(RNS) — On Tuesday, July 16, I and a group of rabbis traveled south from Jerusalem — to the Gaza envelope.
There, we visited the places that Hamas had ravaged on Oct. 7, 2023.
We visited the site of the Nova music festival, where we said kaddish for the young victims.
We visited Kibbutz Nir Oz. We walked through the rubble of the burnt houses, the burnt kitchen, the places where people died, and the places where people were taken hostage. One-quarter of the residents of Nir Oz were killed or taken hostage.
I have experienced many moments of pain in my Jewish life, even as I have experienced many moments of joy and exaltation.
But never in my life have I encountered the memories of such sheer evil as I did at Nir Oz.
I had not known at that time that I was walking in the footsteps, walking the same ground, as Alex Dancyg, of blessed memory — a proud son of Warsaw.
And so it was in Warsaw on Yom Kippur that I dedicated the memorial service to his memory.
I did so in the presence of Anya, his life partner.
As I looked at her, I realized something about my rabbinical career.
I have officiated at countless funerals. Most have been for the well-aged. Some, tragically, have been for young people. Very few have been for those who have died violently — in accidents, for example. This is the only time I have publicly remembered someone who was murdered.
I opened his Book of Life.
Alex was born in Warsaw in 1948. In 1957, the family immigrated to Israel. There, Alex joined the Labor Zionist youth organization, Ha-shomer Ha-tzair. He served in the Israel Defense Forces and he fought in several wars. He started a family on Kibbutz Nir Oz and there they raised three children.
Alex was a historian; a founder of youth trips to Poland; a contributor to the Yad Vashem Institute; a man who educated generations of teachers and students about Holocaust remembrance; a man who advised tour guides on how to help Israelis visit Poland; a farmer; a man who believed in dialogue between Jews and Poles, for which he won awards and prizes.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists kidnapped Alex from Kibbutz Nir Oz. His last communication was at 8:30 that morning. It was to his son Yuval. Alex told Yuval what was happening in the kibbutz.
Eleven days later, on Oct. 18 — the Israel Defense Forces informed Alex’s family they had identified a signal from his mobile phone in Gaza.
It was to have been his last sign of life.
On the walls of Facebook, on the walls of X, you could see the emotional plea: #StandWithAlex.
His face still adorns murals all around Warsaw.
On July 22, the Israel Defense Forces reported that Hamas had murdered Alex while he was being held as a hostage.
I could barely contain my rage and my hatred for Hamas. Hamas chose to murder a man who sought peace, as did many of those who were victims. Seekers of peace, people who worked for peace, people who would drive into Gaza and pick up Palestinians to take them to doctors in Israel.
This past week, I attended several commemorations of Oct. 7 in Warsaw, and in all of them, the memory of Alex Dancyg cried out like a shofar. Alex was not alone; there were 12 other Polish-Israelis who were victims of Oct. 7.
Eliya holds a photo of her grandfather Alex Dancyg during a rally July 23, 2024, in Tel Aviv, Israel, calling for the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip. According to the Israeli military, Alex Dancyg died after being kidnapped by the Hamas militant group. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
During my time in Warsaw, I immersed myself in the figures who created Warsaw’s Judaism.
One of the greatest spiritual heroes of modern Jewish history was Kalonymus Kalman Shapira.
He was the last rabbi of the Warsaw Ghetto.
When the Nazis invaded Poland, in the first days of the German bombings, Rabbi Shapira witnessed, in sequence, the death of his son, then his daughter-in-law, then his sister-in-law. A few weeks later, his mother died.
When the Nazis established the Warsaw Ghetto, Rabbi Shapira refused to leave his people. He worked in soup kitchens. He set up a secret synagogue, where he would teach Torah, week in and week out.
During the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, the rabbi remained in the ghetto. After the uprising, he was captured and sent to the Trawniki work camp near Lublin. He had the opportunity to escape, but he refused to leave his people. On Nov. 3, 1943, all the remaining Jews in Trawniki, included Rabbi Shapira, were shot to death.
Sometime after the war, a construction project was laying the foundation for a new building on the site of the destroyed ghetto. A construction worker found buried milk containers and hidden within was a cache of archives, which served as a living memory of the ghetto. Those archives also contained the texts of all the sermons that Rabbi Shapira had delivered in the ghetto. A few years later, those sermons were published under the title “Eysh Kodesh,” “The Holy Fire.”
This past week, I visited the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, where Emanuel Ringelblum’s famous archives – Oyneg Shabbos, Oneg Shabbat, the joy of Shabbat — are now housed, including Shapira’s sermons.
One of those sermons was from Feb. 14, 1942. Rabbi Shapira taught a story from the Talmud. It was about a sage who was wandering through the ruins of Jerusalem, and he stopped there, and he prayed.
While this sage was praying in the ruins, he heard the voice of God, weeping.
As I can imagine, having prayed in the ruins of Kibbutz Nir Oz, and in the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto, and hearing a divine voice, weeping as well.
As Rabbi Shapira taught: God goes into a hidden place in heaven, and God weeps. God weeps — with us and for us. God weeps for our pain and our suffering.
Why is it a secret place? Rabbi Shapira taught that God weeps in a secret place because an angel told God it is inappropriate for God to weep in public. God should weep in private.
To quote Andrea Cohen-Kiener, a scholar who has analyzed Rabbi Shapira’s writings:
In these moments God is hiding away and crying along with us. God experiences our grief with us. God feels our isolation, rage and fear. When we do not abandon our true feelings, we are not abandoned. We are in fact connected with the heart of the one who made us.
When someone dies, these are the words we address to the mourners: “May God comfort you, in the midst of all those who mourn in Zion and Jerusalem.”
The walls between us disappear. The tears wash them away.
The walls between us and the Eternal One, the Soul of the Universe, the heart of all being, those walls disappear as well.
The tears wash them away.
Adapted from my Yizkor sermon, given on Yom Kippur, Beit Warshawa, Warsaw, Poland.
