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The bus grinds over the sandy dirt road between Zamosc and my home town, Tishevits, I am sunk in my own difficult experiences of the day. Y. L. Peretz, the great Jew and poet no longer reposes in Warsaw. How can he lie quietly in his resting place, between his best friends Dinezon, and Ansky, while his fellow Jews were being exterminated? Y.L. Peretz was tortured with every Jew individually on the road to Belzec. With every Jewish congregation, he was there.

It is the evening of Tisha B'Av. The bus speeds to the suburb, over the long bridge, passing through the courtyard, bumping over the other little bridge at the beginning of the shtetl. But where is the city? We stop at the police station on the other side of town. Where did the shtetl disappear to? Where have we strayed to? My throat constricts with a burning thirst as if I were wandering around in a desert. There is no shtetl.

It was burned down by the retreating Poles in September 1939.^[1] There was a labor camp in Tishevits. No trace of a house. I can't find the place where our house stood. No memory of a city, no wall, chimney, no foundation, just holes and overgrown graves from which black, angry crows scream. Who has so devastated the shtetl? The Poles, our neighbors for hundreds of years, lay in wait for the Jewish poor to rob them. They, who shot at the retreating Red Army, they who wanted to undermine the new peoples' government with savage impassioned shouts in Lublin: “ Daj nam boga, give us God!” These were the very ones who helped murder the Jews. They searched and rummaged for gold

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and money in the walls, in the cellars. They looted everything; stole, and left blind graves overgrown with spiky grass.

The sky is burning. The sun is a bloody revolving circle, and blood pours from brick stairs into the desolation. The crows fly off with frightened crowing; they play in the burning rays of the sun.

What day is it today? Tisha B'Av. But I am hearing the Sabbath Eve song of Shir Hashirim. Here, it seems, the Husiatyn shtibl stood, the besmedresh, the shul with its paintings of trumpets, the tribes with flags, the ark of the covenant, the Jews wandering in the desert, the Leviathan eating its tail, because if he takes it out of his mouth, the world comes to an end and returns to emptiness and desolation. The sky at twilight flickers above us. Here it descends and flames encircle us. We stride through a world that shouts in flames but is not consumed. A wasteland! Hot dust whirls. Black rooks crow, jump over the ditches. An old Polish woman who speaks Yiddish wrings her hands, “I don't remember you, but I knew your parents, mamelach! God in heaven, do you remember my husband, my Benedict? The bandits killed him too.”

The Polish lawyer in town, Jeremczik, and his wife (who lived in Detroit as a girl) take us around. He himself was in Auschwitz for five years. She tells me in English certain facts about the slaughter. A lot of Jews are buried in the meadows, in the fields. We come to the river that led to the pasture. The bathhouse was once here, the poorhouse. A broad, swift, current circled around the gardens and willows. Now the river is dry, a swampy-green sheet spread over the pools of water. We jump over. You see, in these very pools, blood flowed for hours from the Jews shot and stabbed. Twice, the great slaughters of annihilation took place: the first, Shavuot 1942, and the second and last, two weeks after the Days of Awe. Here behind the cabbage and beet gardens lie the majority of Tishevits's murdered Jews, as well as Jews from Czechoslovakia. Here in the lavatory ditch, they slaughtered and threw the still breathing Jews, and boarded it up with wood.

I tear open a board: skinned bodies, broken skulls. I fall on the prickly thorns. Only my lips are burning with thirst. The sun bloodies the Lipowiec forest. To me, it looks like the smashed wheel of the incinerated mill. The wheel is in flames. Blood murmurs and swims over its blades. I do not cry, but the pain is like someone holding glowing iron against my darkening eyes. I am blinded.

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The wife weeps and says, “I myself was sick. There was a Jewish girl living with me. Beautiful and good as an angel. She came to beg me to hide her. But how could you hide anyone in a shtetl that had burned down? And the non-Jewish residents–the Poles, and Ukrainians actively helped the Nazis. That was the most horrifying. Polish neighbors leading their Jewish neighbors to death. I parted from the girl, and as soon as she left my house, she was dragged by her golden braids, and stabbed to death by the haystack, her and her parents, and her little brothers and sisters. Do you see this little room? Here they used to lock up the sinners.”

I went out to the meadow. The moon rose, and glistened among the shattered skulls. Flocks of crows were shouting from the poplars. I thought I was going to go mad. I hear all this, and I am mute.

