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Sermon for Sidra Lech Lecha
November 2011
by Rabbi Geoffrey Hyman

From Abraham to the present time, Jewish history is filled with “wanderings”. Avraham goes from his birth place, from Ur Chaldees to Haran and then onwards to the Promised Land. From there he travels to Egypt during a period of famine, and then returns to Canaan.

A similar pattern is followed by his son Yitzchak and then later by Yaakov. As our Rabbis frequently state: “Maaseh avot siman lebanim” – “that which befalls the fathers seems to recur to their children”, or put another way, history repeats itself.

Hence, we are known as the “wandering Jews” – with even a plant so named, (the Wandering Jew – Tradescantia Fluminesis or popularly known as Spiderwort).

For almost 1000 years Poland was home to our exiled people. Then came the invasion by Nazi Germany in 1939 and Jewish life for some three and a half million Jews ground to a tragic halt. By the end of 1944, 90% of Polish Jewry had been brutally murdered by the Nazis, (Yimach Shemam), some 350,000 Jews remained after the War but the vast majority left during the ensuing 25 years. Those who remained overwhelmingly gave up their Jewish identity. After the fall of communism in 1989 and over the past 22 years, thousands of Poles have discovered their Jewish roots.

I share this with you today, as I returned only this week from the “Conference of European Rabbis”, which was held in Warsaw, Poland. Uniquely it was the largest gathering of Rabbis since pre-war Poland. Before the Holocaust, Warsaw contained one of the largest Jewish populations of Europe – tragically afterwards there was nothing left, it had been totally liquidated of its Jewish population. It had been formerly famed for its numerous Yeshivos, Jewish schools and Chedarim; Chassidic Rebbes and distinguished Rabbanim – a true “makom Torah”; a place rich in Torah learning; filled with high ranking Jewish professionals and distinguished academics. But after the war, all was gone; except for the ruins of one isolated Shul, now rebuilt, and its fascinating Jewish cemetery, once the largest in Europe with some 200,000 graves.

Warsaw’s Jewish community has been somewhat revived since 1989 – we davened Maariv in the beautifully restored Nozyk Shul. We visited the cemetery and wandered among the graves of the Zaddikim and the populace of old. We stood on the ground of what was the Warsaw Ghetto, since rebuilt with numerous ugly blocks of flats built under the Soviet Union. We stood back and we viewed the outline of the developing Museum of the History of the Jews of Poland; yes indeed it was all history.

Perhaps the most moving experience was to meet and honour at the closing session of the Conference, ten people who had been awarded the title by Yad Vashem: “The Righteous Among the Nations”. We gave them a standing ovation, and saluted them and their families, who had courageously risked their lives to save and protect Jewish life during that darkest hour in the history of the world.

Whilst we grappled and debated fervently over the issues of the “defence of Shechitah” and over Halachic issues facing modern Jewry, of outreach and assimilation – it was really that closing ceremony, watched with our tear-filled eyes, listening to the humility and humanity of these ten good people, that remained the most uplifting and inspiring part of the whole Conference.

Goodness illuminates so much of the darkness so caused by evil. May G-d shed His great illumination on all humanity - speedily in our days.