0052.

1. I'm most likely changing my major. Yes, I am a junior...

2. The main thing I wanted to blog on was what we talked about in my religion class the other day. Actually, it wasn't even really part of the lecture. But my professor told a story that I am about to try to summarize for you. It might be a little long, depending on how much I can remember. But here goes.

Beginning of WWII. When the Nazis started invading and killing/capturing Jewish people, a Rabbi in Czechoslovakia (I think.) heard what was happening and knew that there was a strong possibility of his Synagogue being destroyed. He wanted to protect the 60,000 dollar hand-made (today's worth estimate, at least), not to mention sacred, Torah, so he went to a Catholic priest that he knew and asked him a favor. He asked him if he would be willing to hide it until all of the happenings were over. He asked that it be returned if a new synagogue is ever built in its place. The priest agreed, and he knew that once the Nazi's raided the Synagogue and saw no Torah, they'd go looking for it. So he decided to have it buried in a cemetery. They had a ceremony; he performed all the rites. It was put in a casket and buried.

When the Nazis came, sure enough they raided the Synagogue and killed the Rabbi and the other Jewish people involved.
(Note: the Nazis were taking the physical remnants of the Jewish culture they were destroying and sending them to a warehouse that they called The Museum of Extinct Peoples.)

I can't remember how much time went by, but after probably a few days or something of looking for the Torah, someone slipped and told the Nazis it was in the cemetery. The Nazis killed the Catholic priest, and tore up the cemetery indiscriminately, digging up graves right and left until they found it. Then they sent it to the Museum of Extinct Peoples.

When the war was over, Britain had a part of Czechoslovakia that contained the museum, so they were wondering what to do with it. So they sent it back to the synagogue being built there (I am only about 80% sure of this detail..).

Anyways, this whole story was told to my professor by a previous Rabbi at a synagogue in Nashville. And once a year he would get out their Torah, unroll it and let children gather around and he told the WWII story.

And he says: So live your lives that such evil never happens again.

And it made me think. Seriously. How can God get any glory from this world? Nothing is right about it. There are evils that could be qualified as almost as bad as that existing in sex trafficking today. How can we ever do anything to help fix it?

And what a tremendous amount of social responsibility we have.
Back to a verse I have to keep thinking of when I ask the question, "why am I so freaking comfortable while the world suffers?"--- To whom much has been given, much is demanded.

Man. That story just got to me. How dark the world is and how small we are. Just wondering how any aspect of our lives can be remotely pleasing to God when there is such darkness...
I don't know. Sometimes I just want to sleep until it goes away. But I know I can't. And I can't just check out and ignore the pain in the world. I have to find some small way to shine a little light.

Sorry this was a bit of a downer. But, um, on the bright side I have tickets to see The Fray and Jack's Mannequin this summer at Chastain in Atlanta... :)