I want to weep, but the well of tears has dried up. I want to scream, but the shout will not tear itself out. It is quiet; night is falling in the meadow. A shepherd boy behind the haystack in the pasture whistles a sad melody. The wooden church is old and sunken. The smell of cut hay spreads over the meadow. We jump back over the river. It's beginning to get dark. We head for the orchard in the courtyard, to the old cemetery. But we are walking on tombstones, letters worn out. But here and there, something remains: “Ma'aseh b'shnei achim,” “Haniftar bakash shelo yichtivo acheirav shum shebach.” The cemetery is ploughed up. A garden of all kinds of weeds. A high school has been constructed where the gate was. My grandfather's grave, my older brother's tombstone leaning on a hollowed out tree–no trace remaining of the big holy place where, according to legend, Meshiach Ben Yosef rested. Jews had worn grooves on his grave, in their stockinged feet, and left notes to God. The Nazis ploughed up the field, desecrating life and death.

Darkness descends on us. I remember in deep sorrow that it is Tisha B'Av tonight. I cannot, under any circumstances, remember the sad melody of “Eykhe,” even as I picture the Jews in their socks, on the overturned benches. I do not walk among ruins. Everything has been destroyed. Why am I not shouting? It is as if we were paralyzed. It becomes dark. Dense darkness covers the desolation.

Burning thirst. I go to the well. But as I am about to raise the bucket, a broad shouldered farmer appears behind me. He grabs the scoop and pours the water back. “Before you can drink the water, you have to boil it. The water is not clean. Once, when the Jews were here, there was a pump. Today, there are no Jews, no

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shtetl, no pump. Dead. My name is Kalmik. The police station on the second floor is mine. You are, it seems, the son of the zhezhnik?” (The shochet's son). Yes, I reply.

“Do you know, perhaps, where and when my relatives were killed?” No, he scratches himself and groans. “Where, you know yourself already. But how, this I can't tell you. Better you don't know. See, there behind the stable, Jews are also buried. Their heads were split with iron bars as they tried to escape to the Lipowiec forest. Who did this? And if you did know, how would it make things easier for you?”

I can't fall asleep.It seems to me, that the darkness froths and pours, like waves of water, over me. I am covered with hot cold sweat, and tears are running from my eyes. Grief tears open the well of tears. I bury my head in the straw sack, and sob. My friends dream and groan. They sob in their dreams. Suddenly, I think it's Shabbes. Shabbes candles are blinking in the shtetl, but they do not flame for long. They go out. I try, my eyes closed in the darkness, to relight them, to get them to shine and tremble again through the windowpanes. But I can't, under any circumstances, see the same picture of a Friday evening with lit, winking Shabbes candles. They have gone out.

The following day, the desolate view of my home town disappears with the bus. Silver dew trembles on the thorny mass grave. Again tears gush from my eyes. We know that they will lie there like that, in the middle of a pasture, without a gravestone. No Jew will come here anymore to grieve over them. We are the last ones to walk over their graves in sorrow. We also know that what happened to my birthplace Tishevits, Komarow, and Zamosc, also happened to all the Jewish cities and shtetlach in Poland.

My entire body is pierced by woe. In sorrow and rage, I clench my fists, “Zacharta et asa l'cha Nazi-Amalek!” Arise, take revenge on the annihilators of our people, and the fascist beasts everywhere!

Footnote:

1. The author was incorrectly informed. The shtetl was set on fire by the local villagers. See the pinkas regarding these events. Ed. Return

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And suddenly, I am here again The old cemetery Is now a wheat field The door squeaks no more In the wind. The red stone Of the holy R' Aharon Kozak[1] No longer towers with courage Over the fence And the hunched little tree Over the latutnik's[2] grave No longer shades With secrets and obscurity. Everything is open now And so true, As is written in the verse: Tzion sadeh techaresh[3]

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O how grandmother and mother Bewailed this verse Every Tishebov. I stand here now In the open field. Somewhere here Your grave is hidden. Your memory– Arisen in green. A muted cry Hovers in the air, A hidden shudder In the grass. It's quieter than quiet. Destruction passes In silence. The whole shtetl–a desolate field. Stone upon stone And catastrophe upon catastrophe Among grass and moss. When you, my brother, were pierced By the bomb, The first disaster in our house– Everyone wept. Even the gentile street, With sorrow crossed themselves And the white church Let the bells ring A whole night. Father became grey overnight. Lost himself in study And sang of the tragedy. Suppressed the groans Like his face with the dense beard. Only his eyes gently caressed

