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Shorashim of the Old City has since its inception in 1987 striven to be much more than a gift shop. As a Biblical Shop, we have endeavored to offer a wide range of gifts and art pieces that are inspired by the timeless verses of the Tanach (the Bible). Every Judaica item, every piece of jewelry and artwork, overflow with meaning.

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The Psalm of Protection $35

Psalm 91:11/ Tehillim 91:11

The sterling silver pendant is handcut. It reads , "for He shall give His angels charge over thee..."

This chapter of Psalms is traditionally read as a prayer for Heavenly protection. The pendant measures (approx.) 1" X 1"

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by Joseph Bornstein ( aish.com)

My enthralling discovery that Henry David Thoreau’s ideas have their roots in Jewish consciousness.

Ever since my undergraduate days, I’ve had a deep appreciation for Henry David Thoreau. Of all the great thinkers, the works of Thoreau, one of the main intellectual architects of America’s Transcendental Movement of the 1800s, rang most true. He was a man who strove with vigor to live each day in wonder. He was willing to test his ideals in the flesh and blood of life, and to fight for his beliefs.

Thoreau’s philosophy offers an unequivocal appreciation that our physical reality has infinite depth and meaning, and that much of our life’s task is to engage and experience the physical as a gateway toward a more transcendental connection to reality.

Unlike Hedonism, it does not take physical pleasure as an end in itself, but limits the value of physical pleasure to being within the terms of a transcendent and infinite Truth. And unlike Asceticism, Transcendentalism does not reject all worldly enjoyment as a distraction from Truth, but rather understands that the physical is a necessary part of human experience that serves as the means through which we connect to a higher reality.

If this sounds familiar to you – it should. The resonances with Judaism are unmistakable, and it is not by accident that they appear. The main intellectual founders of the Transcendental Movement, Emerson and Thoreau, both graduated from Harvard Divinity School where they were students of the Torah (what they called the “Old” Testament).

Spending a year learning Torah at Aish HaTorah, I have a greater appreciation of these connections. It is enthralling to discover that Thoreau’s ideas have their roots in Jewish consciousness. It turns out I was studying Torah all along!

Here are three spectacular examples of parallels between Torah and Thoreau.

Interweaving of Thought and Action

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not yet stood up to live,”1 Thoreau wrote. He wasn’t just a philosopher; he was also an activist. During the Abolition Movement in the build up to the Civil War, he was an active participant in the Underground Railroad – frequently risking his life in order to help escaped slaves navigate through the forest at night. And when the United States waged war on Mexico to steal land, he protested and ultimately boycotted the U.S. government by refusing to pay taxes. When a friend paid his bail after being jailed for his activism, Thoreau was livid because it undermined the ultimate impact of his civil disobedience.

These are the actions of a man who did not merely intellectualize and pontificate. Indeed, he abhorred the intelligentsia. He understood that ideals must be rooted in action; we must stand-up and engage our beliefs.

Jews have recognized this truth since our inception as a people. Taking ideals and putting them into action is part of the spiritual DNA encoded in our very souls. It is no mistake that a startlingly disproportionate number of Jews are leaders in movements for social justice, have positions as non-profit heads, philanthropists, and activists. Legislating ideals into impassioned action is part of who we are.

Perhaps Ethics of the Fathers states it most succinctly citing Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa who used to say, “Anyone whose [good] deeds exceed his wisdom, his wisdom will endure; but anyone whose wisdom exceeds his [good] deeds, his wisdom will not endure.”2 In this passage Rabbi Chanina is emphasizing that wisdom unaccompanied by good deeds will necessarily deteriorate and that sustaining true wisdom requires real-life application.

Torah is not meant to be a one-dimensional intellectual endeavor. It is meant to be a Torat Chaim – a Living Torah – which calls upon us to transform both ourselves and the world through real change. The two come together. In Judaism, life is not solely about inward personal growth and it is not solely about external practical action. The marrow of life is attained through wrestling with the tension between the two, and synthesizing them.

Choose Life

In describing his two-year living experiment to establish a framework of life that would focus his efforts toward wholly pursuing the highest truth, Thoreau writes:

I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation [. . . .] I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. 3

This passage challenges the reader to appreciate the fact that each moment of life presents the opportunity to connect to a transcendent reality. Thoreau offers the moral challenge to live awake and with an enduring pursuit toward truth. It is all too easy to allow “non-essential” facts of life to creep their way in and supplant the true life we wish to uphold. As Thoreau explains, “For the most part we allow only outlying and transient circumstances to make our occasions. They are in, in fact, the cause of our distraction.” Instead of becoming mired in hollow business, we must “live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.”

