Our travels today took us to Volozhin. I had been waiting with great anticipation for this visit. After all, Volozhin is in fact the mother of all Yeshivot around the world.
The founder of the Yeshiva, Rabbi Chaim Itzkowitz (R Chaim Volozhiner) is buried in a nearby cemetery. So we visited both the Yeshiva and the cemetery. It is quite difficult to describe this visit. First of all, I had a mental image of the yeshiva which, of course, was nothing like I pictured. Sadly, it is in complete disrepair, but it is a building inside which we can stand.
Once inside, we gathered around Rabbi Schwartz as he taught a section of the Nefesh HaChaim written by R. Chaim of Volozhin (See picture to left) . In addition to the moving experience of learning the words of R. Chaim in the location where he himself taught, there was yet an additional that made this such a moving experience. Rabbi Schwartz was teaching us this Torah in the very Yeshiva that his grandfather learned in…right there in Volozhin! While it was freezing in the Yeshiva, it was a truly heart-warming experience.
After the visit to the Yeshiva, we visited the cemetery where R. Chaim is buried. The cemetery itself is also in complete disrepair with headstones all over the ground. However, the Kever of R. Chaim is maintained and has a relatively new headstone. We said a Kaddish at the site and pause to reflect about the the master of Torah, at whose grave we stood.
It should be noted that there are no Jews at all in Volozhin today.
I can now truthfully say, “I have learned in the yeshiva in Volozhin” !
We returned to Minsk in the early afternoon, and our first stop was the Jewish Campus. It is here that most of the services that are available to the Jewish community through JDC are housed under one roof in one complex. (Such services as I mentioned yesterday: Jewish Family Services, Hillel, Chessed Organization, etc). We visted the Jewish Museum, that while small in size has a rich amount of artifacts and archival information. One amazing story that we heard had to do with a Torah that had been discovered only a year ago. It had been cut into sections and used as a base for this person’s attic insulation (rachmana litzlan) just after the war. When the museum curator went to the home to verify if indeed what was being reported to her, that this Torah was there and in such a condition, she interviewed the homeowner. She asked him if things were okay in his home. He said that in fact there had been a tragedy onlya few years back. His wife (Jewish) had died in a fall from the upper level of the home. The curator told him that in her opinion it might be due to the fact that he was keeping a Jewish Torah in his attic in such a disgraceful position/condition. He gladly gave up the entire scroll but asked for no money. He only wished to have new “insulation” placed in the attic!
One of our final stops of the day was a visit to the JAFI (Jewish Agency for Israel—the Sochnut) Center. Here we learned of all the programs that are available to the residents with the focus in every way being ISRAEL. These programs include:
· Ulpanim
· Youth Clubs (strengthening Jewish identity and roots)
· Aliyah Programs for Youth (Na’aleh, Sela and others)
· Summer and Winter Camps
· Heftizbah Jewish Day Schools
· Aliyah Clubs
· Taglit-Birthright
· MASA/Israel journey
This truly was an amazing day filled with vibrancy, learning and growth. Tonight, we are to be addressed by the US ambassador to Belarus.
The founder of the Yeshiva, Rabbi Chaim Itzkowitz (R Chaim Volozhiner) is buried in a nearby cemetery. So we visited both the Yeshiva and the cemetery. It is quite difficult to describe this visit. First of all, I had a mental image of the yeshiva which, of course, was nothing like I pictured. Sadly, it is in complete disrepair, but it is a building inside which we can stand.
Once inside, we gathered around Rabbi Schwartz as he taught a section of the Nefesh HaChaim written by R. Chaim of Volozhin (See picture to left) . In addition to the moving experience of learning the words of R. Chaim in the location where he himself taught, there was yet an additional that made this such a moving experience. Rabbi Schwartz was teaching us this Torah in the very Yeshiva that his grandfather learned in…right there in Volozhin! While it was freezing in the Yeshiva, it was a truly heart-warming experience.
After the visit to the Yeshiva, we visited the cemetery where R. Chaim is buried. The cemetery itself is also in complete disrepair with headstones all over the ground. However, the Kever of R. Chaim is maintained and has a relatively new headstone. We said a Kaddish at the site and pause to reflect about the the master of Torah, at whose grave we stood.
It should be noted that there are no Jews at all in Volozhin today.
I can now truthfully say, “I have learned in the yeshiva in Volozhin” !
We returned to Minsk in the early afternoon, and our first stop was the Jewish Campus. It is here that most of the services that are available to the Jewish community through JDC are housed under one roof in one complex. (Such services as I mentioned yesterday: Jewish Family Services, Hillel, Chessed Organization, etc). We visted the Jewish Museum, that while small in size has a rich amount of artifacts and archival information. One amazing story that we heard had to do with a Torah that had been discovered only a year ago. It had been cut into sections and used as a base for this person’s attic insulation (rachmana litzlan) just after the war. When the museum curator went to the home to verify if indeed what was being reported to her, that this Torah was there and in such a condition, she interviewed the homeowner. She asked him if things were okay in his home. He said that in fact there had been a tragedy onlya few years back. His wife (Jewish) had died in a fall from the upper level of the home. The curator told him that in her opinion it might be due to the fact that he was keeping a Jewish Torah in his attic in such a disgraceful position/condition. He gladly gave up the entire scroll but asked for no money. He only wished to have new “insulation” placed in the attic!
One of our final stops of the day was a visit to the JAFI (Jewish Agency for Israel—the Sochnut) Center. Here we learned of all the programs that are available to the residents with the focus in every way being ISRAEL. These programs include:
· Ulpanim
· Youth Clubs (strengthening Jewish identity and roots)
· Aliyah Programs for Youth (Na’aleh, Sela and others)
· Summer and Winter Camps
· Heftizbah Jewish Day Schools
· Aliyah Clubs
· Taglit-Birthright
· MASA/Israel journey
This truly was an amazing day filled with vibrancy, learning and growth. Tonight, we are to be addressed by the US ambassador to Belarus.
