Page 4 • Faith Today
“I think that today
the nation of Israel,
perhaps more than ever
before, finds itself at the
center of the attention of
the nations of the world,
above all because of this
terrible experience (the
Holocaust), through which
jCT you have become a loud warn-
Y big voice for all humanity.”
\ (Pope John Paul II speaking to
the Polish Jewish community in
Warsaw, 1987)
In a 1987 address in Warsaw,
Poland, Pope John Paul II sug
gested that the Holocaust of the
Jews during World War II gives
Jews a “particular vocation”
which others can learn from, said
ON PILGRIMAGE
Eugene Fisher. This moving
speech reflected the pope’s per
sonal experience of having friends
and classmates die in concentra
tion camps, Fisher added. He is
director of the U.S. bishops’
Secretariat for Catholic-Jewish
relations.
Despite its evil, the Holocaust is
an event that many Christians
“have not totally come to grips
with yet,” Fisher believes.
Like the experience of the
Israelites’ exodus from Egypt, the
Holocaust is not something that
one experiences or hears about
and then within a few short years
forgets, he said. It is a great
mystery that needs to be grappled
with over and over again.
For the pope, the Jews provide
a witness and a warning because
“all that threatens humanity”
comes together in the Holocaust,
Fisher said. Under the Nazis, the
destructive power of technology
and a loss of values combined to
create an environment where
murdering an entire people seem
ed possible.
One-third of the total Jewish
population was murdered
systematically and two of every
three Jews living in Europe in
1938 were killed.
A Jewish friend once told Fisher
that 70 members of his family
were alive in Poland before the
war. By war’s end, the only sur
vivors were his parents, a brother
and himself.
This common experience re
mains “a massive trauma” for the
Jewish people, Fisher said. Only
since the mid-1970s have many
Jews been willing to speak out
publicly about the Holocaust.
With many death-camp survivors
growing old, they worry that “if
the story is not told now, it will
rot be understood,” Fisher
explained.
He suggested that Christians on
the parish level look for oppor
tunities to acquaint themselves
with the evil of the Holocaust and
the possibility of hope arising
from it. Lent is an appropriate
time to study the Holocaust and
its meaning, he added.
The study sessions could end
with a joint Christian-Jewish com
memoration at the time of the
Jewish “Yom Hashoah” (Day of
the Holocaust) each spring, he
said.
children s pi a(*F '
Bv Janaan Manternach
NC News Service
A braham Joshua Heschel
was born 80 years ago
in Poland He grew up
in a small Russian town
called Mezbizh
The Heschel family were devout
Jews. Abraham was named after
his grandfather the last great rabbi
of Mezbizh Young Abraham grew
up in a world filled w ith Jewish
traditions and practices Fie loved
the Jewish feasts, the prayers at
home and in the synagogue
He was enchanted by the stories
his parents told him about the
great Jewish men and w omen of
Mezbizh. Many a tree stone or
street reminded him of some
wonderful person or event
Abraham loved to studs the
Torah, the Hebrew Bible and the
Talmud, the book of Jew ish tradi
tions. Even before he w as a teen
ager he wanted to become like
two great Polish rabbis Baal Shem
Tov and Menahem Mend'.
The holv Rabbi Baa; Shem Tov,
who died in Mezbizh in 1~60 ;
founded the Hasidic movement to
which the Heschels belonged He
America's
best
known
rabbi
believed the world was good and
beautiful, filled with God’s
presence. The rabbi taught that
God could be known in the or
dinary tasks of daily life. What
counted most for Baal Shem Tov
was love, compassion and
openness.
Abraham also wanted to be like
the famous Rabbi Menahem Mendl
of Kotzk, called the Kotzker, who
died in 1859- He looked more at
the pain, corruption and lies that
Word Scramble
Unscramble the words below. All the words are
in this week’s children’s story.
Example; ORTHA
1. HEELSCH
2. ZIMEZBH
3. NOGUGEASY
4. MALTDU
5. BIBAR
fill the world and focused on the
mystery of evil. He was full of
questions. For him what counted
most was truth, honesty, justice
and freedom to search for them.
Abraham became a passionate
seeker after truth like the Kotzker.
He also became a good man, open,
caring and compassionate like Rab
bi Baal Shem Tov.
As a young man during World
War II Abraham narrowly escaped
death at the hands of the Nazis.
He fled to London in 1939 and
then to the United States.
In time, Abraham Heschel
became the best known rabbi in
America. As a professor, he
educated hundreds of Jewish rab
bis. The answers to questions “are
questions in disguise,” he once
wrote, and “every new answer
gives rise to new' questions.”
Abraham Heschel lived according
to his beliefs. His life and words
reveal that he was remarkably
open to goodness and truth
wherever they are found.
He was a leader in discussions
between Christians and Jews and
was invited to the Vatican. He
wrote books that helped millions
of Jews and others to find God in
their lives.
Rabbi Heschel also marched for
equal rights with Martin Luther
King Jr. in 1965 in Selma, Ala.,
and led protests against the Viet
nam War. The rabbi died Dec. 23,
1972.
(Ms. Manternach is the author
of catechetical works, scripture
stories and original stories for
children.)
•tqqej -g ‘pnuqBx 'f 'anHoSBuXs -g ‘qziqzapj -g ‘laqasayj q isjaMSuy
What do you think?
□ Sometimes people focus mainly on the ways that Jews and
Catholics are different from each other. But can you find two ways
in which Jews and Catholics are similar — in which they share the
same belief?
From the bookshelf
Even Higher, a Jewish story retold by Barbara Cohen, is a
delightful tale about a born doubter, a man named Litvak. He was
the only person in the little town of Nemerov who did not believe
that each year just before Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year,
their holy rabbi was lifted up to heaven to talk with God. So in
secret Litvak followed the rabbi and discovered something about
him that was a great surprise. This experience also taught Litvak
something important about ordinary people. (Lothrop, Lee and
Shepard, 105 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016.1987. Hard
back, $13.)