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our little heads, bent over the Gemara. Enlightened us with simplicity And simple understanding. Mother shriveled up And became thinner. Trembles over us and flutters; Fills her days and nights Urgently bustling around Over poverty's houses On our street. Touches fevered heads and examines Swollen tongues Places bankes[4] and cleans Vermin with ointment And above all– Takes on so much Of someone's problems, Her own to conceal. “What do you know, dear father-in-law, How many calamities, God forbid, Are dug into the rags Of our street.”– She consoled grandmother Sarah Who at the hollow chimney By the guttering night lightv Lamented in her prayers Along with her horror That hovers over the house Since uncle Yoineh Stopped sending from the front The short interrupted postcards. Like an open wound the tragedy hangs Over the house, And grandmother Sarah laments it Every morning with the korbn minche[5] siddur And groans through the night

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leaning her head on the pillow with the red stone. And when the heart overflows, They both cover themselves In black scarves, And hurry through the back alleys To you and fall upon Your stone. “Run to the divine throne, Issachar my crown, Move heaven and earth With our weeping; Do not let grandfather rest In his Garden of Eden, And all the good pious people, rise up With a warning call, ki ba'u mayim ad nafesh.”[6] Now there is no more weeping– There is no one running to move heaven and earth No one to run to in the desolate field. There remains at least a tombstone for you; From uncle Yoineh a memory arrived, A brown envelope with a black border. So they wept over this, And nevertheless accepted the decree. But from them, from the whole family And all the neighbors– Nothing remains– Empty nothingness. Aunt Chayeh with all her loved ones, Aunt Nechameh and her household, Eighteen in number I think, And uncle Sholem, aunt Beileh And the entire “vull.” Maybe I actually came

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To raise the interrupted melody Of the whole family Laid out on the meadow Over the bridge And near the water mill; And all our neighbors The people Flekl, Hammer and Shtift, With hands like briquettes And shoulders like walls. The whole neighborhood they Renewed and coated; Taken to markets And out into the world; Filled all the taverns With open speech and noise And the anterooms of “good Jews” Like quiet lambs. Their daughters mouths were full of Folk songs, And their boys In the trade unions Fought with their own father. It's quiet in the “vole,” No one's about, No one is coming. Just a page, half-burned From some library book Lies in the dirt. You know The pharmacist with the pointy moustache Who once showed the Cossacks Where a Jew was hiding in the “voul,” He is here. He is still buddy-buddy With the rascal from the other side of the bridge. They both live

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In the big wall Not far from here. All day long they rummage in the ruins, Practically explode From joyous laughter With every find. Like their great grandfather Liach the greedy, king of the swamps– Half man half devil– They reign here with schadenfreud In their idleness. Also Yanina, the crazy whore Is with them. Drink away the Sundays together With full kiddush cups. They are here, “Protected and shielded To the glory of the lord From all eternity And his redeemer.” So all the bells ring out From the white little church on the hill. But from our family With all the neighbors– No one. Only in me, Are they present,– Just like you with the mute tombstones With which the muddy roads Were paved. I wander about here aimlessly For the last time. My feet stagger on the “Po nitmanas.” The fields around shudder

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And the earth is silent Under the hot sun. My senses are alert I start at every rustle Of a leaf in the wind. “Maybe a sliver of a word An echo of a nigun[7] That accompanied our grandfathers For a full 7 hundred years. I have come to bid farewell And take what I can,– You and all of them, And anything I can find. Even a sign carved long ago In a crumbling tree; An unfinished song, That wanders around here At loose ends. I'll gather everything up: The memory of the chests Where “Chmiel” the oppressor In his day, Slaughtered little children Glatt kosher; And the echo of our mustering On the clay mountain,– Readying themselves for the new murderer Lying in wait In the cool sand here around, Mutely congealed The frozen tear Of generations that go To the graves of their ancestors. The happy chatter Still hovers around From the just newly hatched ‘Hador Hatsa'ir.[8]’ Our green dream Still hangs on every tree

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And our defiant call; Chazak ve'ematz, shalom!”[9] I want to see it just one more time And hurry away from here, Because bread herev Now rises In mute lament; The dew falls On a bitter community. The corn sways In horror From the interrupted nigun. And the grass shimmers In the shadows, That wander orphaned Without a tikkun[10]. A great demand arises From our streets that once were, A demand and a warning: “The ripe apples in the nobleman's orchard blaze again over the fence with red lit skin.” But see and apprehend: “On the fence of the nobleman's orchard A dessicated fleck– The blood of chaver Yochentche And his household. Their blood spurted On the blooming trees.” Succulent red death Flooded the green grass And silenced his yearning Beloved little nigun with his last note; To the fence he was dragged

