The Shofar’s Eternal Call

From memories of Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis

... we suffered in Bergen-Belsen as Rosh Hashanah drew near and we had no shofar, no machzor. The rabbis held secret meetings. They tried to ascertain how they could possibly obtain a shofar and a machzor (prayer book). There was a black market in the camp and things could be acquired for the right price, especially if those “things” were Jewish ritual items. They were all in the junk pile waiting to be destroyed.

So it was through the heroic efforts of our people that 300 cigarettes were collected to buy a shofar and a machzor. But there was another problem. One shofar could be heard by multitudes but surely one machzor would not suffice. So once again our rabbis designed a plan. Everyone would learn at least one prayer to be recited from memory. But which prayer, which Psalm, whichberachah?  Surely all the supplications, all the Psalms, all the blessings in the machzor are holy.  So which one should it be? 

The decision was made: “Bochen levavos – let us pray to Him who searches and tests our hearts on that Day of Judgment.”  Yes, we invited G-d to come to Bergen-Belsen and examine our hearts in order to see for Himself that despite our pain and suffering we had not faltered one bit in our faith and love for Him.

Adjacent to our compound was a Polish camp (the Nazis often kept nationalities separate). Somehow our Polish brethren got wind of our treasure. So when Rosh Hashanah came and the piercing cry of the shofar was sounded, our Polish brethren crept close to the barbed wire fence separating us to hear the ancient call. The Nazis came running and beat them mercilessly. But even as the truncheons were falling on their heads they cried out, “Blessed is the Lord our G-d who has commanded us to listen to the sound of the shofar.” 

Many years later I was lecturing in Israel in a village in Samaria called Neve Aliza. It was late summer, just before Rosh Hashanah, and I felt a need to tell the story of the shofar of Bergen-Belsen. When I finished, a woman in the audience got up. “I know exactly what you are talking about,” she said, “because my father was the rabbi in the Polish compound.  You may not realize this, but your shofar was smuggled into our camp in the bottom of a large garbage can filled with soup and my father blew the shofar for us.”

I looked at her, momentarily speechless.

“And that’s not all,” she went on to say. “I have the shofar in my house, here in Neve Aliza. When we were liberated, we blew the shofar again and my father took it with him. Today I have it here in Eretz Yisrael.”

With that, she ran home and returned a few minutes later with the shofar in her hands. We wept and embraced. Here we were, two little girls from Belgen-Belsen holding that shofar in the hills of Israel. I invite you to think about that and then to think about it again – and again. 

The entire world had declared us dead. Millions of our people had been slaughtered but the shofar, the symbol of Jewish piety, triumphed over the flames. And G-d granted me the awesome privilege of rediscovering that shofar in the ancient hills of Samaria to which our people had returned after more than two thousand years of wandering, darkness, oppression and Holocaust – the miracle of our time.