Whenever Jews come together in honor of a lifecycle event, it is a simchah. Rarely does a community, especially a small one, celebrate more than one simchah at a time.
While planning my current trip to Poland I was informed that I had to be in Warsaw for the weekend of Parshat Chukat as they would be celebrating four special events.
A baby girl had just been born and would be named at Kriat HaTorah, a young man reached the age of Bar Mitzvah, and there would be not one wedding, but two, on Sunday. And the chatanim would both be called to the Torah on that day. This is an unprecedented event in post-Shoah Poland and possibly in the 105-year-old history of the Nozyk synagogue itself.
Yehuda Mordechai Koronowski-Kafka
During the reading of the Torah on Shabbat the whole congregation stopped to sing and dance with each of the four celebrants.
The baby’s name is Rachel Rivka bat Yisrael and Sarah Kurzokowski, the proud Bar Mitzvah boy, Yehuda Mordechai Koronowski-Kafka. The first wedding on Sunday at three p.m. was for Tzuriel ben Avraham and Orah bat Avraham Kowalik, and the second wedding, held minutes later with a shared reception, was of Malka Kafka to Michael Herman.
Tzuriel Ben Avraham and Orah bat Avraham Kowalik
While at the reception I heard that the Beit Chabad was also celebrating the birth of a son to Rabbi and Rebbetzin Shalom Ber Stambler.
Malka Kafka to Michael Herman
Sadly, news also arrived that an old woman, a member of the community, had passed away over the weekend. This one weekend, full of milestones of the Jewish lifecycle, confirms that Jewish life has been reawakened in Poland.
Advertisement
