Judaism is a ‘thing’ — guess where?

(RNS) — When you die, timing is everything.

For example: If someone dies on Shabbat, that person might be a particularly righteous individual.

That is what the Zohar, the cardinal work of Jewish mysticism, teaches. That holy book mentions that three righteous individuals died on Shabbat: Joseph, Moses and King David. Each one was a refugee. Each one transcended themselves in ways they could not have imagined.

That is how it was with Piotr Stasiak, who served as president of Beit Warshawa (a Reform congregation in Warsaw, Poland) who died on Shabbat, the eleventh day of Elul, Sept. 14.

Pay attention: There is far more than meets the eye.

Piotr’s father was Leon Stasiak, born in Czestochowa. He had been imprisoned in Auschwitz. In January 1945, he was on a death march. A woman named Erna Kostka, 20 years old, saved him. That was how Piotr’s parents met. Yad VaShem ultimately recognized Erna and her two uncles as Righteous Among the Nations.

As a young boy, Piotr started to notice things. His father observed Yom Kippur — always on the same day, Sept. 22. That was the date the Germans deported Jews from Czestochowa, and it happened to have been Yom Kippur. This was coincidence; the Nazis took fiendish delight in scheduling anti-Jewish actions for Jewish holidays.

Piotr’s parents would take him to the annual ceremonies commemorating the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

And then, one day, when he was about 15, he opened a drawer. He found a photograph of his father that was taken before the war. But, the photograph did not bear the name Leon Stasiak. Rather, it bore the name Lazar Sylman.

Piotr now knew for sure his father was a Jew. That meant that he had a claim on Jewish identity. He would fully embrace that identity. He would become a Jewish leader.

I think of the words that introduce Kol Nidre, the opening statement on Yom Kippur:

By the authority of the court on high, and by authority of the court below …

We are permitted to pray with those who have sinned.

Who are those who have sinned?

It might refer to the Jews of Spain and Portugal in the 1400s.

Many of them outwardly converted to Christianity but continued to observe Judaism in secret. 

Many of them did not even know they were Jews — until a generation later, when they were able to return to Judaism.

Wherever they lived — in Amsterdam, in Hamburg and yes, there were those Jews in Poland, as well — these secret Jews would come to the synagogue on Yom Kippur.

They wanted to affirm their identities as Jews, even though they believed they had sinned, because they had fallen so far away from traditional Judaism.

What would the community say to them?

“It does not matter. It does not matter how far you have drifted away from Judaism. It was not your fault. Yes, you can pray with us, and yes, we can pray with you. You are part of us, and we are part of you.”

As I was preparing for my journey to Poland, I read “I’d like to say sorry, but there’s no one to say sorry to,” by Mikolaj Grynberg. It is a collection of stories about what it means to be Jewish in Poland, and what it means for Poles to encounter Jews.

In one story, an old Polish woman is on her deathbed, and she tells her grandchildren she is Jewish. The grandchildren cannot believe it. “It must be that grandma is not getting enough oxygen, that’s why she is talking like that.”

But the grandmother does not give up telling her story, even as the breath is leaving her body. 

In another story, a Christian Polish man travels to Israel every year. He goes on Christian pilgrimages.

Why? Because he is not really a Christian. He is really a Jew, a secret Jew. He goes for one reason: because he just wants to be in the land of Israel. His mother had made him swear never to tell anyone he was Jewish.

You might recall a film — “Ida” — which was the first Polish film to win an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.

In 1962, a young Polish woman is about to take vows to become a nun. She had lost her parents during the war, and her aunt tells her they were Jews and that she is Jewish.

What do these stories teach us?

First: Every Jew today who lives as a Jew has chosen to live as a Jew. We live in a world with countless temptations, with countless distractions, with countless competitions for our time and energy, with countless highways out of Jewish identity.

Those of us who are here — those of us who are anywhere in the Jewish world — have freely chosen that. Especially after Oct. 7.

I have listened to the voices of many American Jewish college students who have been regularly subjected to taunting and bullying and exclusion — because their tormentors call them “Zionists,” which means “Jew.”

This is what those young Jews say. None of this will push them away from their Jewish identity.

Quite the opposite: They say that now they are even more resolute to live Jewish lives as adults.

Second: The Jewish people needs everyone who wants to be Jewish and who chooses to be Jewish.

In the Talmud, we read the following passage (Keritot 6b): “Every fast must include all Jews, even and especially those who are the sinners.”

The passage goes on to teach: In the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, they used to bring an incense offering.

It should have smelled wonderful.

But apparently, in that mixture of incense, there was one particular plant that smelled horrible.

And yet, the sages teach us without that foul-smelling plant, the incense mixture was invalid. You had to have that foul-smelling plant in the mixture.  

Each of us is a mixture of the sweet and the foul, and we are still valid to stand before God and before each other.

We cannot and we should not cut any parts of ourselves out of ourselves. They are all part of who we are. We would be unrecognizable to ourselves if we lacked those pieces of ourselves.

How does Kol Nidre conclude?

“May all the people of Israel be forgiven, including all the strangers who live among them.”

The strangers are the gerim, those who would convert to Judaism, those who would join the Jewish people, those who would attach themselves to this people.

This humbles me, and it causes me to tremble.

When I told a friend of mine I was going to Poland for the High Holy Days, he scoffed at the idea.

“Why would you do that? It is a Jewish cemetery.”

After almost two weeks in Poland, I now have a response for him.

“Poland is not a Jewish cemetery. It is a Jewish maternity hospital. There, they give birth to Jews.”

That has been the greatest take-away from my experience in Poland over the Days of Awe. In the synagogue in Warsaw, I constantly encountered young Poles who thirst for Jewish wisdom, for Jewish texts, for Jewish ideas, for Jewish spirituality. Some of them have a Jew somewhere in their family trees. Some are the children and grandchildren of Poles who hid their Jewish identity. Some have no Jewish connections at all.

These are young Polish gentiles who are on their way to becoming young Polish Jews. They are the future of the Polish Jewish community.

At Sopot University, outside of Gdansk, I gave a talk to a group of post-graduate students who wanted to learn about the history and challenges of Reform Judaism in the United States. Forty people showed up. They had great, probing questions. It was a powerful evening.

Almost none of them are Jewish. And yet, they want to learn about Judaism, its culture, its intellectual vigor and its hope.

I came to Poland to teach; I stayed to learn. I learned what I had already known, but what I needed to see in real time and in real life.

Judaism has the ability to compete in the intellectual marketplace of ideas, practices, values and longings.

We always knew that — or, many of us did.

But, count on a bunch of young Poles in their 20s to remind me of that.

I have been blessed.

Adapted from my Kol Nidre sermon, Beit Warshawa, Warsaw, Poland.