The dream is insane

A single shot awakens me from slumber the sound a snapping wishbone in my mind

Sweat soaked sheets pushed around my hot body and I grope, feel

Seek the warm form next to me in the darkened bedroom and she is gone

I realize that there is reflected light throbbing through the slats of my window that is not neon or Fluorescent or sodium arc rather it is the pulsing rhythm of flames

Outside I find my wife and children standing, looking up at the ruin of our synagogue the pillars of the foundations pointing skyward like accusatory fingers

Smoke drifting along the ground a fog of war that beckons the shadows that caper in the firelight

My feet are cut on broken stained glass, blood mixing with the leaded colors that used to adorn our House of worship

Congregation Ner Tamid and Temple Beth Shalom and Chabad House and all the rest are smoking Craters dotting the map of Las Vegas and the tableau of families clutching each others outstretched Hands is repeated again and again this American Kristallnacht this United States tragedy mirrored Across the Midland, the West Coast, the Heartland the East, the whole Country lit by flaming temples and Broken glass and it is there in the midst of the fire that the Constitution burns too, much as it did in Germany in 1933, all the rights so hard won burned and gone in a puff of ash

I try to wake then but instead deeper I go into the rich landscape of my dreams

Now seeing my neighbors surrounding us not with buckets of water, but with bottles of gasoline, the Barely repressed smirks lighting their faces like witch candles and off in the distance I hear it:

Low and steady and approaching, the noise is like a kettle left on the boiler too long a screaming whistle as the train bears down out of the night the metal wheels throwing up sparks on the tracks and the Hiss and moan of brakes

I grab my family and run as fast as I can

Hands reach out to snag to ensnare to hold fast and still we run

First to our house

Alarm klaxons sound throughout the night air

More glass breaks and underneath it all the screams of the terrified and the ever present train breathes and Lives

NOT HERE this CANNOT BE HAPPENING HERE

Yet the sounds continue as I grab what I can carry and go out into the night with a couple of guns and Some ammunition and a bag of food and my family and my will

Only to be grabbed in the driveway by tall men in leather coats and grinning skulls they dog pile me

I watch helplessly as my family is pushed into a black van that idles on the corner and away they go

I feel the knife enter like a poison eel through my ribs and the scrape of blade on bone is almost louder Than the scream that erupts from me into the face of my tormentor and they leave me bleeding on the Driveway and I see the Mezuzah on the corner of my front door as the world goes black

I awaken on the train with my wife and children the dark dank car bears claw marks from the desperate Which I can only see because I am jammed so close to the wall by the enormous press of bodies that Surround me plans spin me from all points as I whisper to my loved ones

How do you stop the fear, spreading like a black poison in the air

In World War Two the unknown was bearing down upon the Jews of Europe but here in America in 2011 we KNOW that if we don’t fight we will be slaughtered as much as terrorists should never be able to Hijack an airplane without interference from the passengers surely the men and women and children Packed into this death train know that there is inevitability in our final stop that when the doors open That the horror will just be beginning that mortality is the terminal we approach on rocking springs and Tears run down my face I begin to chant the Sh’ma loudly and soon the whole entire train is filled with Our declaration to the Lord that we serve One G-d and that Adonoi is G-d and I pass the word, fight, Fight, fight to the whole group and we are ready when the doors open we rush our captors and we die By machine gun fire but many of the stone faced soldiers are overwhelmed and guns are captured and the tide begins to turn and we can never give up we need to die fighting and I wake up again

The sweat has soaked through the mattress and my heart is pounding so loud in the still bedroom that I Can hear it outside my heaving chest and gone again back to the dreamscape and the train doors open and the People shuffle out into ragged lines and follow the orders and I can only watch as they march Towards certainty because now I’m one of the soldiers and my heart is filled with hate because at last the Tide is turning we are going to clean up this land this befouled country we are done with the Riff-Raff and manipulators and through his eyes I see that we are the reason for all the ills of the nation and I recognize immediately that this is the same old story the same old song and dance the same old Solution to the same old problem in fact its the same old same old, people seem to need a place to place the Dark place in their hearts a place to shift the blame to cradle the anger and so many have served as the Sacrifice:  The Jews, the Turks, the Gypsies, the Blacks, the Muslim’s, the Indians, the Poor, the Diseased, the fill in the blank once we find the group on which to hang our hate we hang ’em high and Let them die and we might turn away at the swinging feet or maybe we cheer and bellow because we Know that at least it ain’t us up there on the scaffold and the soldier raises his gun, and I watch through His eyes as he aims and fires and a little black hat floats down much more slowly than the body that Fell first on the muddied ground

I cannot wake as hard as I try I find myself in warehouses wandering amidst piles of eyeglasses and Gold teeth and shoes, so many pairs of shoes and I know these are the striking images of my experience With the media of the Holocaust yet in my state I notice the glasses are designer sunglasses and modern Frames, and the shoes are Nike and Rebok and Florshiem and some light up, especially the little Skechers that obviously were treasured by children and there are stacks of books too and car-keys as High as the twenty foot roof, and one entire warehouse devoted to cellular phones practically bulges From the sheer amount pressing on the walls inside and this Cleansing this removal of detritus this Scraping away of the “filthy” happens again and again throughout the world and it’s Siberia with mass Graves and it’s Germany with mass graves, it’s Cambodia with mass graves, it’s Iraq with mass graves, it’s Rhodesia with mass graves, its Serbia with mass graves it’s Darfur with mass graves it’s all about the Cleansing isn’t it?  We murder and destroy in the name of something and we fix the world by Removing the group that is least like the group that is in control right?

I truly awake then, the pictures of bulldozed human beings fading from my heart, and sit up in bed.  My Wife sleeps calmly besides me.  The alarm clock reads 4:15am and I repress the desire to return to Sleep for thirty more minutes.  I do not wish to return to my dreams, to the horror I witnessed this Night.  I want it to fade away into my distant memory hopefully to never return.  Then,  Never Forget.  Yom HaShoah, Zachor, Zachor, REMEMBER, remember. I reach for the bedside tablet and turn on the Side lamp and carefully write the dream down.  I take from it the fact that we must never stand idle in the Face of atrocity.  That by our very nature we must demand justice and stand up for the Downtrodden, to reach across the table for the less fortunate and to seek evil out and expose it at every Turn.  We must stand together as a people, whether orthodox or conservative, reform or Hasidim.  We Are Jews!  We are the people who chose Hashem.  Many of us are the descendants of Abraham and Sarah, Others have chosen to be this family.  Still others are people who although not Jewish have Recognized the power of love and understanding and unite with other good souls against atrocity and Avarice and hell on Earth.  If we truly love, if we truly Love G-d then we will love life and keep it holy and We will make Heaven for everyone everywhere for all of time. I smile then.  The dream is Remembered, but now it is wrapped in the greatest notion of all in the face of terrible things:

Hope

 

©2011 by Harry Fagel all rights reserved for Yom HaShoa 2011 Congregation Ner Tamid