On Thriving - 5785
Rabbi Alex Kress
When I was a senior in high school, I spent the fall semester on a kibbutz in the Judean hills outside of Jerusalem. Few experiences in my life were quite as transformative as those four months, especially our trip to Poland. We visited Warsaw, once the home of 375,000 Jews and Krakow, once the home of 60,000 Jews. By 2023, only 4500 Jews called either of those cities home. We walked through the shtetl-like-town of Tykocin, where the town’s 1400 Jews were marched to the nearby forest and massacred. We toured the infamous concentration camp Auschwitz on a damp fall day as well as the nearby ruins of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau death camp where 1 million Jews were exterminated. Most chillingly, however, was our visit to the less known death camp Majdanek.
When our bus pulled into Majdanek, we found ourselves completely alone. No other buses, no one to greet us - no museum entry - no other visitors on the chilly, November day. Just 30 teens and a few counselors exploring what felt like an abandoned death camp. We walked in past a white house – home of the Nazi commandant in charge of the camp – and through a gate with two layers of once-electrified barbed wire, registering the privilege that all these years later, we would freely walk back out. We walked into a building whose sign said “Bath and Disinfection I” in German - we first stepped into the showers, and a few steps later, behind a still-functional, large wooden door, the prussian blue stains on the concrete walls revealed the building’s true purpose - mass murder by Zyklon B. I touched the cold, smooth concrete walls that witnessed the murder of tens of thousands of Jews exactly where I stood. A weight sat on my chest that I can still feel to this day. If you have ever visited one of these horrific places, I imagine you know that feeling.
16 years later, the weight on my chest returned as I walked through the rubble of Kfar Aza, as I joined a group of clergy on a trip to Israel just 2 months after October 7. Burnt-out apartments, bullet holes through these young people’s front doors, hastily drawn Hebrew in one entry way that read, “human remains on the couch.” I walked past a rectangular banner that stood outside a small apartment with broken windows: “Netta Epstein was brutally murdered in this house,” the sign read. Netta lived there with his fiance Irene. The 22-year-olds were due to marry last April. When Hamas terrorists threw grenades into their home, Netta jumped on top of one to save Irene’s life. The terrorists fired at his lifeless body, lit the apartment on fire and moved onto the next one. Irene, miraculously, made it out alive. “He died so I could live,” she later said, “so I must live.”
There are moments that change our lives personally and moments that change our lives communally. October 7th was both. We are not the same people we were when we celebrated Rosh Hashanah last year, and we are not the same community.
In 5784, there were moments where we felt scared.
Moments where we felt personally attacked.
Moments where we felt vulnerable.
Moments where we felt confused.
Moments where we felt angry.
Moments where we felt a pain like we’ve never felt.
Moments where we felt completely helpless.
Moments where we felt overwhelmed and burnt out.
Moments where we felt alone.
Moments where we felt alienated.
Moments where we felt so many things simultaneously that we didn’t know what to feel.
And in all these moments, these life-defining, community-altering moments, we face a tension: the tension between surviving and thriving; the tension between letting our trauma define the rest of our lives and launching the rest of our lives from a defining moment.
In 1965, Admiral James Stockdale, a fighter pilot in the Navy, was shot down over Vietnam and spent the next seven years in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton,” the Vietnamese prison camp where he and Senator John McCain endured brutal physical and mental torture. What’s remarkable about Admiral Stockdale isn’t just his survival, but the mindset he developed in captivity, which later became known as the Stockdale Paradox. He was able to endure the unimaginable by maintaining a balance between two contrasting ideas: a firm belief that one day he would prevail and return home, coupled with the acceptance of the harsh realities of his situation. This paradox—of holding onto hope for the future while confronting the darkest truths of our present—resonates in the wake of October 7th. Stockdale understood that the false expectations of a naive optimist was as dangerous as the hopelessness of a pessimist.