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By death, And the blue eyes With a velvet glance, Saw the sun And the green sacrificial altar For the last time. Who then can consume An apple that fell from the altar? Who can breath the aroma Of green and ripe fruit, That tastes of the last breath And red death? So I will take you and his last look Away from here And take it with me over oceans. Somewhere there is still land Where grass is just grass And bread– Doesn't rhyme with death.[11] And here– May desolate solitude Join with the ruins; Sate itself and give birth to oaths That will curse And never reward The earth, That makes things grow drunk On blood and murder. Even a migrating bird Must avoid this place. No free lusty twitter In the land that blooms with death. Only mournful fear And terror Shall nest in field and forest, In the garden and the house

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Of our “beloved” neighbors, Who if they alone did not Wield the axe– Always had ready prepared The open sac. And their bed–our goods, And their house–our bounty: Our closet And table and chair, And also the shirt off our back And the shoes off our feet. May they tremble At the horrible roars Of our bloodied dove: “Rob all the houses!” Even the road with its silent dust Gives testimony: “Rob all the houses!” Thus our dove grumbles. And if there were one Of their whole race, To whom no part Of this obtains, He was also singed by the flames, And he becomes one of us.– So our dove squirms. With anxious silence of the dead She shudders alone, Black and naked On every ruined stone.

Footnotes:

1. Author's footnote: According to shtetl legend, R' Aharon Kozak, a horse trader, defended the shtetl against Chmielnicki's hordes and fell on the spot. Return
2. Author's footnote: According to another legend, around the 1600s, a latutnik (cobbler) who lived in the shtetl was Moshiach Ben Yosef. When the holy men from Tsfat and Lublin found out about it, and asked him to reveal himself, he suddenly died one Friday morning. Every Tishebov they placed written requests for the well-being of Jews on his tombstone. Return
3. Micah 3:12 Zion shall be plowed as a field Return
4. moxibustion Return
5. women's prayer book in Yiddish Return
6. Psalm 69: For the waters have reached my neck Return
7. A melody, often accompanying scripture, or wordless Return
8. The Young Generation. Zionist youth group Return
9. Be strong and of good courage, peace! Return
10. Perhaps a kabbalistic reference to salvation of a soul in torment by the prayers of the living, or the concept of redress. Return
11. In Yiddish, “broit” and “toit.” Return

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With empty wagons–they came Polish farmers–to the last market… On empty wagons–Polish farmers Loading the Jews–in last dawns. Murderous louts–Polish farmers Driving the Jews–to the crematorium. They were our neighbors– Used to bring vegetables to the market. Saturated with thousand-year hatred– Full of jealousy and killing–the huts and the courtyards. Readied graves–gas ovens– Boiling waves–bloody lakes. The fields and the forests and Poland's witches Silenced witnesses–in windblown fires. Embers and fires–lighting the nights Smoke swirls–choking the air– Curling the clouds–covering the whispers Glowing and burning–souls in ashes– Skies ashamed–flames wipe away… Empty wagons–Polish farmers With hatred annihilated–the Jewish neighbors.

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An eternal curse–in Polish profanity– Hurl–“karban tamim”[1] –at Poland's dishonor!!! Roar–“kharomes”[2] –and flames for Liech– Shfoykh khamoskho[3] --lament–Ein sof!!![4]

Footnotes:

1. Innocent victim Return
2. Vehement curses Return
3. Invoking divine anger against the enemies of the Jews. Recited on Passover night Return
4. Forever Return

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It's already fifty, plus one, Since the desolation of late Av When choking in your blood on the lap of your father you gasped out the last: Until when? The Kaiser, the Kaiser, Already bored by the hunt for petty prey in the wild; They're enticed by the game Of a giant combat So fate decreed World War! I hear all the laments Of your orphaned mother Though she's been concealed so long In the abyss. Your gravestone – a footbridge For the protected German. On your grave grass is growing Pan Stach. Yes, they complain in Galicia; Indeed, they are weeping in Odessa… But the Jew remains shamed With his disaster…

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And pathways,                 And overflowing water. When indeed         Are you coming                 The bearer of news [often the term Mevaser refers to the harbinger of the Messiah] To sprinkle         Flowing water Over the ashes         Of Treblinka? Tread in mud,         Weary, On weeping dirt paths. Limbless, the trees Hear the dead laugh: Travelling here, with a horse and wagon, Is a great Tzadik; Hassidim, enveloped in devotion, Joining with the Divine Presence. To the huts,         Bringing redemption, A Jew slinks,         A rebel. Where then does the red lane burn? Who indeed is the murderer? Plush grass, Hidden pathways. Chopin notes complain.

