I hope you all had a meaningful Yom Kippur.
I am not a great faster.
But as I was walking to synagogue I thought about some testimonies of women who survived the Holocaust. They spoke about fasting for Yom Kippur in Auschwitz.
Lily Ebert of blessed memory was a young woman when she arrived in Auschwitz in 1944. She relates that when Yom Kippur came-she fasted.
She wanted to show Gd that even in that terrible place she would not let Him down.
Ruth Brand was a young teenager and she too fasted in the concentration camps. Everyone told her there was absolutely no need for her to fast, she was subsisting on the barest of rations. But Ruth insisted. For her it was a form of resistance. She said adherence to faith gave her something to hold on to in dark times.
So who am I to complain?
I was inspired by these great women and thank Gd I made it through.
After the fast was over I heard some powerful words from another inspiring woman, Raquel Kirschenbaum.
She shared a feeling which rang true for me.
After Yom Kippur concluded we are on a high. We prayed and connected and did all we could to have a meaningful and elevated experience.
But there is a little anxiety at the end of the day.
Because we have had other such fasts that seemed to go really well but then the ensuing year was not what we hoped.
Raquel teaches a lesson from this week’s Torah portion, Haazinu which is Moses’s last message to the Jewish people. One of the messages Moses teaches is that Gd is comparable to a Rock whose ways are righteous.
Why the choice of a rock as a metaphor?
A rock is steady - it presents constantly as it should, unmoving.
The Hebrew word for a rock is Tzur צור.
If you take the same letters and change the vowels you can also read the word as Tzayar צייר a painter.
Raquel spoke about a talent show she once saw. A contestant on the show was given two minutes to portray her talent. The contestant explained that she was going to paint a picture in those two minutes. She starts by throwing black paint all over the canvas. Her time is quickly running out and the judges are losing patience. But just as she’s out of time she throws some white powder at the canvas and turns the whole thing upside down. And to the absolute shock of the judges, there is an incredibly beautiful picture of a woman.
This is the message of the Portion and Post Yom Kippur blues.

The artist surprised the judges. She created her masterpiece in a totally unexpected way. She even had to turn it around to get the proper perspective.
So too it is with Gd.
Gd is the Rock, we can count on Him. He will deliver.
He is also the Painter.
The beautiful outcome will happen, just not perhaps in the way we expected. It may come upside down and all turned around. But if we are patient there will be a Masterpiece.
Our job is to do the best we can, put in the effort, then show patience while we wait to see how it will turn out.
Gd is running the show.
We can go into Sukkot, a time of tremendous joy, comforted with this idea.
I read an article written by a childhood friend, Rabbi Binny Freedman. He shared that once he met a Holocaust survivor and in the course of conversation Rabbi Freedman asked him if there was anything that stood out in his mind as a reason he survived.
The survivor, whose name was Yaakov, answered immediately that one Mitzva was the reason for his survival.
Sukkos in Auschwitz.
Yaakov arrived in Auschwitz at only 13 and was given the job of dividing up the bread and soup for a group of barracks. It was a very difficult job. He had to deal with many people desperate for food. He worked out of a small shed attached to a large barrack. One day someone came to the shed requesting a huge favor. Yaakov knew this man was a great Rabbi, but the request he made was mind boggling. The Rabbi told Yaakov that Sukkos was coming and as there was a great deal of building going on around the camp he had managed to build a very rudimentary Sukkos right under the noses of the Nazis. In order to fulfill the Mitzva of eating in the Sukka, the Rabbi was asking Yaakov for two whole loaves of bread. He wouldn’t eat them both, he would just make a blessing on the two whole loaves and then just take his regular ration and would return the loaves to Yaakov.
Yaakov was so taken aback because a whole loaf of bread in Auschwitz was like a million dollars, in his words, and giving him those loaves, even just for loan, would be risking both their lives.
The Rabbi was desperately wanting to do the Mitzva and he begged Yaakov. Yaakov finally acquiesced but only on the condition that he too, could sit in the Sukka with the Rabbi.
The Rabbi was horrified, this would really put Yaakov’s life at risk. But both were adamant.
“So together, the two of them sat for a few brief moments, in a Sukkah in Auschwitz.”
As Rabbi Freedman says so beautifully, we think Yom Kippur is the one day of the year when we come close to Gd. Actually “the real challenge of the Sukkah is whether we can bring a little bit of Yom Kippur back with us into the daily world”.
As our holiday season continues to unfold, we are blessed with the freedom to celebrate.
Let’s take advantage of the inspiration that we can glean from those who came before us and engage in a way that will provide a path for those who come after us.
Wishing one and all a happy Sukkot.
You can still join us for Sisters in the Sukka. Registration closes Friday at noon.
Please join us for a delicious meal in a beautiful Sukka with inspiration from our amazing educators.
So, until after Sukkot, wishing you y’all
Shabbat Shalom and so much love!