I was recently asked to write an essay on how when and where I would go if I could travel back in time for just one day.  I was also asked why.  Here is what I wrote.  Where would you go and why?

It is April 10, 1937 and I’m in attendance at Saturday morning prayer services in Klodawa, Poland, an overgrown collection of hovels about 60 miles West of Warsaw.

 

It’s a good thing that I’m only here metaphysically, as there is not a seat available in the tiny synagogue.  Indeed, outside, people are milling about the open windows trying to get a peak of the ceremony inside or at the very least catch a prayer or melody as it wafts along on the start of its heavenly journey.

 

The women sit separately from the men.  They coo each time they catch a glimpse of the Bar Mitzvah boy, Motik, or his younger sister, Hinda.  The women are bedecked in their finest dresses and springtime hats, and the symphony of their perfumes proclaims that this is indeed a special day.

 

The men wear black hats and drape themselves in flowing white wraps, known as tallasim, or Jewish prayer shawls.  The collars of the shawls are ornately decorated in gold or silver stitching bearing the Hebrew prayer each man is required to read before adorning the ritual garment.  Hanging from the four corners of each tallis are special string fringes – tstsis – which to a non-Jew most probably look like knotted graduation tassels.

 

My attention is riveted on those who attend this ‘simcha,’ or special celebration.  Most of them I have never -- and will never -- meet.  My father, the Bar Mitzvah boy (his Americanized name was Max), will remain in Klodawa until shortly after the Germans invade Poland two-and-a-half years hence.  He’ll then be forcibly taken to labor camps and ultimately to the living hell of the Auschwitz concentration camp. 

 

Of all the family in attendance on this April day in 1937, only my father and one aunt – his father’s younger sister – will live to see the end of the war eight years later.  Everyone else will perish, many of them leaving behind no trace whatsoever of their earthly sojourn – not so much as a photo.

 

But this is not a day of sorrow, rather a day of great joy.  It is how I would most like to picture my extended family – enjoying each other’s company and anticipating a great community feast at the end of prayers.  This is a day of happiness, fulfillment and gratitude.  If I could, I would enshrine this day above all others in my memories of my dad and his family.

 

Life overflows with both happiness and sadness.  It is for us to choose which images and emotions we embrace.