A rare Gemarah printed before World War II and found unscathed in a historic Munich beer hall after the Holocaust was given to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum on Wednesday by the family of President Isaac Herzog.
The Gemarah Pesachim has been in the family’s possession for the last eight decades; it will be permanently displayed at the museum in Yerushalayim.
The book was discovered amid many other religious artifacts in the Bürgerbräukeller beer hall in Munich in 1945 and was entrusted to Rabbi Yitzhak Halevi Herzog (1888-1959), grandfather of the current president of Israel. The rabbi was the chief Ashkenazic rabbi of Eretz Israel and a prominent religious leader during the pre-state period.
The Bürgerbräukeller was where Adolf Hitler launched the Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923, and where he announced the re-establishment of the Nazi Party in February 1925. In 1939, the beer hall was the scene of an attempted assassination of Hitler and other Nazi leaders by Georg Elser.
The Gemarah was passed from Rabbi Herzog to his son, the sixth president of Israel, Chaim Herzog (1918-1997), and his wife, Aura (1924-2022). The family subsequently decided that Yad Vashem was the proper place for the book’s safekeeping.
“The tractate’s journey embodies, in many ways, the story of a family, my family, but above all, it tells the story of a nation and the story of a people,” Herzog said at Yad Vashem on Wednesday. “A people who rose from ashes and built a home. Not just any home, but one with strong roots that run deeper than any disaster, and whose branches, though well-known, continue to grow, bear fruit and climb ever higher.
“This is a story of destruction and rebirth; of mourning and rebuilding; of darkness and light; of redemption and freedom,” he added.
Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan said, “By including this rare artifact in the Holocaust History Museum we can illuminate the vibrant tapestry of Jewish life in pre-Holocaust Europe and the subsequent horrors.
“Its unveiling, just before Jews around the world gather at their Seder tables to recount the Exodus from Egypt and our emergence as a nation, is especially poignant. As we fulfill the timeless commandment to remember the past, we affirm the enduring perseverance of the Jewish people throughout the ages,” Dayan said.
{Matzav.com}
Let it not be lost on anyone that the Masechta which survived was Pesachim. It’s final Perek describes the entire text of the Mitzvah of Sippur Yetzias Mitzrayim and form of the Leil HaSeder. Ge’ulas Mitzrayim contains all the future ge’ulos much as Galus Mitzrayim contains all future exiles.
The Rishonim question why the name of this last Chapter is Arvei Pesachim in the plural form. Perhaps because its story is the story of each of our on-going history; The history of the people in whom HaShem has a personal interest. We are all part of an ultimate plan which began with Avrohom Avinu and will reach its final goal and ultimate purpose with u’meivi go’el livnei vineihem!
While for his grandfather Rabbi Yitzhak Halevi Herzog it was a treasure but for his secular grandchild, it’s useless. So off it’s thrust to Yad Vashem.
Terrible comment. He’s hardly the type of person who considers it useless. Did you know that he learns Torah? Of course you didn’t bother to find that out. Why you find it necessary to spout such hateful nonsense is difficult to comprehend.
Why such a negative reply?
Perhaps he wants the Jewish people to see it?
Give him the benefit of doubt.