Marching the Torah out of Auschwitz

It has truly been a privilege to travel with 48 Rosenblatt High School students and to serve as one of the three Rabbis for the 180 students from the Southern Region. 

Yesterday we went to a synagogue in Dobrowa Tarnow. It is a museum that stood for more than 500 years and was destroyed with the Jewish community in 1939, and then rebuilt in 2006. 

We finished writing (fixing) a 250 year old Sefer Torah that was stolen during the war and then found in Russia and restored. 

I had the honor along with four survivors to write a letter and as we finished the Torah all the students danced together in celebration singing "Am Yisrael Chai". It was an epic moment. 

The inspiration continued this morning as we called one of the survivors for an aliyah and he read from the Torah for the first time in more than 80 years. We then took the Torah to Auschwitz today, proudly carrying it, each student taking a turn, and matching the Torah to Birkenau for the Yom Hashoah service. 

Last year on the March, Rabbi Meir Lau, the former Chief Rabbi of Israel, held a Torah during his speech saying the reason he was doing such was that both he and the Torah were survivors as the Nazis tried to eliminate both. 

We had the opportunity to share our experience with restoring the Torah with Rabbi Lau at this March and were honored to march a Living Torah out of Auschwitz. This truly was a March of the Living. Beyond inspiring. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Plotkin