The ethic in this passage echoes the final speech from Moses to the Israelites when he says in the name of God:

For this commandment which I command you this day, is not concealed from you, nor is it far away. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us and fetch it?’ [. . .] Rather, [this] thing is very close to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can fulfill it. See – I have placed before you today the life and the good, and the death and the evil [. . . .] I have placed before you blessing and curse; and you shall choose life” (Deuteronomy, 30:11).

Both passages place us in a constant and direct relationship4 to truth, making it incumbent upon us that we strive to adhere to that reality. There is the overwhelming mandate to live with vigor and not get lost in falsity that is equivalent to a living death. Thoreau contends that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation” because the majority of us have not dedicated ourselves to “choose life” – we do not abide by the truth we hold dear, and so we are, in a sense, not living to our greatest potential. For each of us, what it means to really choose life boils down to the most intimate and personal question possible. It is each person’s responsibility to determine if s/he is working whole-heartedly to grow and pursue truth.

We might ask ourselves such questions like: When we read the news are we genuinely seeking important facts, or are we following a routine and seeking distraction? When we sit down to a cup of coffee after a long day, are we using that time proactively or as an escape? Do we allow our lives to be focused on material and transient possessions, or do we focus on only the most important and meaningful aspects of life?

True Wealth

In his first chapter describing the proper structuring of one’s life, Thoreau discusses the problem of overemphasis on worldly gain:

What I have heard of Bramins sitting exposed to four fires and looking in the face of the sun. . . or chained for life at the foot of a tree; or measuring with their bodies, like caterpillars, the breadth of vast empires . . . – even these forms of conscious penance are hardly more incredible and astonishing than the scenes I daily witness. . . .

I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of . . . . But men labor under a mistake. The better part of man is soon ploughed into the soil for compost.

By drawing parallels between legendary acts of penance around the world and the townsmen’s toils to win luxury and comfort, Thoreau conveys the profound degree to which we become overtaken by the world of practical demands and financial success. He even goes as far as to call it a kind of slavery, writing, “[W]orst of all [is] when you are the slave-driver of yourself! Talk of the divinity in man! Look at the teamster on the highway. . . Does divinity stir within him? His highest duty to fodder and water his horses!”5

In providing his definition of true wealth, Thoreau advocates for a life of simplicity writing, “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to leave alone” (79). He refers to the luxuries and comforts of life as “positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind”, noting that the great sages of history all lived humble and simple lives. The idea is that through simplicity, we are given the freedom and space to focus on what is truly important in life and to make those pursuits our real life priority.

This ethic is closely mirrored by Ethics of the Fathers when Ben Zoma is recorded as saying, “Who is the rich? He who is satisfied with his lot.”6 This pithy statement reminds us that true happiness is not to be found in money but in our appreciation of what we have. As it says in Ecclesiastes, “One who loves money will not be satisfied with money” (5:9).

The confusion that Ethics of the Fathers and Thoreau are warning against is the allure that worldly pleasures have upon us. Rather than using money as a tool to build the foundation for a good life, it is all too easy to treat money and the luxuries it affords as ends in themselves. The result is as described in Ecclesiastes that “one who has one hundred wants two hundred.” In other words, once we start to treat money as the goal, then the demands of physicality will never cease!

This message is especially important to us in our current era of consumerism where status and honor are often perceived as being gained through wealth and worldly achievement rather being based on the integrity of the actual person.

Before becoming an observant Jew and building my relationship to Reality through the framework of Judaism, these values presented by Thoreau rang true to me, but I always retained a certain reservation. Though I agreed with much of his philosophy and was inspired by his poetic style, one man’s personal philosophy was not something I could fully invest myself in. But upon discovering these ideals within the framework of my own heritage, that stretches back thousands of years to Sinai, a fundamental shift has taken place. These ideals now speak to me in a deeper way. My hesitation is gone and I can commit to striving to live-up to these ideals. These ethics are no longer just one man contemplating the good and the evil; they now carry the power of the spiritual heritage and ancestry to which I am inextricably connected.

1 Written August 1851, in his Journal, vol. 3, p. 378

2 Ethics of the Fathers 3:12

3 Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. Yale University Press, 2004. 88. Print.

4 In an echo of Moshe’s focus on Torah not being in Heaven but directly available to us, Thoreau further writes, “Nearest to all things is that power which fashions their being. Next to us the grandest laws are continually being executed. Next to us is [. . .] the [W]orkman whose work we are.”

5 Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. Yale University Press, 2004. 7. Print.

6 Ethics of the Fathers, 4:1

by Suzanna Eibuszyc

Born and raised in Poland, I assumed my mother’s Holocaust burden.

