A few days after Pesach a siyum took place in the
Altneushul of Prague. Avrohom Yehuda Sohn, a talmid of
the Yeshiva Gedoloh section of Gateshead's Yeshiva
Letze'irim, travelled as part of a group of yeshiva
bochurim to Prague. After staying up most of the night he
was able to complete maseches Kiddushin within the
same walls which had once heard the Maharal's and Shloh
Hakodosh's deep divrei Torah.
The Altneushul is probably the oldest standing shul in the
world, dating to the 13th century. Its walls have withstood
the ravages of numerous fires and pogroms. Other shuls in
Vienna, Regensburg and Worms, which were built at the same
time, fell prey to pogroms, fires or Kristallnacht.
The survival of the Altneushul throughout the centuries
is truly astonishing.
The Siyum was part of a packed program undertaken by about a
minyan of boys from Gateshead Yeshiva Gedoloh,
Sunderland Yeshiva and the kibbutz of Gateshead
Yeshiva Letze'irim under the leadership of Rav M. D. Spiro.
They had decided to spend their post-Pesach Bein Hazmanim
touring Jewish Prague.
Their first visit was to natural animals: the zoo. Their
second visit was to human (Nazi) animals: the Theresienstadt
Ghetto, Gestapo prison and the gigantic beis hakevoros.
They were told that Yidden in the Gestapo prison
were so crowded together through the nights that they had to
sleep whilst standing up — without sanitary facilities!
Although past closing hour, they could still see one of the
five clandestine shuls which had operated in
Theresienstadt Ghetto despite Gestapo oppression.
One day was devoted to the tour of Prague's historic and
stunningly beautiful shuls. The bochurim
benefited from in-depth explanations of Prague's great
rabbinical personalities, including the Maharal, Klei Yokor
and Shloh Hakodosh, and the history of what was fittingly
called, "A City of Torah and Tragedy." They saw the Jewish
Museum's exhibits documenting, on the one hand numerous
Pogroms from the outside, and on the other hand gadlus
beTorah on the inside. The saw exhibits showing that the
first "Yellow Star" had to be worn by Prague Yidden centuries
before the Nazis "reinvented" it.
The high point of their tour was undoubtedly the visit to the
ancient beis hakevoros of Prague, the eternal mokom
menuchoh of great luminaries. Prague is famous for the
Maharal and it was at his kever that the tefillos
were most intense. Whilst the normal path only allows
visitors to visit the mokom menuchoh of the Maharal
and Klei Yokor, a local historian led this group to the parts
that are normally closed off. Thus they had the rare
opportunity to daven at the kever of the Elya
Rabboh and the Tzemach Dovid and to see the bitter complaints
of the Chevra Kadisha, recorded on a matzeivoh,
against being forced to exhume part of the beis
hakevoros. The artificial hill in the beis hakevoros
is made up of the exhumed bones. Most interestingly, the
exhumation stopped just short of the row where the Maharal is
buried.
They also visited the newer beis hakevoros of the Noda
Biyehuda and the dayonim of his Beis Din, after
hearing a description of his multifaceted greatness as rov,
rosh yeshiva, prolific writer and the greatest posek
of his generation. Again they saw the sad result of a
partial exhumation of that beis hakevoros: The
Television Tower of Prague is set in a park covering remnants
of kevorim. It is interesting and ironic that the
grandchild of the director who led the building of the tower
is now a true ger tzedek.
The bochurim slept in a house in the area which was
one part of the old Ghetto. The Jewish Civic Center Building
has been preserved together with its outer clock whose face
has Hebrew letters and whose hands move counterclockwise
(since Hebrew is written from right to left).
The bochurim also heard the Lubliner Rov's incisive
comments about the contrast between Prague and Pressburg.
Pressburg had battled the onslaught of Haskoloh and succeeded
to make the glorious past continue into the (prewar) present
(of the time of the Lubliner Rov), whereas the mild and
conciliatory stance taken by the Prague kehilloh led
to a decimation of its spiritual level. Above all, Pressburg
and nearby towns had yeshivas which ensured the vibrant
continuity of Torah.
The tour to the resting place of gedolei Torah, the
conveyors of ultimate truth, was rounded off with a visit to
the place of the Great Lie and Enemy of Yiddishkeit: The
Museum of Communism.
The Ponovezher Rov zt"l is reported to have said: "The
minhag is to go to a levaya one way and to
return along a different route. This is to indicate that the
person who has attended a levaya has changed!"
In the same way it may be said that the participants who
returned from the trip are not the same as those who embarked
upon it. Their personalities have been enriched by a truly
memorable and uplifting experience.