We, too, must navigate this challenge as a community. We don’t have the luxury of blissful ignorance nor do we have the luxury of despair. After the events of October 7th and the immensely challenging year that followed, we must face the brutal realities in front of us – AND – we cannot let those realities stop us from living fully, from living proudly, from thriving. Just as Stockdale refused to let his captivity define him, we must find a way to acknowledge the weight of our pain while refusing to let it dictate the rest of our lives. This is our paradox: to live with the scars, yet continue to build something new, something stronger, something enduring.
In the weeks after October 7th, a man broke into the home of a Jewish family in Studio City yelling antisemitic language. Apparently the assailant had targeted the home because of its mezuzah. From Los Angeles to Canada to England to Germany, Jews across the world believed their mezuzot led vandals to target their homes and buildings with anti-Jewish, anti-Israel hate. Within a month of October 7th – one of the most traumatic moments in Jewish history – Jews around the world were forced to confront a painful question: should we take our Mezuzahs down – should we take off our Jewish necklaces –should we hide our Judaism?
Sala Ferlegier, the mother of famed psychotherapist Esther Perel, was a teenager when World War Two broke out. For an entire year, she hid in the woods, scavenging for eggs and potatoes, terrified of the barking dogs and the sense that every morning she would wake up in a different place, not knowing what the day would bring. One day, Sala had had enough, and surrendered herself to a male labor camp, where she thought they might need a woman in the laundry or kitchen and she could be useful, while also knowing where she was waking up every morning and where her food was coming from. She acknowledged her brutal reality in the woods and made a fateful choice.
Her story reminds us that in moments of fear, there’s a pull toward survival that can force us into hiding, whether physically or emotionally. It’s a natural human reaction to threats and violence, whether during the Holocaust or in the aftermath of October 7th and the year we’ve endured. But Sala’s courage was in the decision to face her reality head-on, accepting a difficult path in order to endure with some sense of control over her fate. Though our privileged situation in America today is far removed from Sala’s experiences during the Holocaust, her story offers us a lesson as we confront the threats to our identity and the threats to our people in 2024. The mezuzah , so often a symbol of protection and Jewish pride, confronted us with a choice this year: to hide or to stand proudly visible in the face of adversity and fear.
And the answer to that predicament is not simple, nor is it one-size-fits-all. Removing outward symbols of Judaism might feel like a necessary step for some; but I want to encourage you against it. As my wise colleague, Rabbi Rachel Timoner told her community on the Shabbat after October 7th:
“Please, please do not take your mezuza off your door. Please do not stop assembling in your synagogues to be together. Please do not take your star from around your neck. Please do not stop living as proud Jews. Please do not stop standing as steadfast supporters of our Israeli family, who feel more alone in the world now than ever. Please do not stop calling for the return of the hostages. Please do not stop giving to aid funds. Please do not stop calling Israeli friends and family, here and there. Please do not stop doing all of the Jewish things you do. Every one of them, every Jewish thing you do, matters.”
A young man in our community, Eli Tobel, intuited Rabbi Timoner’s message. He had read about the trend of Jews taking down their mezuzahs and feeling too afraid to wear their Star of David necklaces. In response, he started making mezuzahs in his garage so that, in his words, “[he] might play a small part in reversing that trend: making other people feel safe, confident, and proud too – despite all the antisemitism around us.”
Eli is donating all profits of his Mighty Mezuzah project directly to the Israel Trauma Coalition, which helps treat trauma and build emergency preparedness in Israel and around the world. [And yes, Eli is here – stand up my friend – gimme a strong “I love being Jewish!”]
You can find Eli’s mezuzot at MightyMezuzahs.com as well as in the lobby after services - they’re only $36 but you can donate as much as you want to such a great cause.
Another young man, our community’s most recent Bar Mitzvah – Alec Benson – came home from Camp Newman this summer and told his amazing parents, “I want a Jewish star.” After enduring the normal challenges of being in middle school, as well as the new post-October 7th challenges, Alec came home from camp ready to represent. His parents did him one better and passed down a beautiful mezuzah necklace of his grandfather’s. He wore it proudly last Saturday as he became Bar Mitzvah.