It is said that in every survivor’s family, one child is unconsciously chosen to be a “memorial candle,” to carry on the mourning and to dedicate his or her life to the memory of the Shoah. That child takes part in the parents’ emotional world, assumes the burden, and becomes the link between past and future. I realize now that my mother chose me to be that candle.
Suzanna Eibuszyc and her motherThe author (L) and her mother (R)

My mother was forever haunted by her loved one’s images. She saw them starved and frozen in the streets of the Warsaw ghetto. She saw them in the cattle cars that took them to the Treblinka death camp. She escaped Warsaw in order to save herself, only to be captured and enslaved by the brutal Stalinist regime. Surviving in the remote corners of Russia, extraordinary courage and the hope of reunion with her family, kept her alive. In 1946, almost a year after the war ended, she was allowed to leave Russia, forced to settle in southwestern Poland. Still hoping to be reunited with her lost siblings, she made her way to Warsaw – only to witness the city’s devastation and the annihilation of her family.

My mother never forgave herself for saving her own life and abandoning them to the horrible deaths that followed. She never stopped mourning.

My parents’ huge losses were more than I could fathom. In time I came to realize it is impossible to recover from such a tragedy. They carried on with their lives, but the Holocaust was being played out in their minds every day. Understanding this became crucial in my understanding of myself.

I grew up in Poland, in a home where my sister and I experienced my parents’ daily quirks. I sensed my mother’s abandonment and helplessness. I felt her fears and resignation. I lived with her rituals, where every crumb of bread was important, where fear of being cold was magnified, and where suspicion of others, and secretiveness and mistrust ruled everything she did. Her scars became my scars.

Growing up in these shadows made me a witness to what had happened. Sometimes I was sympathetic. Other times I was filled with contempt – angry and overwhelmed at being connected to my mother’s ongoing grief.

Exotic Adventures

I tried to understand how my parents’ family could just be gone, completely gone. My mother visibly mourned her five nieces and nephews, repeating often, with emotion, “So young and innocent. They should be among the living. They were all taken away and murdered.” I grieved with her.

And yet, I could not truly comprehend how her family was gone. I had never seen any photographs, concrete images that my mother once had an extended family. I was frightened, confused and ashamed that I did not believe my mother. In my heart I was sad, but in my mind I believed that her family had never existed.

I was also envious of my mother’s incredible adventures. Overwhelmed by the tragedy, I found that I could feel safe by focusing on her Russian stories. I loved the glimpses of hope and excitement that my imagination turned into exotic tales. I pictured her living in a foreign place, riding camels under the hot desert sun. I never imagined her sick or hungry. From those early childhood stories I decided I wanted to be like her, to travel and visit unusual and faraway places where she was heroic and a pillar of strength.

I also did not understand my mother’s fearful and anxious behavior. I remember her being especially tense during Christian and Jewish holidays. She seemed to want to make us invisible. This was a time to stay indoors, to be mistrustful, afraid of a possible mob mentality. The baffling, unexplained, anxious behavior only intensified the fear in my child’s imagination.

In Poland, where I grew up, people had a deeply rooted belief that Jews were responsible for killing Christ. Christmas and Easter were times of great fear for Jews. The Jewish holiday of Passover was a time of anxiety, too. The widespread rumor was that matzah was made with the blood of Christian children. It was not until I got to the United States and was in college that I learned that Jesus was a Jew who was crucified by the Romans. To this day I do not have any emotional attachment to holidays, but now at least I understand how this disconnection came about.

Begging for Mercy

My very first memory is the sensation of fear. The Holocaust left in its path a darkness and despair that enveloped the consciousness of both survivors and their children. I am convinced that the fear my mother experienced was passed on to me through the sinewy strands of chemical inheritance known as genes. I was born being afraid.

As a child I had an abnormal fear of people. When people came to our home I hid under the large kitchen table covered with a linen cloth that reached to the floor. I refused to come out until the guests departed.

When I was five years old, our town held army maneuvers in the city square right in front of our house. Although I understood they were just exercises for showing off the Polish army, I was traumatized. Was my over-sensitivity that day to the sharp sounds of gunfire and tanks rolling through the streets related to my mother surviving the bombing of Warsaw?

At age six, my mother took me to an art exhibit that had come to our town. The exhibit was a tribute to mothers and children who suffered during the war. The art showed SS soldiers ripping children from mothers’ arms and killing them. Mothers being killed. Mothers begging for mercy. My mother cried bitterly as we walked through the exhibit. I was overwhelmed both by her tears and because the art was frightening. When I think back to that day, I realize my mother probably thought I was too young to understand. Yet her tears were enough for me to absorb the horror of what was depicted.

The next morning I woke up hallucinating. SS soldiers were standing on each side of my bed. I was not allowed to move. If I did, they had orders to shoot me. I remained motionless, afraid to breathe until my mother came looking for me. I never burdened her with my terrifying waking dream, because I remembered how she cried that day.

