blogs/brentspodek

In some ways, I am perpetually aware of Auschwitz.

To live in this age is to know that barbarity - it's part of our families, our community, our culture and even our kitsch.

In other ways, I am perpetually ignorant of Auschwitz.

Ignorant because it can be so difficult and painful to bear witness again and again, that I turn away into ignorance.

Ignorant also because knowledge of the Holocaust so often comes with proscriptions about its meaning.

Because of the Holocaust you must support Israel. Or support Palestinians. Or support Darfur. Or put on tefilin. Or have Jewish babies.

I have resisted the idea that in a world where the notion of a commanding God has crumbled, the Holocaust should become a commanding Jewish presence. In that resistance, I have ignored things which should not be ignored.

In two weeks, with the help of the Schusterman Fellowship, I'll be leaving to sit a Zen Meditation Retreat at Auschwitz. 

I'm going to Auschwitz because in order to think deeply about the things I care about - Torah, love, Judaism - I need to confront Auschwitz. I'm going to Auschwitz because a large part of my people and my spiritual inheritance was murdered there and I want to remember the people and the Torah that I never knew. 

Part of my practice there will be chanting names of those murdered in Auschwitz; if you have loved ones whose names you would like me to speak, please send them to me before October 26. 

While in Poland, I'll also be speaking at the Krakow JCC, the site of a new progressive Judaism in Poland, the very existence of which is astonishing. 

I don't know - I can't know - how this experience will affect me or change me. Of course, that is true of every experience lived openly, whether profound or mundane. 

I look forward to my experiences, whatever they might be, with you when I return.