Rosh Hashanah has come and gone on the calendar, but it never really goes away. It always takes me back several decades to my birthplace, the Hungarian city of Szeged.
My father, HaRav HaGaon HaTzaddik Avraham HaLevi Jungreis, zt”l, was a visionary. Long before the ba’al teshuvah movement of recent times, he reached out to everyone. In Szeged he built a shul, a mikveh, and a school for children. With his beautiful long beard and rabbinic hat and coat, he was a strange sight in that secular city. But “strange” quickly gave way to beloved.
My saintly father became the much-loved spiritual leader of the Jewish community. He was blessed with the most magical voice. When he chanted the prayers, they penetrated the deepest crevices of one’s heart. They made one’s soul soar to the greatest heights. No one could daven like him. It was not only his voice but also the genuine tears flowing from his eyes that gave an added dimension to every prayer he chanted.
Every Rosh Hashanah I would arrive early to shul with my saintly mother, Rebbetzin Miriam Jungreis, a”h. But as early as we came there were always some elderly ladies already there, weeping as they recited their tefillos. Nowadays if you go to shul and see someone crying with such intensity and devotion you would be prompted to go over and ask, “Is everything OK? Is someone sick, G-d forbid?”
In my father’s shul it never occurred to us to do that. Of course the women were crying. It was Rosh Hashanah – how could a Jew not cry on such a sacred day. when the life of every person hangs in the balance?
It’s a different world today. Yes, we know it’s Rosh Hashanah, we know it’s the Days of Awe, we know it’s Yom Kippur, but we do not feel it.
Our grandmothers may not have been learned or sophisticated but they genuinely feared G-d and their tears ascended to their Maker. My revered father was not a chazzan but his voice rang with love of Hashem. And he inspired those who heard him to love Hashem as well.
Memories. Crossing oceans and continents, penetrating the darkness and yet basking in the sunshine of Torah. It’s all part of my mind’s journey at this time of year.
Darkness? How can Rosh Hashanah exist in darkness? Are not Rosh Hashanah and darkness contradictory terms?
Come with me to Bergen-Belsen. Allow me to introduce you to my father. It’s Rosh Hashanah. But where is one to find a shofar in that satanic place? Over there, there were only demons. But the demons of Bergen-Belsen did not realize with whom they were contending. There is no power on earth that can silence our shofar or the hearts and souls of our people.
Our shofar is the shofar of Torah, the shofar of faith, the shofar of Mashiach. Time and again throughout the long painful and bloody centuries our enemies tried to destroy us but we triumphed, our shofar in hand, awaiting that final call of Redemption. Even those who stood on the lines to the gas chambers sang “Ani Maamin – I believe in the coming of Mashiach and even if He may tarry I believe.”
In that hellhole of Bergen-Belsen my father and the other rabbanim held a secret meeting and concluded that a shofar must be obtained. They were determined that Rosh Hashanah would not pass without the sound of the shofar.
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.