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On piano keys                 The dead cry, Until day breaks Shrouds are woven Deaf murderers On Poland's desolate roads. For whom does the red lane burn, If not for me? Forest,         And path,                         And flowing water. It is already time Hurry,         Get going already, messenger,                                 Do not be late for the Ge'uleh

Lush is the grass in the meadow; A little lamb prances in the valley. Compassionate, gracious Creator, You once held me close… Through storms, in innocence, you led me. A taliss of tkheyles[1] –my shawl. A sled, a bell, an echo; An infant's smile–amazed. Early spring. a snowman, melting; The mild winds defile his end. The heart tormented with doubts. The throat of the infinite opens wide. Where then to flee from sorrow, Does father's bosom protect you? Or is it so to speak in your mind? In Auschwitz the babies are burning,

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We wonder bewildered, On crooked paths. You yourself make our lips stutter. You choke our insolence. The gases asphyxiate; You hurl into the abyss Our refuse… The grass in the meadow is burned. The little lamb–bones in the valley. Conceal, don't be jealous, Creator, You once held me close?

Footnote

1. Sky blue, the blue wool thread woven into a taliss in biblical days. Return

Can someone forget, even if he wants to? Whether it be those of us who come from there but were not present then, or the few survivors, like smoking embers; they do not need to be reminded; the nightmare is remembered in sleep, and the heart aches while awake. “Ki kol levav davi, v'kol rosh lacholi.”^[1]

Only the doubt niggles: Do we have to do so publicly?…Sometimes, remembering may, God forbid, produce the opposite…And if we do remember publicly, then the question becomes: what, why, and how?

Our remembrance should be conducted according to the tradition of “Achrei mot kdoshim emor”^[2] Or should we sin on the other side, by learning a lesson from the holy tragedy?

Even though it is written: “Katuv zot zikaron bsefer,”^[3] I have doubts about whether the widespread custom of memorializing a destroyed community through a yizkor pinkas is a positive phenomenon or not. Previous generations have found effective methods to anchor the pain of Jewish misfortune in their descendants. Through Kines, Sliches, Taanitim, and messiah-belief they hammered out a survival mechanism that served us until now. And us? We sit shivah for a third of a people on a page of paper in a pinkas, or in a stale mass gathering. Maybe preparing a pinkas heritage for the archives is actually a sign of the estrangement of our own heirs…

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It's also possible that we have already wasted the pain and the glory of the last sacrifice.

Is it not more fitting to be silent? Thinking logically, it can be seen as a desecration. Nevertheless, I want to share these very unconsoling meditations of a mourner, even though I feel therein a trace of minimalization and desecration.

Which world?

Is it the world that did, or helped, or in the best case, helplessly looked on, to the murders in Biafra? Is it the world that sees thousands of bodies floating in the waters of Cambodia, and goes on with its crazy ways? Is it the world that chooses when to be outraged at the mutual atrocities in Vietnam following the baton of a master conductor, and political sympathies? Is it the world of the new Left which uses the word Auschwitz fairly often, but really only to create sympathy in everyone who is kosher in their eyes, but not for the Jewish people, the original and eternal victims of genocide?

Thereby we have to remember that even to our “friends” we are no longer some kind of pathetic weakling, but like in Hitler's demonic Torah, some sort of superpower, an international conspiracy. Can we expect to soften the hearts of the Arab Muslims and their cynical patrons? Is it the Soviet Union and its satellite robots where it's usually forbidden to mention that Hitler singled out the Jews for special annihilation? But rather they steal our bloody martyrdom, desecrate our victims, and remind us of our plight and their “big favors and compassion” when it suits them to damn Israel and Zionism?

Which world do we want to remind?

The Asia-Africa world is used to such victims, both from natural cataclysms, and man-made ones. Our open wounds make no impression on them. At most, it strengthens their conviction in the downfall of white people. And according to them, and to the Black extremists in America, we are white, economically powerful, culturally and politically powerful white people who have nothing to complain about, but on the contrary, we dare to criticize them. First, the most sensitive of the Asian-Africans , and the Afro-Americans, can't be surprised at our tragedy, can't apprehend it, those who are steeped in the religion and philosophy of India and China. Our view of life and existence is diametrically opposed to theirs. On the contrary, our uncovering of our wounds to the world is repugnant to them.

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(That they complain loudly when something affects them is another matter).