At age seven I learned that being Jewish meant that I was different from my Polish friends. My first day of school began happily enough, but as I approached the school I was confronted by some classmates who proceeded to taunt me. “You are Jewish. Poland is not your country. Palestine is where you belong.” I didn’t understand. This was the first time I’d heard that my home was in Palestine. It also was the first time I realized that being Jewish and Polish could not coexist. The day that began so happily dragged on. I could not wait to run home.

I was crying as I opened our kitchen door. My mother sat with me by the kitchen window and explained what it meant to be Jewish. I remember the sadness in her voice and the tears in her eyes. But I kept thinking how our true homeland was in Palestine. My response was a simple one: “Let’s go where we belong.”

We would often go to the train station to say goodbye to friends leaving for Israel or America. Why not us? I was angry with my parents for their choice to stay behind. Only as an adult did I discover my parents’ secret why we did not leave Poland. My father had contracted tuberculosis in Saratov in 1940 and we were denied entry to other countries because of his illness. Even Israel would not accept him because of the advanced stage of tuberculosis. We could not leave until he died at age 49. My parents concealed the seriousness of his health. Only my sister, four years older than me, finally figured out the reason. I never did. I mostly saw them as weak, indecisive and helpless.

My father, Abram Ejbuszyc, was silent about his past. He never uttered a word about what happened to him during the war or even about his life before the war. I cannot help but wonder if this was a form of self-imposed punishment. My father detached himself and didn’t talk, as if afraid to make a close connection and lose loved ones again. He sought to contain his trauma within himself and spare his children. He lived behind a wall of silence. That was his shelter. He took his burden to the grave.

New Land

In New York, we each went in different directions, and the family that we had been in Poland disintegrated. Our lives became turbulent as our notions of how things should be collided. My mother worked in a factory. She got up at six in the morning and took the one-hour subway ride from the Bronx to Manhattan. With an address scribbled on a piece of paper, she managed to ask for directions and got to work and back home again. She was a fighter and a survivor. She was not going to succumb to her fears. She was determined to make the best life possible for herself. And so, at age 50, after working in a factory all day long, she enrolled in night school and soon became fluent in English. I watched her navigate through her new life, never giving up. She did not burden us with her fears and problems; those she buried deep inside. Two years later she was working in a bank.

I took classes at City College in the department of Jewish studies. One of my professors was the author and survivor Elie Wiesel. In those classes I realized the importance of my mother’s story. I persuaded her to write about her tragic life. My mother listened. She understood the importance of history and of remembering, not just with regard to the Holocaust but also for the Jewish legacy in Eastern Europe. She wrote her story in Polish. Yet I did not share those writings with her. Somehow we never had the time to journey and emerge together from her trauma as adults.

After I became an American citizen, I went back to Poland in 1972. I was still haunted by the memories of our departure from Poland when my mother was inconsolable. I had to return. I was looking for something, a piece of me I had left behind. I had a nostalgia for my homeland, and the belief that my father was calling me back to the tiny, overgrown Jewish cemetery where he was buried. The ghosts of my past were clamoring for some attention.

I traveled through Europe and Israel. I lived in the desert, under the hot sun, in a tent. By 1979 I moved to the West Coast, far away from my mother in New York. I saw her a few times a year and we talked on the phone every week. I often remembered how, as a child, all I ever wanted was to follow in my mother’s footsteps. I wanted to go to exotic and far away places. I turned her stories about surviving in Russia into heroic journeys. Traveling made me feel courageous like my mother. She passed down to me her pessimism about life, suspicion of others, and assumptions about everything turning out for the worst.

Traveling, however, put me in touch with my mother’s strengths. It temporarily wiped out the negative themes that played on in my mind. While on the road, surrounded by unusual, new places, I was happy and at home. At the same time I had an overwhelming fear of putting down roots. I did not want to have them severed as my mother had.

The trauma of loss, the disconnection from community, and my frightened family all influenced how I chose to live my life. Like other children of survivors, I developed a self-preservation defense. I built a wall around myself to protect me from my traumatic childhood. I was torn between letting go and staying connected. At times my mother’s gloom was too intense, but I continually found myself being pulled back into her world anyhow. My conscience would not allow anything else.

On the day of my mother’s death in 2006 I found a box containing the pages of her diary, covering 30 years of her life. In a thin, shaky handwriting she recalled heart-searing memories that began in Warsaw in 1917 and ended with WWII, her return to Poland after surviving throughout remote corners of Soviet Russia. When my mother died, I first contacted Elie Wiesel. He encouraged me to start translating the memoir and not be afraid of the journey ahead. We need to rescue stories like this from obscurity and share them with future generations. “We must bear witness,” he said. “Silence is not an option.”

I was now ready to confront the ghosts of my childhood. And ultimately I came to understand how growing up with the trauma of Holocaust was transmitted from my parents to me, their “memorial candle.”

Visit the author’s site at http://beshertbook.com/