By Kristine Garroway (5-16-09)

Today is thirty-seven days, which is five weeks and two days of the Omer.

 

It is a tradition to count the days between Passover and Shavuot, as we mark our freedom from slavery and celebrate our freedom to accept Torah. This is called "counting the omer." This year we will observe the tradition of "counting the omer" by sharing stories about the many different ways that we have been turned on to Jewish learning, and through Jewish learning to Torah.

When we got married, I was in charge of the wedding and Josh, my husband, was in charge of planning the honeymoon.  Imagine my surprise when he suggested that we go to Marburg, Germany to study German for the summer.  I remember thinking, "this is not the beach."

On top of this, he had always been a bit wary of visiting the country that holds such a dark past for many Jews. "Why Germany?" I asked him. Among many other reasons, it would be a chance to see how Germany has moved forward in the years after the Holocaust.

Two encounters stick out in my memory about our honeymoon. My first memory is of the Friday afternoon in Marburg when I went to the bakery to buy challah.  I pointed at the loaf and said in German, "I would like a loaf of challah."  The lady looked confused and said, "that is weekend bread." Well, they may not have Jews flocking to the bakery for challah on Fridays, but they did recognize it was bread only made on the weekends.

My second memory is of later that day. We had found out that Marburg had a little shul, so we decided to attend services. When we entered the room where people were praying, the greeter handed me a prayer book and pointed me to the back, where all the women were.

My initial reaction was, "NO WAY!" I was a new bride in a foreign country and my prayer book had Russian on the front cover. I took a deep breath and sat down in the women's section. I determined what page we were on, and began to chant along in Hebrew. After a few minutes, I was no longer a nervous bride separated from her husband reading out of a prayer book with Russian on one side and Hebrew on the other; but a Jew, in Germany, reciting prayers that I knew, prayers that were recited every week by Jews around the world. 

It was there, in that moment, that I learned that just as God is One, Jews around the world are one. Germany may hold a dark past, but the Jews there are determined to keep the Judaism alive. 

By Kristine Garroway

These stories are brought to you by the Temple Emanuel RE-IMAGINE project, an 18-month initiative sponsored by Hebrew Union College, devoted to re-thinking and re-structuring our religious school.