Melted Down to Our Essence (Erev Yom Kippur 5782)
In a moment, we’ll hear the words of an ancient prayer-poem called Ki Hinei Kachomer. This 12th century composition has eight verses, portraying God as an artisan, and the Jewish people as the medium in which God works. This poem suggests creation is an ongoing process, that everything is constantly changing. I am particularly struck by the piyyut’s penultimate image - of God as a silversmith, smelting and refining humanity.
It suggests everything that seems so solid to us can, from an Eternal perspective, easily be remade - and in being remade can be strengthened and purified: Our bodies can, from time to time, return from sickness to health - and, regardless, our spirits restored to wholeness. Systems that enable racism and xenophobia can be transformed to support the well-being of all - and our planet renewed to help life flourish. History itself can be transformed…
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Three years ago, my husband, Alex, and I had a direct experience of melting down metal, and finding history transformed in that act: It was the fall of 2017, and our wedding date was set. My mom had given me my grandfather’s wedding ring. With my mom’s permission, we decided to melt it down, and combine it with some material from Alex’s family - and from it form two rings, our wedding bands - to represent the way, in marrying each other, we were bringing our families’ stories together.
Following a friend’s recommendation, we met with a jewelry artist named Karla in her studio. She was cordial, offering us tea and cookies and inviting us to sit. We talked about our hopes for our rings, and the story behind the items we would melt down to form our wedding bands. We showed Karla the earrings that had been Alex’s grandmother’s. Then I handed her my grandfather’s ring. She looked it over carefully as I shared my grandfather’s story:
Frank Shurman was born in Hildesheim, Germany on January 8, 1915. On November 9, 1938, a day now known as Kristallnacht, the Gestapo arrested my grandfather. After suffering abuse and public humiliation, he was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp. Much of his family was murdered in the camps, but he and his immediate family - through the sponsorship of Mrs. Augusta Hamilton, one of his father’s American customers - were eventually able to make their way to America.
The jeweler mentioned that she, too, was from Germany. I could hear her accent now. She said that she spent a lot of time grappling with this history. After all her research, she still did not know what her family had been doing during the Holocaust. Karla paused, looked at us, and explained she would completely understand if we did not feel comfortable working with her.
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Ki hinei k’chomer b’yad ha’yotzer, the piyyut begins: “like clay in the hand of the potter, so are we in your hand.” The core of our humanity, our fragility, our short-sightedness, the inevitability we will make mistakes, is what binds us all together. My grandfather recognized this fact. After he left, he worked for the US Army screening German prisoners of war.
He wrote of this time:
…my Army assignment during World War II required that I meet face to face with those who could be labeled my enemy. I emerged from a struggle of conscience confirmed in my belief that retribution has no place. I feel enriched by that struggle, by having been forced to differentiate between transitory and relatively insignificant values and those which are truly fundamental.
My grandfather came face to face with history, and chose to approach each German prisoner of war with a fundamental reverence for their humanity, independent of how they may have viewed his own. This is what the smelter does, as she melts metal down to draw out and strengthen its essence: Ki hinei k’kesef b’yad ha-tzoref, the piyyut says: like silver in the hand of the smelter, who alloys or refines it at will, so are we in Your hand, Healer of wounds. As my grandfather emerged from his struggle of conscience, clear about the values of shared humanity, relinquishing his desire for vengeance, he refined himself and everyone he met.
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A few weeks after we met Karla, Alex and I stood together in her studio, blowtorch in hand, and, under Karla’s guidance, melted down our heirlooms, our stories, to their essence. Though we can never forget the challenges we and our families have lived through - in that moment, I felt my grandfather’s blessing.
So as we come face to face with the histories that precede us and have led to the challenges of our own time, may we greet them with an open heart and mind, willing to look past shifting borders, and fleeting allegiances, which, from an Eternal perspective are like silver in the hand of the smelter. As we alloy and refine our shared humanity may we reclaim the values that are truly fundamental finding in them inspiration to be generous and caring stewards of each other and our world.