We can divide the European-American world into three categories with individual exceptions:

The vile category of zoological antisemitism: These lent a hand, actively or passively, directly or indirectly, to our annihilation. They saw, and still see in us the source and essence of all that is bad and contemptible. A large part of their hatred for us came from the theology of the majority of Christendom in all its hues. Western literature–even the works of the so-called “European consciousness”–is steeped in the poison of Jew hatred and loaded with arrows of mockery and slander. Whether this particular poison came down from the devilish upper classes to the masses, or the deadly hell gases came from below to the elite, makes no difference.

On a higher level are the Christians who imbibe their religion from a cleaner well. Some of them are even of the “chasidei omot haolam”: some were refugees and were persecuted by the Hitler animals. Individuals even paid with their lives. But the fact that they accept Jesus as their savior, and the cross as the symbol of their redeemer (oh woe), makes them see our tragedy from a different aspect, and in a manner opposed to ours. For the best of them, it seems, that our tragedy (our carrying the cross in their terminology) is a new confirmation of our free will…the ata bachartanu^[4] which is so cheap and repulsive among “progressive” Jews, is for them the greatest pedigree, the sun of creation and of history. To this is added their different views on sin, guilt, forgiveness, and atonement.

Even a religious socialist, and refugee from Hitler, like Favel Tillich, comes to the conclusion that the post-Auschwitz Germany can be rehabilitated, because his religious- philosophy investigations lead him to the conclusion that the individual only shares responsibility, but not, God forbid, guilt for the actions of the state. And between responsibility and guilt there must lie the way out for the rehabilitation of the blond beast. The irony is that his chief worry is for the moral fate of the murderous folk, and not for the survivors of the massacre. Even the martyr, Dietrich Bahnhoffer, who was hung by the Nazis in 1945, writes in his “Ethics” that because of the sacrifice of Christianity, nothing is demanded of the guilty for them to pay in full for the evil done: It is acknowledged that what has passed can't be restored, and the wheel of history can't be reversed. Not all wounds can be healed.

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The main thing is that there should be no new wounds. The law, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, is the prerogative of God, the judge of nations. In the hands of men, this law can lead to tragedy.

This is not a criticism of their religion, or their authenticity, profundity, or the righteousness of their philosophy. It is only meant to remind us that as far as feeling our suffering in our Jewish historical context, they are incapable. Sympathizing with our not wanting to, and not being able to, forgive is taken for granted.

The third category consists of the secular-humanistic-scientific world which also includes the political world, because politics, as is well known, dresses-up in scientific clothing. Modern science and technology that also has a humanitarian tradition of serving the general welfare, has in essence, turned into a religion, idol worship for a large part of its servants and representatives, and even more so, for the common people. Science, secular philosophy, and art, have at the same time shattered the medieval worldview, and also dethroned that kind of person from his royal throne, as the pinnacle of creation, to the level of minor element in the universe. Man is today less significant than he was as matter in the hands of the creator. According to the misguided science of today he is matter in the hands of matter even though the idea of matter, in the classical sense of the word, is not recognized today in modern physics. What demonic discoveries science has led to everyone knows. And yet everyone dances at the devil's wedding. Even organized religion searches, if not for support, for an agreement from it. Obviously, no one wants to be seen as a backward obscurantist.

Even science had a hand, maybe unknowingly a big hand, in our mass annihilation. The belief that the law of the jungle, sly objectivity, all permissiveness, the theory of evolution with its jungle morality, the mechanization of man, the equality of men and beasts, all these theories, and even more evil winds, blow through modern science.

In truth a lot of spiritual people left the world broken seeing the destruction that their hands and brains brought about, and are still liable to bring about. These geniuses began to look for a scientific basis for a new ethics and morality. But these weak efforts are basically condemned to fail, because the underlying philosophy of modern science is false and harmful. We are all entranced by its desirable fruits, but consuming them we obey the suggestion of the biblical serpent…modern mathematical logic has determined–if such

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a determination was generally necessary–that no thought system is self-sufficient. Therefore, it is not conceivable that science can generate for itself ethical principles. Ersatz ethics and made up morality, like a pattern of paper flowers, are actually not hard to produce. But after a life-threatening event one must reach and draw oneself to the transcendental, over and above science, above reason, above the merely human. Ein chabush et atzmo mebeit ha'asurim.

Scientists do not accept the charge of guilt. Artists and philosophers do not even try. To art, as is well known, everything is permitted. But as regards shared guilt, or shared responsibility for the victims–and this we are all–it is a paltry distinction.

