Torah Portion:	Lech Lecha
Synagogue:	Gary Smorgon House
Walking time from home:	40 minutes
Reason for going:	A birthday and Bar Mitzvah anniversary
Kiddush:	Sit-down kiddush with lots of food and a cake

My goal is still to get to a shule that I haven’t yet been to, but this week I came back to Gary Smorgon House (GSH) at Jewish Care, one that I had visited recently, for a very special reason. Both Henry – the survivor who came with us on our March of the Living trip – and the rabbi at GSH, who also came with us, had birthdays during the week, so they decided to celebrate their Bar Mitzvah portions together.

The last time I saw Henry standing next to an open Torah was very emotional. On our first night in Krakow – on Erev Yom HaShoah, the night before the march itself – all of us as an Australian group gathered in one of the old shules in town for a ceremony. In many ways it was a typical ceremony like many of us had been to many times, with the lighting of memorial candles and the recitation of prayers and speeches. But what made it memorable was one particular speech and action.

The guest speaker runs a Jewish foundation that does many things, but one of which is that it provides dignity to the Righteous amongst the Nations in their old age. Since they helped the Jews in their time of need, this is the least his foundation can do now. As such, he often travels around the region and encounters all kinds of fascinating stories. One such story several years ago found him in a regional Polish town in the home of a non-Jewish family who had lived in the same house for many decades. Eighty years earlier, their Jewish neighbours gave them a package for safe keeping and it was still in their attic. It was time for this Jew to see if the package contained anything valuable.

As it happens, the package contained an old Torah scroll, which by this point was moth and rat infested. By Halachic rights he should have buried it, but instead he cleaned it up, removed any damaged sections, reattached blank pieces of parchment, taught himself to be a Torah scribe (Sofer), and now travels the world with this Torah. Every time he encounters a survivor, as he did with Henry in Krakow, he invites that survivor to join him to write a letter or a word in that Torah. Henry was of course utterly surprised and amazed, as we all were, but he held back tears and together with his daughter standing next to him, he wrote a letter… and we all cried.

This time when he stood by an open Torah it was also emotional, but on a very different level. He read a small section of his Bar Mitzvah portion, about leaving your father’s house and going on a journey, with all of his family beside him. Not just his daughter, but his wife, son and grandson, as well as residents of GSH, friends of his who were at his Bar Mitzvah all those years ago, other friends, and some of us from what he calls his March of the Living family. The rabbi also read from the Torah, though he usually does so every week anyway.

In many ways, this has always been my favourite portion because it is about becoming independent and ‘going for yourself’ to chart your own journey. The rabbi also said that in light of current events in Israel, we need to look at the world to see who is in charge, and have faith that ultimately Judaism and Israel will prevail. Later at the Kiddush, Henry and the rabbi spoke together. The rabbi explained how he discovered that he and Henry share a birthday week and that they are only 40 years apart in age. Henry for his part gave two speeches: He started off by reading his speech from his actual Bar Mitzvah 69 years ago, and did so partly in a falsetto voice like he would have when he was thirteen. But then he spoke about the joy he feels today, with the rabbi and his family all around him. And for all of us it was another moving and emotional experience.