Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down . . . Or Do We? (Noah 5778)

Camp Newman Star Survives on Hillside Blackened by Fire

Many imagine that the nursery rhyme phrase, "ashes, ashes, we all fall down" is a dark reference to 17th century London's Black Plague. But origins for this phrase seem more difficult to comprehend or explain.

It is even more difficult to comprehend or explain the northern California wildfires that in recent weeks have killed more than 40 people and destroyed more than 100,000 acres. It seems too much to take in. Included among the more than 7,000 properties that were destroyed, was much of Camp Newman (the beloved Jewish summer camp that succeeded Camp Swig where I was a camper, record producer, assistant director, and board member).*

These fires have created losses that are immeasurable -- of precious life, treasured livelihood, and valued property. Whole worlds were destroyed. 

The destruction of whole worlds echoes through this week's Torah portion with the story of Noah and the flood and the Tower of Babel. 

The Torah portion begins with a unique feature -- Noah's name is mentioned three times in the first verse, Genesis 6:9. According to the Ba'al Haturim (14th century, Spain), Noah's name is used three times because Noah is among the rare individuals who saw three distinct worlds. First, a world of woe before the flood. Second, a world of destruction in its immediate aftermath. Third, a world restored through hope and acts of renewal. 

This aspect of Noah calls to mind my teacher, Rabbi Alfred Gottschalk** who was born in 1930 in Oberwesel, a small village in the German Rhineland. He, too, saw three different worlds: the dark days of his youth; the consuming fire of the Holocaust that consumed 55 of his relatives; and the renewal that followed.  

When Fred was seven years old, he was kicked out of public school simply because he was a Jew. When Fred was eight, he endured Kristallnacht the so-called Night of Broken Glass during which, through a single November night of fire and terror, German mobs destroyed 7,000 Jewish businesses and burned to the ground or destroyed 1,350 synagogues. 

The next morning in Oberwesel, Fred and his grandfather went to the charred synagogue looking to rescue sacred objects. There was nothing. The bimah was hacked to pieces. The curtains of the ark were torn. The ark emptied. Completely ransacked. 

His grandfather took Fred outside the synagogue as they looked for discarded objects from the shul. They found none of the ransacked objects. Then they headed to a nearby stream where his grandfather saw something in the cold water. He waded in. There he retrieved burnt and torn fragments of a Torah scroll. Handing the pieces to his grandson, the old man said, "One day you will put this together again."

And that is precisely what he did. Although that particular Torah scroll (along with too many others) was destroyed, Fred survived. He survived with an intense commitment to bring back together the charred and torn fragments of Torah. 

A Torah scroll by itself means virtually nothing. Words on parchment. Its true value comes when people work to learn its lessons of hope and light -- of renewal and restoration. Then Torah has real power in this world. When people are inspired to enact the justice that Torah idealizes, then it has real power in this world. When people are moved to emulate the lovingkindness that Torah models, then it has real power in this world. 

Rabbi Gottschalk could never replace all that was destroyed in his world. But he tried always to bind together the broken pieces of this world. 

Rabbi Gottschalk might have physically survived the Holocaust only to have succumbed to the ashes that it spread. But he did not. He did not 'fall down.' He did not stop at the first two worlds of darkness and destruction. He actively pursued that third world; the one of hope and renewal. He stood up to pursue a life of meaning.

In the weeks and months ahead, may we each have the wisdom to discover the broken pieces in our world that need mending. And the strength to commit ourselves to bind them together. Then we will be the ones giving real power to Torah in this world. 

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* For those seeking ways to support those affected by the recent fires in northern California, please consider donating through the Redwood Empire Food Bank, the Redwood Empire Credit Union, and the Camp Newman fund. 

** In his final years as president of Hebrew Union College, I was fortunate to be Rabbi Gottschalk's research assistant. He was a giant in the Reform movement:  Ordaining the first women rabbis in the U.S. and Israel; Championing the creation of a national Holocaust memorial museum: and Reshaping and expanding each of HUC's four campuses.