PESACH YIZKOR 5781
One of the principles of Jewish thought that I learned as I studied Jewish philosophy is that Jewish thought is not logical—it’s analogical. Judaism teaches, not through proofs, but through stories. That’s what the Haggadah of Pesach is all about—telling the story of the Exodus.
This Yizkor morning I’d like to read to you a true Pesach story told by my mentor, Rabbi Benjamin Blech. It’s a story that says a lot about the state of Judaism in America today. It’s so incredible that you may be tempted not to believe it. But if Rabbi Blech writes about it (“The Buried Seder Plate,” www.aish.com), you can be sure it’s true. I’ve condensed it somewhat, and here are his words:
A few years ago, I was browsing in an antique store on the East Side in New York, when I spotted an all-too-familiar object. I recognized it immediately, even before I spotted the family name clearly etched on its border. How could I not know what it was when I had been so involved in its story. After all, my eulogy of Shmuel, a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp, had focused on it.
What a tale it was! The Germans had rounded up all the Jews in his little town for deportation…Shmuel knew that they were to be murdered…So Shmuel took a chance. He knew that if he were caught, he would have paid with his life. But he did what he did so that something would remain, so that, even if not a single Jew in the world remained alive, someone might find it, and remember. He paced off 26 steps from the apple tree alongside his house [26 is the gematria of Gd’s name] and carefully buried his treasure, a silver Passover plate.
…Shmuel thought, with what he later conceded was far too much optimism, that miracles might perhaps occur once more, even in modern times. And from that day on, not a day went by in the hell of the concentration camp that his mind did not dwell on his Seder plate in its hiding place.
Shmuel could never explain how he, out of all his family and friends, was the only one who survived…Incredibly enough, in ways that defy all logic, and that Shmuel only hinted to me, this survivor of 20th century genocide was reunited with his reminder of deliverance from age-old Egyptian oppression. Shmuel journeyed back to his home, found his tree, counted off the steps, dug where he remembered he had buried it, and successfully retrieved his Seder plate. It became a symbol of his own liberation as well. With it he celebrated dozens of Passovers, until his death.
That seder plate is what I saw in the shop for sale in the antique shop that day. “Where did you get this?” I inquired... “It was part of the contents of an estate sale by the children,” the dealer replied. “You see, the deceased was religious, but his descendants are not. [Shmuel remarried after the war and had a new family.] So they said they didn’t really have any need for items like these.”
This is a story that no one could have invented—a Seder plate that a father had hidden in order to preserve it from the Nazis being thrown away after his death by his children??? No child could be that insensitive, that callous.
Rabbi Blech continues: How I wish that the insensitivity of my friend Shmuel’s children was untypical…But the sad truth is that we are part of a “throwaway culture” that shows equal disrespect for used cars, used furniture, and used family treasures. What was sacred to the past has little meaning to the present…So what if my grandparents used this kiddush cup or this mezuzah or this seder plate for so many years? We have no space or need for it.
Rabbi Blech says that this is why he weeps for his friend, Shmuel, whose family sold his Seder plate and thereby made themselves into orphans of history, cut off from their past. This is why he retells Shmuel’s story every year at his own Seder.
Are you as moved by this story as I am? I hope so, because for me this story summarizes and symbolizes what Pesach and Yizkor are all about. Pesach is the time when we retell the story of how Gd took us out of Egypt, and made us His people. And on the day when we forget, or neglect to retell that story on Pesach, we will no longer be Jews!
Ben Gurion was once asked before the establishment of the Jewish State, “Why can’t you forget about this place and look for some other less controversial place in which to live?”
He answered: Because we are a people of memory. We Jews don’t forget…Several centuries ago, Columbus and his sailors came to America. Does anyone know exactly what day they arrived? And does anyone know what they ate on board their ships? Ask any Jewish schoolchild anywhere in the world what day the Jews left Egypt, and what they ate that night, and he will tell you that they left on Pesach, and that they ate matzah. We are a people that eat today what they ate then, in order that we may remember. And that is why we cannot trade the land that we have remembered so long for some other place.
And for we Jews, sacred memory extends to our own families. This is why the mementoes of our families are so very precious. Cheryl has a Pesach tablecloth, whose cash value is probably not very large, but is truly invaluable. Her mother brought it with her from South Africa and it’s filled with beautifully imprinted symbols of Pesach. Do you think she or her children would ever give it away? No way! They’d fight over who gets it! Because every time they look at it, they think of Cheryl’s mother and her love.
My parents gave me their classic china Seder plate 50 years ago. I’ve had 50 years of Seders over that plate filled with charoset, maror, salt water, karpas and shank bones. My parents, sadly, cannot make it to my Seder anymore, but they are there with their plate and their love nevertheless.
If there’s anyone here today who has such a precious heirloom—whether it’s a wedding ring or a menorah or a Seder plate or a Kiddush cup or whatever—I plead with you never, never sell it; treasure it and honor it in the only way that you can ever honor a Jewish sacred object—by using it. And then, when your time comes, I urge you to give it to your children so they can treasure it too
I don’t know how much you’ll leave your children in material things, but this I do know: that if you leave them these tokens of your heritage, and if they use them, and if they do not sell them as Shmuel’s family did—Gd forbid—you will have left them a precious legacy that will bind them to you and to your parents and to your parents’ parents, and that will bind them to your children and to their children.
My friends, as we recite Yizkor this morning, precious and holy memories will come flowing into our hearts. May I suggest that as we do, we resolve to treasure their memories, their values and the treasures they left for us. For if we do, then they will live on in this world, and so will we. Amen!
