This week we remember Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. On November 9, 1938, thousands of Jewish establishments were destroyed by mobs throughout Nazi Germany. The name Kristallnacht was given because as the windows of Synagogues, Jewish-owned buildings, stores, and restaurants were broken, millions of glass chards filled the streets. Hundreds of Jews were killed, houses were robbed, in what is considered the night when the Holocaust began.
I think about all that was lost on that night. There was material loss, to be sure, but I feel that the losses for Jews are greater than that. There was the loss of security that our people felt, having a lifetime of hard-earned material comforts destroyed in one night. There was the loss of loved ones, creating heartbreaks that would not be healed. There was the loss of safety, as the community was overwhelmed by fear when witnessing the atrocities. There was the loss of the illusion of equality under the law. And there was a loss of innocence.
Up until that moment, I can imagine (based on my conversations with survivors) that most German Jews did not believe that there was a threat as great as they ultimately experienced. After all, German Jews were well established, integrated in German society. Jews were intellectuals, business owners, professionals, artists—how could they imagine the amount of evil lurking under the surface of a nation in which they felt so at home? German Jews knew the difficult conditions of Jews in other parts of Europe, but the occurrence of such a level of raw antisemitism throughout Germany was something for which they were not prepared. It is true that since the rise of the Nazi regime conditions for German Jews were getting more and more troublesome. The limitations imposed on Jews since 1933 were hard to ignore. But Jews stayed, hoping that balanced minds would prevail—an illusion that would never materialize. The Jews had many losses, while Germany loss its soul, and most Germans lost their humanity.
I will never be able to understand why some people lose their humanity, managing to see others as “less.” I also will never understand what makes some people feel that they are better than others because of their religion, the color of their skin, their place of birth, their economic worth, their gender, or their sexuality. All these atrocities and wrong-minded thoughts are shrugged off, by some, as being “human nature.” Judaism does not believe that nature is the ultimate factor in determining our thoughts and behaviors. Our tradition has an idea for how to get over these prejudices and become a better human being. It is simple: study Torah. Our tradition doesn’t imagine that we all have a pure soul and a heart full of love and kindness. We are not perfect, and the more we develop ourselves through Torah study (understood here as all kinds of different Jewish texts) the easier it is to make healthier choices, overcoming tendencies that ultimately are not good for ourselves or for the world.
We don’t get a “pass” because we are human—we are challenged to always be on the lookout for opportunities to learn and to grow.
On this anniversary of Kristallnacht, we remember our history and commit to growing, learning, and going beyond our “human nature.” May we be blessed to experience a time where our world is redeemed, and balanced minds prevail.