January 26, 2024 /16 Sh’vat 5784
This year Shabbat Beshalach – also known as Shabbat Shira – coincides with International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Beshalach’s narrative centers on the crossing of the Sea and the song sung by the Israelites after that crossing, a poem known as Shirat ha-Yam – the Song of the Sea. Hence, Shabbat Shira – the Sabbath of Song. Of course, the song celebrates a moment of victory, but it also recounts Israelite resilience, resistance, and survival.
On this International Holocaust Remembrance Day we’ve been asked by the UN (the originator of this day’s observance) to “Recognize the Extraordinary Courage of Victims and Survivors of the Holocaust.” Shabbat Beshalach serves up a perfect opportunity to do just that.
One of the survivors of the Holocaust in our midst at Beth Am Israel is our Shoah Torah scroll, a remarkable two hundred year old Torah, rescued from a Czech Jewish community during World War II. Our Torah, on permanent loan from the Westminster Memorial Scrolls Trust in London, features a good deal of interesting and unusual calligraphy, including the frequent appearance of a highly stylized letter ‘peh’ that is known as a ‘peh l’fufah’ or ‘peh m’lufaf,’ – a curved or winding peh. The pictures above and below contain a few fine examples.
This Shabbat, in honor of our ancestors’ journey across the sea and in tribute to the courage of the Shoah’s victims and survivors, we’ll be reading Parashat Beshalach from our Shoah scroll. You don’t want to miss it. BAI member, Professor Polly Zavadivker (University of Delaware, history and Jewish studies) will be introducing the Torah reading with a reflection on the rescue of Torah scrolls from eastern European Jewish communities in the 20th century, one of the foci of her current research. It’s a fascinating, moving, and tragic story, one that we’re obligated to hear and tell over and over again.
I hope you’ll join us.
Shabbat Shalom
