A Journey of Another Dimension: My Path to Poland

Tomorrow at this time, I will be embarking with my wife on a journey of 17 days that I would call a "Journey of a different dimension" for myself, one that has me beaming with excitement “ My Journey to Poland”. This is not normally a destination which Jewish people associate with fun, rest, attractions and "vacationing", but that is not what I am after anyway. For me it is a journey that I have planned in depth for some time, with an emphasis on encounters with places, people, and meaningful experiences that are very close to my heart. In fact this journey that has been simmering within me for some time...

I feel the same excitement of “the night before a journey” that I felt as a 10-year-old Jewish American boy going on my first trip to Israel, and also more than 40 years ago when I set off with a backpack to the East for a year — and returned to Israel four and a half years later.

It’s the exact same excitement I felt when my wife and I, with our beloved young children, traveled to live for a few days among the Mayan villagers in Guatemala, or when we were hosted by a Roma family in Romania, or during that unforgettable trip when we lived in a small village in Bulgaria, so close to people who opened their hearts and homes to us.

I am glad to see that this sense of excitement hasn’t left me. Maybe its focus has shifted a bit, but I’m glad to see it’s still with me — as strong as ever. There’s something in the word “journey” that speaks to me much more than “trip,” and certainly more than “vacation” or “tourism”, with all due respect to those who think differently that I. It’s that idea of “journey” that drew me to create and lead volunteer missions for underserved communities in Uganda and India, and to undergo the “vision quest” — spending days alone in the forest without food as a rite of passage in southern England at the age of 50.

But Poland? “Poland?” people ask me — “What do you have to do in that country for so long?” Of course, I understand the question: for us Jews, and especially Israelis, Poland is seen as “the largest Jewish cemetery in history”- the central site of the Holocaust and all its unfathomable tragedy. As a "second-generation"- child of a Holocaust survivor- and someone who wrote a doctoral dissertation on the subject, I fully understand how deeply antisemitic Poland was at that time and for years before that, how countless numbers of people collaborated, how “hunting Jews” during the Holocaust was seen as legitimate — even worthwhile. I’m not naïve. I also know that even now, just days after a conservative historian with a questionable approach to the Polish narrative was elected president, there are still antisemitic individuals in that country (though honestly — where aren't there?). I understand this very well- in fact I used to think more or less the same.

But my travels around the world and life experience have taught me not to let others’ opinions dictate my reality. That’s exactly what the word “journey” means — to go out and meet, to learn, to explore, to deepen, to keep an open mind for what you don’t yet know. I don’t know about you, but the things I don’t know in the world outnumber the things I do by a factor of millions…

So I’m going to meet, experience, learn... expand my horizons, feel, share, cry, rejoice, make new friends, remember and say Kaddish (the commemorative prayer for deceased) for relatives from my family who were murdered just for being Jews. I’m going to soak in the green landscapes of the country, drive and breathe through areas that were once marked by hundreds of "shtetls"- tiny Jewish-majority towns- just 80 years ago — and today have completely disappeared.

I’m going to meet non-Jewish Poles who volunteer to preserve Jewish history by tending to neglected cemeteries, abandoned synagogues, and forgotten mikvehs. People who, in their free time, create dialogue with the Jewish world through education, curiosity, and respect for a world they never knew — one that many around them would rather forget. I would like to have a conversation with some of these people- and such meetings have been set up- to understand and listen to what drives them to do such work of the heart, growing up in a country where they most likely never met a Jew growing up, and probably for years afterwards.

I’m going to visit the ever-so- tragic sites of the Holocaust but also the present-day efforts to preserve, revive, remember, and honor. I’m going to learn about 1,000 years of Jewish life in Poland — a fascinating story — and also to bear witness to my father's story in the Holocaust and the tragic history of his family from Zhetl (then eastern Poland, now Belarus).

I plan to go to synagogue in Warsaw on Friday evening for Kabbalat Shabbat prayers, even though I’m not observant — I don’t keep Shabbat or Kashrut (dietary lawas) — but my Jewish and historical heart beats within me. As strong as it ever has.

We’ll be hosted by people in their homes and I am anxious to hear about their lives, how they understand, experience, learn, and hope in this life — in a world that often seems completely off the rails.

I’m going to let the journey “speak to me”, rather than me controlling every detail of it. That’s the magic of a “journey” — unlike a “trip.” Because no matter how much you plan, there will always be unplanned moments that leave a mark — if only you let them be and live inside you.

So no, it’s not climbing a Himalayan peak, or riding a local train in southern India, or meeting gorillas in Africa…It’s a journey inward, no less fascinating — and maybe even more meaningful.

To set out on a journey is to discover.To discover is to learn and grow.To learn and grow is to live with passion and meaning.

I imagine that my late father, the beloved man and great teacher of my life, wouldn’t have entirely approved of this journey. Truth be told, that was usually the case in our relationship- I would initiate things way out of his "frame of reference", he would oppose, I would argue back...and then I would be on my way after a deep and tearful embrace with him and my mother. I can just imagine his face reading these words:“Oy vey, Ronaleh, what now? Couldn’t you find a better place to go?” Dear Abbaleh ... I miss you.

So yes, I’m excited. Just as I was at age 10...