3/7 cont'

So, this trip is jam packed and I am going to do my best not to leave anything out. Some of the highlights (but also most painful parts of the trip) are the stories told by our tour guide Tsvee so I am going to include those and I am sorry if they are excessively graphic/gruesome. Anyways, yesterday was pretty uneventful. We toured a town where one of the other girls’ grandfather lived. We then went to a bar in the town and met with a Jewish historian. It turned out that the woman owned artifacts from the Jews who were killed during the Holocaust and one of her possessions included a piece of torah parchment. We took the woman back to her home on our bus and then the Rabbi said he wanted to “steal” the torah and bury it. While this is the appropriate way to treat the sacred document, I was horrified by the idea of stealing from a woman who had given our group free books and spent the day explaining all that she knew about the history of the town. The situation was resolved (no stealing required) but Rabbi Lynn and I had an interesting discussion about the matter later that night (I asked about the whole no stealing or coveting thing that the torah outlines). He explained all of the jewish laws that would support his taking the torah in order to bury it. My response-if you have evidence to justify your taking it and you believe that this is what the law allows then it isn’t STEALING! He agreed. Then that night we went to one of the places of Jewish Teaching in the city. I got into a discussion with Tsvee about Judaism and asked if the religion believes in “a TRUTH” that can be discovered or something more like Platos “Ideal”. It was an interesting discussion and eventually after about 30 minutes of back and forth discussion (I don’t believe in a truth and if there is a truth in the torah it would be impossible for one individual to comprehend this truth in its entirety..he believes that with study you can find THE truth) we reached a compromise. Needless to say this trip has inspired some interesting conversations and much contemplation on my part.