LA Aish HaTorah Community

Dear Community,

 

Below is the very moving speech Rick Kahn gave at the Kahn Torah Dedication at Aish on Shavuos a few weeks ago.  Enjoy.

 

 

Good Yom Tov everyone….Thanks for coming….My family and I appreciate your joining us for this special Hachnasas Torah…

Bershous Rabbi Cohen, other Rabbaim, and members of the community. I would like to recount some of the history of this particular Torah that we are honoring today.   We are not commemorating a new Torah…but rather a very, very old one, one with a remarkable journey.  

 

On the night of November 9^th, 1938, all across Nazi Germany, on a night that would later become known as Kristalnacht, the German people took their first momentous and irrevocable step that would inevitably lead to the murder of 6 million Jews. In coordinated assaults in every place where Jews lived and worked, the German people murdered their first 91 Jews, destroyed or desecrated their first 267 synagogues, ransacked thousands of homes and businesses, and arrested the first 25,000 to 30,000 Jews who were immediately sent to the first concentration camps.   Most historians will acknowledge and designate the night of November 9^th 1938 as the beginning of the Holocaust. 

 

About 30 miles from the Luxembourg border, in a small German town called Wawern, near the German city of Trier, about 30 Jewish families, who had lived integrated and peacefully with their neighbors for several decades, were unable to escape the terror of that night.   Their only synagogue was essentially demolished. Its windows and religious artifacts were shattered. Five of its precious 6 Torahs were thrown into the streets, unrolled, ripped, and trampled upon…and ultimately destroyed.   

 

On the morning of November 10^th, Jews all over Germany were required to clean up the mess of the night before.  My Grandfather of blessed memory (Benyamin) - went into his demolished shul that early and cold morning, along with his fellow congregants, to begin that clean-up effort.  Aunt Herta, my father’s sister, who currently lives in Florida, (she should be well and live to 120) at the age of 10 was an actual eye witness to her father’s courage that morning.    

 

I am now going to read to you a translated excerpt of a letter that my grandmother, of blessed memory, wrote to my father, of blessed memory, on June 10, 1966…describing the events of that terrible evening and morning back in November 1938:

 

“…Since I am just writing to you, I will tell you the history of the Sefer Torah that you took with you.

After our Synagogue was demolished on Nov. 9^th, 1938, and all of the Sefer Torahs were thrown out on the street and trampled on (the Synagogue had 6 of them) the Jews of our little community were told the next day to clean up everything.  In the rubbles of the synagogue they found a broken and soiled Torah and since everybody else was scared to do anything about it (it would have been dangerous to be caught with the Torah), your father had the courage to hide it under his coat and to take it home, since luckily we lived next door to the synagogue. Fortunately he was not caught or the consequences could have been severe. Since that time this Torah has accompanied us during all our immigrations, in a crate with our meager belongings when we left Germany, to Bolivia, and back to Luxembourg.  During the years in Luxembourg your father would study and read this Torah to prepare for each Shabbat.  But since we are getting pretty old, we decided that you should take this Torah back to the United States and donate it to your Synagogue.”

 

As was indicated, a couple months prior to my grandmother’s actual writing of this letter, my father went to Luxembourg to visit his parents.  He brought this Torah back to the United States, and donated it to his shul.   My grandmother and grandfather died shortly after my father’s visit to them, in 1967 and 1968, respectively.   

 

This Torah was originally written in the 1800s and is quite unusual in its script, column widths, column lengths, and parchment, which is actually deerskin.   It clearly has a very special and long history beyond its Kristalnacht experiences.  

 

This Torah sat quietly in a conservative shul in Arcadia.   It was never used as it was considered not kosher.  Yet growing up, I would watch my father proudly hold this Torah on Kol Nidre nights, continuing to hold on to his family and it legacy.  After 33 years of sitting idly, a new Rabbi came and commissioned a sofer from our community to repair this Torah which we affectionately called the Kahn Torah.  The shul had planned an event, similar to this one, in which my father would carry this Torah and the shul would accept it….and begin using it.  Unfortunately, my father’s first stroke prevented the proceedings from occurring as planned.   The shul decided to wait for my father to fully recover.   However, my father had a 2^nd stroke and was nifter a few weeks thereafter, in May of 2000.    

 

In April of 2001, on a day my family was to unveil the gravestone at my father’s grave site, my brother joined my mother, Jill and me, in adding the final letters that would make this a kosher, usable Torah.  

 

Growing up, I was pretty detached from this Torah and my family’s story and history around it.   Not until about 18 months ago, as the reality of my son’s Bar Mitzvah came into focus, did we decide that it would be very cool to ascertain if this Torah could be loaned to us.  Our vision was that our son, Benyamin Naphtali, who is named after his remarkable great grandfather, might actually lain his Parsha – Balak – from the exact same Torah that his great grandfather had rescued, guarded, and read from every Shabbos.   

 

With the help of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, we were able to negotiate the loan of this Torah in the summer of 2009.  Again the Almighty intervened a 2^nd time within the last 5 months, by facilitating the acquisition of the Arcadia shul by the Pasadena Conservative shul.  Jill and I thought that it didn’t make sense that this Torah be housed permanently in a place in which my father had absolutely no connection.  We began a dialogue with the President of the Pasadena shul, which was facilitated by Meira Amster’s mother, who was well connected to this shul’s President.  After several weeks of discussions, it was decided by their leadership that this Torah should rightfully be returned to the Kahn family where it will be housed in a place where the Kahns daven, learn Torah, and participate in a vibrant, observant Jewish community.     

 

Rabbi Cohen and my family made the decision to welcome this Torah to our community on this Shavuos - a day when the Jewish people received and accepted Torah…and on a day where I was able to say Yitzkor for my father, grandfather and grandmother – all of blessed memory.  We couldn’t imagine another more appropriate day to receive and accept and honor this Sefer Torah.   

And so on Parsha Balak, with my Aunt Herta, God willing, in attendance, our son and her great nephew Benyamin Naphtali will, God willing,  read some or all his parsha, from this Sefer Torah and add his name and his generation to its remarkable history.

In the merit of the arduous journey that this Torah went through to be here with us today, may its Kiddusha, and the honor that we bestow upon it, as the Holiday of Shavuos comes to its close, help us all to recommit and reconnect to Hashem through the study of His Torah and performance of His Mitzvot.  

 

Thank you all for coming and joining in this Simcha…Chag Samayach …

 

 

Tamar Sullivan

Community Coordinator

Aish Los Angeles

tamar@aishla.com