And science is triumphant…we can fly to space…we can walk on the moon…we will soon, at any moment, create life while at the same time remaining strangers to the notion of dignity. Who's talking about holiness, of life…where do we fit in with our mourning in this Moloch-orgy?

As individuals, some of the latter two categories feel our pain. But this is, basically, in contradiction to their fundamental beliefs.

So we are almost completely alone in our pain. How alone we are, we saw often during and after the Six Day War. I would say that the more one is spiritual–and every one of us is far from there, from the idea of thinking and feeling, believing and reacting, from the naiveté of the innocent martyrs, from the little shtetlach–the more incomplete is his mourning. Our greatest tragedy lies perhaps in this. It turns out that really grieving, lamenting, and causing a great stir, only the martyrs alone do “bei nacht oifen alten mark.”^[5]

Staying with our own misfortune and orphanhood, we must not fall into a kind of masochistically sweet satisfaction with our woe. Even though ahoves-Israel is an important matter, we must guard ourselves from falsifying it. And that is so cheap, and easy. On the contrary, all of us, from religious orthodox to free-thinking atheist, from extreme right bourgeois to extreme left, must examine their ideals, because aside from the fact we are part of humanity, and therefore indirectly also responsible for what happened, we have other, most intimate calculations to make: everyone with himself. Not to look for sins elsewhere, but in one's own self. Even if we let the martyrs, and the period of their sacrifice, out of this national self-criticism, we can't allow ourselves to be exempted. Our handling of the catastrophe during the time of trouble, after the tragedy, and now, must be reexamined. The rationalizations must stop,

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both the scientific, and the religious dogmatics. The way must involve re-establishing moralizing by oneself, and finding the way by oneself. We must look for a spiritual strengthening of our national existence, because without this, our physical existence can't survive. Furthermore, our history, and the history of Western culture, has shown that every Jewish quest is always more than just Jewish. Those, again, who feel that they have already found it, because they have never lost anything, more power to them. But the richest can sometimes turn out to be the poorest.

It is true that searching and researching deeply and freely can lead to the most extreme heresy and disappointment. So shall we feed ourselves with self-delusion? If there really doesn't exist, according to our human understanding, no law and no judge, no spiritual sense for our Jewish existence and continuation, then why should we stand in the way of history? The world, and our own youth, are already sick of “I'm okay, I'm an orphan” psychology. Hitler exterminated us physically. The western world, and the so-called communist world within it give many of us as individuals the opportunity and the possibility of melting as salt in water. And many of our people take advantage of this opportunity. With what kind of power can we hold them back? What right do we have to hold them back? Because of what and for what shall we call them home?

The questions hurt, and cause pain. But we must not silence them just because of our fear of pain. We can't respond to them anymore with worn out phrases. Such answers can only appeal to the dullest of the generation, to those who want to remain among their own because they have nothing to show the outside world, or to those who don't want to mix with the outside world because of base prejudices.

Scientific-rational motivations for Jewish existence, such as historical, material-economical needs, might be enough for certain communities at certain epochs. They can even give support to Jewish charitable activities even today. But for Jewish continuity, it is no longer enough. “We exist because we exist,” means thinking in a vicious circle. The truth is that the Jewish people today are vegetating more than existing. Naturally, there are isolated individuals who live with a Jewish sensibility. There are even great Jewish creators. But the people, as a rule, have no shared minimal ani maamin. Whether we like it or not, the Jewish people were never just a people in the ethnic sense of the word only. They were formed as a carrier of an idea, and only thus can they have an existence. The people don't have to be exactly homogenous, poured from one source, but

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a spiritual backbone they must have. And this they no longer have. The Jewish people cannot vegetate like the remnants of an American Indian tribe on a reservation. They also can't be a museum exhibit.

It has become the fashion lately to say that the {Israeli}state has become the focal point, the shared longing of all Jews. It means, therefore, that the state is, if not the physical, then the spiritual backbone of the Jewish people. Even if one accepts this premise, one has to state that the state itself is based on “ein breirah”^[6], and what if there is a “breirah?”

They console us: We don't have to use Kabbalah to hasten the end of the exile. “Mizion teitzei Torah” will come to be. In the meantime, there are bigger worries. What are we expecting from a young plant?… And so on…Yes, shearei hatirutzim lo ninalo. The excuses ring familiarly from other nations who have come to realize another great dream. But if you don't prepare for Erev Shabbes, how do you await Shabbes? Unless it falls from the sky. We have a rule: Trust in miracles, miracles happen, and will happen. But people have to do theirs, and after that there will be a miracle, if something comes of it. In the meantime, the country is still far from becoming the spiritual center. Unfortunately it often happens that the spirit which comes from Israel to the diaspora lacks a Jewish flavor and spirit, and is in fact, the opposite.

