Torah Portion:	Re’eh
Synagogue:	Gary Smorgon House
Walking time from home:	40 minutes
Reason for going:	Special service and kiddush
Kiddush:	Large, catered kiddush with lots of variety

In April of this year, as I have mentioned previously, I participated in March of the Living, as part of an Australian delegation consisting of 48, most of whom were from Melbourne. One of the fellow participants was the rabbi of Gary Smorgon House (GSH) at Jewish Care, and ever since Poland, we have been talking as a group about doing a reunion Shabbat service and lunch together with the residents at GSH, many of who are survivors. This Shabbat, after months of talking, it finally happened.

GSH has about 120 residents, most of whom do not keep Shabbat, but many like to attend special events. Whilst there is a Shabbat service every week for the residents, their families and other members of the community, usually there is a relatively small crowd of a few dozen or so. This week, given that it was advertised as an event, there were already 60 people by the time I arrived, and the numbers only swelled after that. At one point during the kiddush it looked like there were at least twice as many, maybe more.

The service itself is usually led by the rabbi or one of the regular attendees, but this being a special event, the Musaf was led by a guest Chazan, and most of those called to the Torah were also guests. The sermon was about the broken pieces of the first set of Ten Commandments that Moses collected from Mt Sinai. Although generally they are assumed to be worthless or considered to be damaged goods, one commentary suggests that these shards were kept together with the second set of tablets, because though brokenness might not have been the initial goal, if one experiences pain, horror, damage or in the case of many residents, war and unimaginable grief, this is often a good stepping stone for replenishment. That may be why so many survivors have succeeded beyond their wildest imaginations, partly inspired by the trauma of their early life.

This theme was echoed during the kiddush, where a number of survivors, a few participants and the rabbinical head of Jewish Care all spoke. In fact, when one of the survivors was called to speak and came up to the podium with some of her grandkids and great grandkids, the rabbi called this revenge, but a fellow resident pointed out that it is not revenge, rather it is victory. The survivors were victorious just by surviving and then thriving, and the rest of us continue to live on their coattails, ensuring that the generations that come after know what they experienced so that it never happens again. So many of the speeches were exactly about that. The survivors and residents spoke of the lives they had, the members of their families they had lost and everything they had achieved since the war, whilst our program participants spoke about their experiences, their program highlights and more importantly, how impactful it was and still is, and what it means to them.

The atmosphere was festive, though I suspect it was even more joyous because of the vast amounts of food and an open bar. Many families of residents who weren’t even at the service, turned up for the kiddush and the presentations, and many stayed around after to talk to us – the 20 or so participants who had come for the event. The only shame from our perspective was that there weren’t more from our group in attendance, and that those from Sydney and further afield weren’t able to attend. But for those that did come, it was a special morning and afternoon. Yet again, it made our experience resonant, meaningful and real. So many of the residents at this one home in Melbourne were at the sites we had visited in Poland, and not of their own volition. Next week I will be at another shule that I have already visited, but sometimes these special Shabbat experiences are the most meaningful.