple act of lighting candles, drinking wine and blessing hallah on a Friday night. If that isn’t a little taste of madness, what is? The first Jewish kid, whose life was replete with tragedy, was nonetheless named laughter (Isaac). We’ve been re-living Isaac’s story ever since.

Would you buy a used Toyota from this God? Perhaps not. But at least the divine gift of laughter gives us the courage to stare directly into that gaping hole in the chassis and laugh at the absurdity of it all, while gasping in amazement that, despite everything, we are alive.

Hammerman on Ethics: Renting Dodger Stadium for a Bar Mitzvah

Here's the latest blog posting from my ethics column at the Jewish Week: Renting Dodger Stadium for a Bar Mitzvah

When is a Bar or Bat Mitzvah too much?
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Rabbi Joshua Hammerman
Special to the Jewish Week

Question: My husband wants a lavish bar mitzvah for our son next year. I think it's wrong to spend $ 50,000 on a party for a 13 year old kid when so many of our fellow Jews are experiencing hard times. What does Jewish law have to say about this?

Answer: You're right, sort of. And your husband is all wrong. Did you know that $50,000 can feed 10,000 malnourished African children for a week? I think I once saw that on a UNICEF box. Yes, Jewish law frowns on spending excessively and consuming conspicuously; but it's not simply a matter of sensitivity to those enduring hard times. Click here for the rest of the response.

TBE Bar/Bat Mitzvah Commentary: Jessica Schwartz on Tzav

As you undoubtedly know, Passover begins this coming week. Today is Shabbat Hagadol, the special Shabbat just before the holiday. I love Passover because it’s one of the very few times all year, when both sides of my family come together and everyone is in the same place for the same reason. Because it’s my bat mitzvah it’s great, we can extend the celebration for a few more days!

Passover has many messages, but maybe the most significant one of all is that it teaches us how important it is to overcome fear.

The Exodus story has two major decision points, where, if the Israelites had made the wrong choice, we would still be slaves in Egypt today. Worst of all, we wouldn’t get the chance to eat matzah, and believe it or not, I LOVE matzah.

The first example of the Israelites overcoming their fear was when they had to mark their doorpost with lamb’s blood so that the angel of death would pass over their houses. It wasn’t easy to do that knowing that their neighbors would know they are Jews and could take revenge against them. This also took a lot courage knowing that they were still slaves.

The second big moment was at the Red Sea. The Jews had to decide whether to go through. There is a midrash about Nachshon, who was the first Israelite to enter the sea when Pharaoh's army pursued the fleeing slaves. Legend has it that he went in the water up to his neck, not even knowing to how swim before the water finally parted. It took real courage to risk his life and hope that G-d would save him.

Whenever you face a moment of truth or a big decision, you have to go with your gut instinct – the voice inside that either says, “Do it,” or “don’t.”

I know that feeling. It’s the voice that helps you to overcome the fear that can keep you from doubting yourself and never moving forward.

I hear that voice whenever I put on a pair of skis.

The first time I skied was when I was around three. I loved it right away. I started off on the bunny hills just like everyone else, and quickly progressed through different ability levels. Now i have been competing for the past four years on the Mount Snow Freestyle Team. In the past my ranking has qualified me to compete in Eastern Championships. Freestyle skiing is a very subjective sport, but for me what’s more important than what judges think, is that I am always trying to improve myself.

Improvement is more than about developing new skills. It usually means overcoming fear. My favorite competition is Big Air or otherwise known as aerials. The way you are judged in Aerials is based off how you execute your trick, how high you went off the jump, and your landing. No matter how good I get there is always a fear factor to overcome.

As I build up speed and approach the jump, I literally tell myself “Go straight.” Sometimes I sing. Sometimes I scream. Actually, I always scream. One time the judges took away points because i screamed to loud. But somehow the screaming seems not to hurt my scores – and if I focused on not screaming it would probably distract me and hurt my scores. In a way you can build off of your fear to accomplish great things.

At one competition about a month ago – and yes, I was jumping a month before my bat mitzvah! – I decided to build up the confidence to go off the higher jump. It was the first time I was jumping from something that big – and it was extremely scary. I was jumping 20 feet off the ground. Well, I was crying in the air – while screaming. And yes, this time I got some points deducted. And I didn’t quite land it – but I was so happy that I tried to do the jump, something that few girls in the competition dared to try. Although i was far from successful, I overcame my fear.

One thing I’ve learned from skiing. Is that if you think, “I’m going to fall,” chances are you will. If you think positively things usually have a way of working itself out. Half the battle is building up the confidence.

The same is true with becoming a bat mitzvah. It takes real courage to stand up here. Which is harder – doing today’s haftarah or a new trick on a jump? I’m not sure, but both take a lot of work and practice.

Becoming a bat mitzvah is about much more than what I am doing up here today. It’s about practicing and learning – and then applying it. In skiing I have competitions. In Judaism, the competition is not today, but every time I have to make an important decision to do something that could help the world. And another difference is that there’s no loser when you make the right decision. Everyone wins.

There’s another difference between overcoming fear on the slopes and on the bima. When I’m up here, I’ve really been trying not to scream!


For my mitzvah project, this will be the second year that i will participate in Relay for Life. Relay for life is an overnight event that brings communities together in a fight against cancer. It is a way to celebrate cancer survivors, remember loved ones, and fight back against the disease that's takes too much for too many. We relay overnight because cancer never sleeps, and we will keep fighting until we find cures. I relay to be part of the change. I relay because cancer affects people in a horrible way and takes loved ones from us far to quickly. I relay to remanded hopeful that we can fight back and make a difference.