Rosh HaShana, the “Head of the Year,” is in many ways a typical Jewish holiday. There are huge meals, special prayers and elements of reflection and celebration. But Rosh HaShana is set apart from other Jewish holidays, all of which commemorate specific events like the exodus from Egypt (Passover) or revolt against the Greeks (Chanukah).
Rosh HaShana and next week’s Yom Kippur, the “Day of Atonement,” ask the individual to look at his or her life – as an individual, not a collective - to reflect, evaluate and reinvent. During these “holy convocations,” we both recognize God’s role as King of the universe and acknowledge our own abilities to affect the world. The time between Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur is called “the Days of Awe,” when we think about the year to come and how it could (or should?) be different from the year that just ended.
Israel is closed for business during the two-day observance of Rosh HaShana. Buses stop running, stores and offices shut down and a lot of food is consumed. Some people spend Rosh HaShana at synagogue, deep in prayer; others go with family and friends to the beach, hiking or picnicking – a different kind of prayer. For almost all Israeli Jews, Rosh HaShanah is something special – a time for reckoning or two days off in the middle of the week. For my own version of pre-Rosh HaShana prayer, I took a personal tiyul (trip) on Sunday to Mt. Memory.
What I call Mt. Memory is actually two adjacent sites in the forest of West Jerusalem: Har HaZikaron (the Mt. of Remembrance) houses the national Holocaust authority, Yad Vashem (A Memorial and a Name); Mt. Herzl is a national and military cemetery named for Israel’s visionary, Theodore Herzl. A short trail completed in 2003 connects the sites, both of which are “mandatory” for visiting heads of state and Jewish tour groups.
Mt. Memory aptly explains the function of these quiet, tree-filled shrines. There are parts of the brain that store and retrieve memories, shaping actions and thoughts each day. In Israel, Mt. Memory serves that function. To understand the past, present or future of Israel, you must understand Mt. Memory. Here, Jews remember the worst tragedy and greatest miracle of their millennia-long history since the exile, both of which occurred in the same decade.
My first visit to Yad Vashem was in 1999, during the ten-day birthright Israel trip. We did a quick walk-though of the site, established in 1953 by the Israeli Knesset to remember the six million European Jews murdered in the Nazi Holocaust. The sprawling complex offers a lot to process – visceral sculptures, symbolic memorials, archives, etc. Trees and plaques recognize more than 20,000 “Righteous Gentiles” who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
During a few minutes of free time after the birthright tour, I revisited the haunting memorial to Jewish children murdered by the Nazis. The memorial is a dark room with thousands of candles flickering as the names of child victims, their ages and countries are read in an eerie recording. There are actually only a few candles in the room – mirrors placed at every angle give the illusion of many more lights. During my private visit to the room, I leaned against a wall and heard the names of two “Lebovic” children from Czecheslovakia, where my Holocaust-survivor grandfather lived with his family before the war.
The names I heard might or might not have been my grandfather’s children (I did not remember the actual names to confirm). A search of the Yad Vashem Central Database shows that many Jews with the name Lebovic (or something similar) from Czechoslovakia were killed. But the impression of hearing those names in the dark hall has never left me. I remember walking out of the Children’s Memorial knowing I wanted to somehow be part of this history. Like most people, I love a good story. Six years ago at Yad Vashem, I realized I was actually living a good story - Israel’s.
Today, after a few years and a chapter or two more of my own story, Yad Vashem still speaks to me. Last Spring, a new Holocaust History Museum opened. The fascinating structure is a long prism that cuts through the mountain, with the actual museum underground. The original museum, built three decades ago, mostly presented the Holocaust from the “third person.” It was an effective and efficient walk through a heinous chapter in history. The new museum forces you to examine the Holocaust directly though the eyes of those who lived it, with information presented though quotes, survivor interviews and personal artifacts.
In the new museum, you see a little girl’s red hair ribbon retrieved from the mass grave of Babi Yar, a ravine in Kiev were 30,000 Jews were shot dead during two days in 1941. You stand next to a pile of hundreds of shoes taken from prisoners at a Nazi death camp before going to the gas chamber. You walk down a street in the Warsaw Ghetto, symbolically reconstructed using bricks, benches and lampposts from the Polish city. The Holocaust seems very real and recent in the shadowy halls of this museum, and less comfortable than reading a history book.
