Yom Ha Shoah

It’s four in the morning, and we’ve been back for a while from our one o’clock shift reading names at our congregation's Yom Ha Shoah observance. I’m here at the computer because I can’t sleep. Partly, the insomnia is the result of the nap I took from ten to midnight, to be sure I didn’t nod off at the bima in the middle of my sequence. But, of course, it’s a lot more than that. Participating in this event was a spiritual cup of coffee. It’s going to take a while to come down from the emotion and passion of the experience. May take days.

I particularly sought out a late night shift because this really does have the feel of a night time ritual. And, yes, it is a ritual, not a memorial, a political statement or anything else; it’s a religious ritual. What we have going on at our congregation right now is a twenty four hour prayer, an elongated Kaddish, particularly like the Kaddish in its dirgeful tones and simultaneous affirmation of life. Unlike a standard Kaddish, however, this one seems more appropriate for a small group, not a minyan. I think it would have detracted from the moment to have had more than one or two listeners in attendance. Perhaps a ritual commemorating the destruction of a community should be that way.

Earlier in the evening, on the way home from dinner on Seventh Avenue, we stopped off to hear about an hour’s worth of names. How strange it is, as Rabbi Andy suggested, to be thinking about names in temporal units – “name years,” “light years,” “darkness years” – whatever. As I sat there listening to the varying cadences of the several readers, my mind wandered through a series of peculiar images. For a while, as one of the readers got up a head of steam, I found myself on a long train ride listening to the rhythmic chugging of the locomotive. It doesn’t take a Freud to figure out that one. For another few moments, I was at rock concert during an interminable drum solo, maybe Ginger Baker playing “Toad.” As I listened, just as I would at a real concert, I questioned myself – do I really want this to continue or do I want to get back to the guitars already? Through other moments, I found myself hoping for a name with a familiar ring, a “Fainsod,” “Rosenthal,” “Greenberg” or “Mancuta,” some long-lost great aunt, uncle or cousin with whom I might share the most fleeting of I-Thou encounters. It didn’t happen, and yet there was a sweetness to go with the sadness in simply thinking about it.

It was hard to leave when we finished our parshah. We felt compelled, as the reader before us seemed to, to stay a few minutes to maintain the continuity. It reminded me of another ritual on the bima, when we stay in place for the next aliyah. That always seemed so appropriate, and now I think I understand why. I still can’t fall asleep. I’m thinking about going back to the sanctuary, but at the same time I know I shouldn’t. It’s someone else’s turn to be the minyan and I don’t want to interfere. What a powerful experience this has been.