It is late Tuesday night and I am exhausted. I am physically exhausted from walking over 6 miles and I am emotionally exhausted from visiting Jewish Budapest, with its constant reminders of the near total destruction of European Jewry which took place 75 years ago.
We visited a memorial in the neighborhood of the Budapest ghetto where over 10,000 Jews died in a period of 6 weeks in late 1944 and early 1945. How can it be that so much can be lost in such a short time? The answer is that It is easier to destroy than to build. However, it is through the act of destruction that we obscure the “image of G-d” that is within every human being, and it is through the act of building that we can become more G-dly.
By far, the most impactful part of the day was our visit to the Shoe Memorial where we were able to imagine what it was for Hungarian Jews to be marched to the edge of the Danube River, told to remove their shoes, lined up 3 rows deep and then shot so that their bodies would all fall into the river.
Although I have spent several decades of my life reading and studying about the Holocaust and have visited many Holocaust museums and memorials, the Holocaust was never as real for me as it was today. As much as the history has been ingrained into me, as an American Jew, it still had remained somewhat distant. That is, until today. I have never heard a non-survivor speak about the Holocaust in such personal terms, until today when I heard Abel, a Hungarian high school student lead our tour of Jewish Budapest in an incredibly passionate manner.
What should my response to such an experience be? If so many Jews were lost-600,000 Hungarian Jews alone-that means so much Jewishness was lost with them. Perhaps, I need to be a little bit more Jewish. Perhaps, I need to daven more, learn more Torah, do more mitzvot, do more chesed, be a kinder and gentler person, be a better husband and father, have more love and concern for my students. Most certainly, I need to build instead of destroying.
With G-d’s assistance, I hope to start tomorrow morning by teaching Hungarian high school students some Torah.
Layla Tov.
Rabbi Furman