At the very end of the prism, after going through all the chronological sections, you step outside to a balcony with stunning views of the Jerusalem hills. No museum text or tour guide is needed to underscore the transition from the Holocaust Kingdom to the revived State of Israel, which came into existence too late to save Europe’s Jews.
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Before walking the trail to Mt. Herzl, read the famous “Silver Platter” poem by Nathan Alterman, written after Israel’s War of Independence during 1947-1948. During the war, the Arab states failed to push Israel’s 650,000 Jews into the Mediterranean Sea as they had threatened. To achieve independence, more than 6,000 Israelis were killed, or one-percent of the population.
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...And the land will grow still
Crimson skies dimming, misting
Slowly paling again
Over smoking frontiers
As the nation stands up
Torn at heart but existing
To receive its first wonder
In two thousand years
As the moment draws near
It will rise, darkness facing
Stand straight in the moonlight
In terror and joy
...When across from it step out
Towards it slowly pacing
In plain sight of all
A young girl and a boy
Dressed in battle gear, dirty
Shoes heavy with grime
On the path they will climb up
While their lips remain sealed
To change garb, to wipe brow
They have not yet found time
Still bone weary from days
And from nights in the field
Full of endless fatigue
And all drained of emotion
Yet the dew of their youth
Is still seen on their head
Thus like statues they stand
Stiff and still with no motion
And no sign that will show
If they live or are dead
Then a nation in tears
And amazed at this matter
Will ask: who are you?
And the two will then say
With soft voice: We--
Are the silver platter
On which the Jews' state
Was presented today
Then they fall back in darkness
As the dazed nation looks
And the rest can be found
In the history books.
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Mt. Herzl is one of the most beautiful places in the country. The greenery is lush, spotted by bright flowers and lizards darting across the paths. Meticulously maintained by the World Zionist Organization, the slopes are litter-free, well watered and silent. The site is similar to the United States’ Arlington National Cemetery, though much smaller and shadier. Here, the annual state ceremony marking the conclusion of Memorial Day takes place. Just minutes later, Independence Day festivities commence, reinforcing the link between the “silver platter” of lost soldiers and the state founded on their backs.
There are several components to Mt. Herzl, including Jerusalem’s Military Cemetery; the Resting Place of the Great Leaders (including Yitzchak Rabin, Golda Meir, etc.), and the tomb of Theodore Herzl, who died in 1904 at the age of 44 and was buried in Vienna. Herzl requested to be interred in the Land of Israel following the establishment of the Jewish state he envisioned. In 1949, his last wishes were honored when his coffin was laid to rest on the mountain’s crest. Several sections have been added in recent years, including a monument to victims of terrorism.
I felt at peace wandering through Mt. Herzl, pausing to read names, ages and places of death for soldiers buried there. Exploring Mt. Herzl is a walk through the turbulent history of the state – in just an hour I saw graves from all of Israel’s wars. Two particular snapshots stood out. One was the grave of a 19-year old soldier named Avi, killed in 1994 in Lebanon. On top of the stone marker, someone had placed an invitation to a wedding earlier this year. I matched the names of the bride’s parents on the invitation to the names of Avi’s parents on the marker. There was also a small chocolate heart wrapped in blue foil – a wedding favor? I imagined Avi’s sister putting the invitation and heart there soon after her wedding, as she thought about her (older?) brother who did not live long enough for his own wedding.
I also paused at the grave of a young soldier killed in 2003, probably during an action against Palestinian terrorists. I was unnerved to think of people younger than me dying in battle so recently. Young lives cut short so I can have an Israel to visit, to study, to write about. Next to the grave sat a small cement container filled with a child’s toys – a Batman action figure, a little horse, lanyards. I wondered if these were the soldier’s toys when he was child - just a few years ago - or if the toys were from a younger brother or cousin. I though about what it must be like for the soldier’s family to visit his grave, for parents to bury their children, for 18-year olds to face death.
I saw very few people at Mt. Herzl and Yad Vashem on Sunday. A tiyul to these sites is not particularly a Rosh HaShana tradition. But the High Holidays are, after all, about remembering, reckoning and changing. They are about our role in Creation. The deaths enshrined amidst Mt. Memory’s carpet of trees were not a natural part of Creation. These deaths were the destruction of creation by its own children – in ravines, gas chambers, battlefields and buses. Mt. Memory reminds us that each human being is made in God’s image, and each of us can preserve a life, or destroy a life, every day. This is our partnership with Creation to think about during the Days of Awe.
(See the “Mt. Memory” photo album for pictures from Yad VaShem and Har Herzl.)