Whichever path we take, whichever path feels right for us and our families, let it be a conscious one aimed at celebrating our heritage. We are part of a history of resilience, one that has survived unimaginable horror, not by fading away, but by finding new ways to stand firm.
This year, our community will begin a process of restoring our precious Torah scroll that survived the Shoah - the Holocaust. In the wreckage of Nazi hate, 1500 Torah scrolls were gathered in Prague from the devastated communities of the Czech Republic. Our community was gifted one of these precious scrolls by the Grandmother of Toby Comess-Daniels, Rae Comess. It comes from the small town of Dobříš (Dob-eh-sheesh), just southwest of Prague. These sacred Torahs, organized by the Memorial Scroll Trust in London, inspire communities around the world as enduring symbols of Jewish life and resilience in the face of unimaginable tragedy. By restoring our Torah, we continue the through line it represents, connecting past generations with us today and generations yet to come.
During the course of 5785, we will host Sofer Moshe Druin, a master scribe, to teach us all about the sacred process of writing and restoring a Torah. We will commission new Torah covers, and new silver adornments. Every single member of our community will have the opportunity to sit with our precious scroll and have a private session with Rabbi Druin to repair a letter of that scroll.
In a normal year, this would be an incredible honor to restore a 200 year old Torah that not only survived the Holocaust, but danced at hundreds Simchat Torah celebrations, welcomed hundreds of 13 year olds into Jewish adulthood, and was the centerpiece of a thriving Jewish community. But 5785 is not a normal year for our community. First, in 5785, we will celebrate our 83rd birthday. In Psalms we learn that 70 years is a full life; to live another 13 years beyond that - to the age of a second BMitzvah - is a great simcha - a great celebration.
And second, the terrorist attacks of October 7 fell on Simchat Torah - the moment in our year where we specifically rejoice in Torah - where we dance with our Torahs - where we consecrate our newest learners of Torah - where we acknowledge our Torah as the very center of Jewish life and Jewish continuity. It was on THIS day that the Jews of Israel experienced the worst pogrom since the Holocaust. Repairing our scroll – saved from the wreckage of hate – is an act of resilience, an affirmation of life, a defiance of the fear and despair that the terrorists sought to instill in us. It transforms our collective grief into collective action and breathes new life into a Torah that bridges us to the past and paves our way to the future.
I cannot wait to embark on this meaningful journey with all of you this year.
61 years ago, the Jewish community was faced with a similar despair that we faced last year. On Yom Kippur 1973, the young State of Israel was attacked by the surrounding Arab armies on the holiest day of the year. The entire country was caught off guard. As Israel fought for its survival, Rabbi Baruch Chait wrote a tune to a chasidic teaching that spread across the Israeli Army and subsequently the Jewish world: "Kol ha’olam kulo gesher tzar me’od, v’ha’ikar lo l’fached klal - the whole world is a very narrow bridge - and the most important thing is not to be afraid." It is a song of resilience that reminds Jews in a time of great despair that courage is not the absence of fear—it is the refusal to let fear stop us from continuing across the bridge.
The Chasidic teaching comes from Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, whose original words differed just a touch from the famous tune. In the original, Rebbe Nachman teaches:
וְהָעִקָּר– שֶׁלֹּא יִתְפַּחֵד כְּלָל
Meaning, the most important thing isn’t just to not be afraid - it’s to not frighten yourself!
As we stand on the very narrow bridge, on the threshold of 5785, we are faced with a choice. Do we merely survive, letting fear dictate our lives? Or do we choose to live fully—proudly, courageously, as Jews? The mezuzot on our doorposts, the Stars of David around our necks, the restoration of a Torah scroll saved from the Holocaust, the leaning in to Jewish community, the celebrations of Jewish holidays together, the investment in doing all of the Jewish things you do—these are declarations not just of survival, but of a life, of a community, that is thriving.
Shanah Tovah u’metukah - may we thrive together in 5785.