“We met almost every day. Each morning I hurried from my home on Dolna Street to meet him, and if he did not arrive, the whole day went badly. But when he did, we soon began to walk around the ghetto in conversation. He gradually began to unfetter his tongue. He asked me, ‘Wherefore the destruction?’ Standing at a crossroads, he grasped my shoulders and repeated the question: ‘Wherefore the destruction?’ It was a custom of his, to ask questions, when he was the one who had the answers. He came up with a question and repeated it over and over again, but it was not from me that he sought an answer — rather, from himself. Again and again, ‘Wherefore the destruction?’ And his reply: ‘Due to the diminution of life.’ What did this mean?
“Rabbi Hirsch explained. ‘Even before the war, long before we could have imagined this state of affairs, I used to look around at life in our rabbi’s court. Everything was so simple, the usual worries. In the cheders the little boys studied, and in the yeshivas the young men, and rabbis expounded upon the Torah, and Admors guided the simple people, and our minds did not engage in the greater questions of life. These wise men wished to delve deeper into rabbinic writings, to amend and revalue the laws, to interpret the sages’ opinions. And the questions grew smaller and smaller, down to the scale of a feather, a bone, an egg. Oh, how small the questions grew. I gave notes to the rabbi on trivial matters — an onion fallen on an impure stovetop, or a crumb hidden among the straw. Tiny questions — shadows of questions. Where was the richness of life, the mystery?!
“‘And when the questions grow small, so too does the soul and the faith. Our eyes suffice with small sins, and our hearts follow our eyes. Exploitation does not gnaw at one’s conscience, lies do not sour one’s breath. And life is pleasant, and worshipping Hashem is done off hand. Jews needed their lives to grow large again, after having diminished so. This is why everything now descends upon us. Because we stopped asking questions. Effortless existence weakened our questions. And here, now, everyone is asking questions…’
“Rabbi Hirsch’s look turned cruel for a moment, vengeful. I had yet to learn of his tragedy, the tears he wept inside while he spoke so finely. Nothing I had learned had prepared me for such opinions. It was a desecration that was, somehow, not desecrating. As I lay in bed at night, I turned his words over and over in my mind. Life that had diminished…and what had befallen us because of it. I revisited scenes from the Sperre, the children, Rabbi Halberstam from Bochnia on the street, just like that, lying on the street, and for a moment I thought of Feiga, the comfort in her arms, and back came pictures from the Sperre, and up floated Hirsch’s words.
“The diminution of life.
“In the morning my feet were drawn to Hirsch, and I spent entire days with him, with his relentless, unforgiving theories, and his words, which were unbefitting, and the likes of which I had never before heard. They were so sharp, and they compelled my heart to listen, to examine, to self-examine — was my own life so small? Were my questions small?
“I noticed that as the days passed, the fire of hatred grew stronger in him. His claims were harsh, bitter. ‘How can we remonstrate?’ he asked. ‘After all, we ourselves are commanded in the holy Bible to destroy a people, Amalek. What is the difference between a command from our Lord, Ribono shel olam, and a command from their mustached god? What is the difference between annihilating Amalek and annihilating the Jews? We are commanded in the holy Torah, Thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget. Why, therefore, should we complain that the goyim too have been given their own Torah, in which they are commanded to kill us?’
“‘And the children?’ I asked. The children. Scenes of the Sperre flickered through my mind, and scenes of Bochnia, and beautiful Irenka, but Hirsch stood and faced me and his voice thundered, ‘It is said in our Torah, Now go and smite Amalek and spare them not…but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling…do you understand, sir? Infant and suckling!!’
“He spoke the holy language, and it was so beautiful to hear it in the tortured ghetto, but his words were intolerable and I did not know how to respond, and at night the words mingled and Feiga appeared in a dream, and the infants of Amalek, and in the morning I ran to him to hear more.
“And so it went every day. I did not know the tragedy Hirsch bore in his heart, and I did not know that already then his soul was dismantled, that he was then the persona you know today, but under the authority of the Rabbi of Tipow, his Admor, all his parts were held together as one. To the outside he was still an elegant rabbi, the beadle of the Admor, and on the inside he was falling apart, betrayed, seeking revenge. Today, all that I did not know at the time is known and can be told. Today I know that during the Sperre, the Tipow group was required to hand over some of its members. The Admor of Tipow pronounced the names — these shall live, those shall die. And right in the midst of the Sperre days, he discovered that a relative of his wife’s had recently arrived in the ghetto but had not yet joined the cohesive community, and all of his children were listed for deportation. The Admor ordered that the names be changed. Two of Hirsch’s six children were put on the list. The searchers burst into Hirsch’s house and pulled out all six of his children, although he had been promised that only two would be taken. By the time Hirsch learned of this awful affair and rushed to save his children, they had already been given to the Germans, from whose claws even the Admor of Tipow could not rescue them.
“And so his six children were lost, and his wife was lost — she jumped onto the wagon that took her children away. After the Sperre, Hirsch was left on his own, and the Rabbi commanded him, ‘Jew, take strength in the test that our Father in Heaven is giving you.’ The Admor’s authority was enough to strengthen the outer shell. But inside, Hirsch’s soul was weeping, it did not want to live, and it was ashamed of its cowardice — his wife had thrown herself to death, and he? But Hirsch had no choice. Life had to go on. Even in the ghetto, the Admor’s court carried on, and no words of mourning could be voiced because everyone had lost loved ones. Thoughts of revenge and heresy were forbidden. Then Rabbi Hirsch found me, Reb Yosef Ingberg of Bochnia, a Jew from the outside, and to me he released his thoughts — the question of destruction, the question of justice. Thanks to me, that which was confined within him could survive, and I served as a vessel for his anguish.
“I had no idea whatsoever of what was going on in Hirsch’s soul, and was utterly unaware of my role, that by talking to me, a stranger, he was draining his embitterment just a little. I only knew that I heard wonders of wonders from him, terrible things. He would put his face close to mine and quote to me from the sages: ‘Even if an Amalekite converts, we are commanded to smite him.’ He would wag his finger in my face and ask, ‘Where are these laws from?’ And continue walking as if having spoken calmly, as if his words had not beaten my Jewish heart like a mallet, and I stayed behind him in the heart of the bustling ghetto. And the next day, the same thing.