11-17-2016 Aval Y’a Nes

Your sons will take the place of your ancestors, and you will set them up as princes in all the earth. From generation to generation, I will cause your name to be remembered. Therefore people will thank you forever and ever. Psalm 45:16-17  

Lord, I had this blog all planned out days earlier. I thought I had it completed and then you said, “Wait”. I know because the entire text was wiped off the face of the Ethernet. I had to reconstruct, and it’s a good thing. You had bigger plans for me. I wanted to write about some of the “real people” we’ve met on this trip, about their stories and how we have connected spiritually. Then that “epiphany thing” you do, hit me square in the heart.

It happened when we went to visit an assisted living facility comprise completely of holocaust survivors. The ministry is supported by the International Christian Embassy of Jerusalem who invited our group to help bless and serve this pinnacle community in Haifa. It is I who am being blessed and served Adonai. I still have difficulty comprehending that these beautiful individuals with whom we now commune, are all survivors of the European Slaughter. I will only share one of their names (with permission) in this blog out of dignity to their privacy. Her name is Rita.

The reason Rita so profoundly inspires me, besides her skill in English and the raucous wit of this 89 year old woman, is where we are now sitting. It is a place that most would call a Soup Kitchen or Community Kitchen. Five people sit at our table and around us, many other tables produce the chatter and clatter of lunchtime conversation. There is even a birthday being celebrated in another corner of this revered hall.

As I enjoy the great meal before me, the wonderful companionship, and Rita’s heartfelt telling of her wartime suffering, I’m taken back in my mind 45 years ago (Lord, has it really been that long?) when I encountered a very similar room in what was then called Prague, Czechoslovakia. At that time I was a high-school student on a choir tour. It was a highly singular event because we were allowed to visit that place a mere 3 years after the invasion of the country by the Soviet Union. It was made even more profound by our travel liaison, Rudy whom for some reason took a liking to me and a few others of our troupe. Rudy obtained permission from our chaperones and asked four of us if we would want to join him for lunch. I was naïve and hungry so…why not?

First he cautioned us that we were to take no cameras with us and that we would need to be respectful of every request he made from this point forward. Then Rudy led us through a twisting labyrinth of alleyways to a busy market area, unlike anything I had ever encountered before. It was bustling with oddly dressed men and women, all with hats and coverings on their heads. Many wore strange apron-like clothing that displayed long tassels dangling from the corners.

Rudy said with a gleam in his eye, “This is a very old Jewish community, what many would know as a Ghetto. Follow me.” We entered a small doorway into busy-ness times twenty. The small room echoed with people who I observed sitting 4 to 8 around each of approximately 40 tables. The volume and electricity of the room amazed me and we were drawn immediately to the food line by a friendly old woman. I couldn’t understand a word she said. Rudy helped us with strange food choices and we found a table where we could sit with locals who accepted us readily. In broken English we learned that this was a Zup Kikh – Yiddish for Soup Kitchen. We were asked hundreds of questions about the United States, our families and how we came to be in this place.

Lord I remember how overwhelmed I was with the interest and attention of this clan. We were consuming delicious food, but they were consuming our history, as if we were an amazing dish in some exotic restaurant. When Rudy finally broke us away from the meal, there were protesters. They were anxious for dessert! But we did escape and Rudy led us to one other site that I will never be able to erase from my mind’s eye. It was a plot of land about the size of a city block and surrounded by a wrought iron fence. Kept by the fence was a very tall hill rising above us 30 feet or more in height. “This is the cemetery for the Ghetto,” Rudy explained. “It is required by the government that all Jews be buried in this location. It has been like that for a long time, since at least World War Two, and it is why the hill is so high.”

His words soaked in with difficulty Lord. I was so young, but your teaching was already reaching into me. I realized that before me was a pile of death. Bones-upon-bones. The current landscape included uncountable grave stones tilted at bizarre angles, many chipped and broken, facing all directions in haphazard fashion. Chaos was the only word I could think of to define it at that moment. I remember wondering if, after all our accomplishments, it this was possibly the true display of what mankind had accomplished in its history.

Master, you know there is much more to that old story, I have written of it before, but it resonates with me today as I gaze at this lovely room of people. They are still full of life; they portray the potential of a better history to be laid out for their souls.

Thankfully, you have gifted them with a generous heart to share and that is what they do now. But ultimately they and their heritage will be piled into haphazard graves. Their only hope is that someone is watching, someone listening, Can I soak it all in? Can I possibly, accurately pass this moment on to others. Will they listen and receive? Will the lives of these beautiful ones affect the lives of others in a similar ways to how I have been affected, or is this moment also destined to be a broken monument to the dead piled high?

I sit here and enjoy Rita’s story shared with her current company. We become one in our history and in our love of you. She eagerly shares how you have saved her and jokes about the circumstances that led her here. The Aval Y’a Ness—the Miracles Behind. Only by Your Spirit, Father, breathed into us can we fully comprehend our lives. Otherwise we see only selfish purpose, no matter how well intentioned. It is only by your scope and vision that we are truly connected and our lives given meaning to be handed to new generations. I catch a glimpse of that Kingdom to come in this room and in the memory of the other room long ago. I relish in your parallel teaching. You give me hope for the future, shaping it in this present moment from a past revelation – my own Aval Y’a Nes which I eagerly share.

Thank you Adonai, thank you Rita and ICEJ and Rudy for allowing me to share this perfect spiritual moment with others.

Mark C.