It is unfortunate that even among those who remember the Holocaust, there is no shared mourning. And in Israel where it is remembered perhaps more than in the diaspora, people go home and they magically bring out, from time to time, and quite frequently, the specter of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza.^[7]

The country of Israel, even though we take its existence for granted, is still a miracle. We cannot, and we must not, throw everything onto the shoulders of the beleaguered Israeli. Nevertheless, Israel is the most natural place where the spiritual, original-Jewish essences can again begin to circulate in the veins of the Jewish people. Connected with that is a changed social atmosphere. And we have to start with ourselves, and not wait for our adversaries to make the first move. I do not believe in a totalitarian, homogenous, ani-maamin which obligates every individual. I am against a lazy compromise that satisfies no one. The idyll of shalom beit Israel can become a stagnant swamp. There is a difference between spiritual struggle that is rooted in a consciousness of spiritual partnership, and fighting unrelentingly for the sake of a mitzvah. This is, politically, harmful and awful. But spiritual innovation and strengthening are of course not possible in such an atmosphere. Therefore, calls for repentance, which came from deep in the heart, from sincere

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lovers of Israel, fall on deaf ears and hearts. Everyone is convinced that the call is meant for their adversary, because one is personally flawless, really perfection. The truth is that no Jewish movement today has a lot of real opponents that it must fight in a life and death struggle, and where there is nothing in common. Unfortunately, we are all confronted with giant waves that threaten to drown us all with our trivial, often only personal, disagreements. It is therefore past time to learn to debate, and challenge each other with restraint and respect, acknowledging the goodness in the opponent, and instructing him in his mistakes by not copying them. One can lead others by being a good example in daily life, and not with the worn-out bombastic phrases that, delude, falsify and deceive one's self and others, but construct nothing.

It has been 27 years since the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto; 37 years since the unspeakable settled on his demonic throne in Germany; almost 31 years since the outbreak of WWII; 25 years since the liberation of the camps; 22 years since our sole consolation–the country of Israel. And we are still mourners, and the mourners increase, to our great tragedy.

If one takes a good look around, around at the Jewish world, it turns out that exactly now the whole Jewish expansion, wherever it is–and not just in Israel–is surrounded as in a hostile ghetto. Of course there is a difference of where and when: and one may not, under any circumstances, compare it to the most horrid, incomparable. But it nevertheless seems to be that Providence wants to remind the quietest of the quiet, the most sated of the sated, that in every generation man is forced to see himself as if he were in Auschwitz or Treblinka. Every Jew must feel something of the horror.

How much has already been spoken of, and been written about, the heroism, as well as the horror, in the time of the great tragedy. In the last quarter century, a Holocaust literature has accumulated in many languages, but especially in Yiddish–the language of the martyrs. It is written with “blood not with lead^[8],” by those who were not in Treblinka, or by those who were persecuted, or by the few survivors. But the physical destruction was so horrible, it can't be weighed or measured in any human language. The spiritual and demographic disturbance in the Jewish organism is so shocking that only a few can begin to comprehend it. The people won't begin to feel it until more time has passed. Remember the Churban we must, but we also can't help it. Remembering it in public we are allowed only if it is not in vain. We must sit shivah without cease, as long as we are alive

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if there is, God forbid, nothing Jewish to live for. In order to confirm that there is a sense to Jewish existence and continuation, we must stand up from our shivah, search for and unplug the sand-filled wells that have been dug by Jews from Abraham until today. Hopefully, the refreshing waters of life will well up for us again, and for the kind of person created in God's image.

Landsmanschaft conference of Tishevitsers in Poland. Wroclaw May 2nd 1948.

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O, God, open for me The gate of mercy. The world in ruins The murderer lies in wait. O, open for my people The gate of mercy. Let me be the pure sacrifice. The pages of grandmother's yellow, family siddur Flutter in silent woe. Remember, record all the anguish again, Take revenge for the blood of my murdered brethren. O, God, the suffering Has bored through my body. Redeem us from misery Do not leave the world alone. Everything is but The work of your hands. Be merciful to man, For his blundering understanding. Let your peace rest Over the earth, in every land. Should you need a guardian. Know, your people have the purest tears. You alone, be their intercessor, their savior. And goodness in the world will increase. O, God, open for me The gate of mercy.

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