Trap (9781476793177) by Robert K. Tanenbaum

past the first day of their arrival.”
    The old man bowed his head. “Even if it had been possible, to be honest, I wanted no part of God or being Jewish in a religious sense. After all, look where being Jewish got my family and six million others. Persecuted. Murdered. Simply because of who we were.”
    â€œSo why did you eventually go through with it?” Zak asked.
    Moishe turned to study the boy’s face with his clear blue eyes. “That’s a very good question,” he said. “In that camp I lost my family, my friends, and my faith in God. I believed that we had been forsaken, that God had abandoned his supposedly ‘chosen people.’ As you know, when a young man is bar mitzvah he makes a pact with God to follow the commandments and behave ethically according to Jewish law, and yet where was God when ‘His’ people were forced from their homes onto cattle cars to be taken to camps set up specifically for the purpose of murder. Then upon arrival to be herded into gas chambers or lined up and shot; their bodies thrown into pits or burned to ash in the crematoria. It did not seem to me that God was holding up his end of the deal. I was angry with God; I cursed him.”
    â€œI’ve wondered that myself about the Holocaust,” Zak said.
    â€œWell, you should because the answer lies at the very heart of Judaism,” Moishe replied. “Only after I came to America and the horror and sadness of the preceding years faded somewhat was I able to reflect on it. Only then was I able to look at the evil men who had persecuted us and compared them to the many good men and women and children who were their victims. It was then I realized that those men were gone, defeated, banished, and reviled as the monsters they had been, and yet we were still here—God’s chosen people. Those others tried to exterminate us, subjected us to unspeakable horrors, but we survived, not them. Suddenly, I was proud to be a Jew: not just a Jewish partisan fighting in the forest, but part of a heritage that for thousands of years has stayed faithful to the concept of one God, one law, one people, and that no matter what cruel fates history and other people had thrown at us, we had outlasted all of them with our identity intact. That’s when I decided to seek my bar mitzvah and seal my end of that pact with God and our people.”
    Zak thought about what Moishe said before replying. “I understand how you would make that decision after everything you had been through. But I don’t feel that same connection; I guess I just don’t feel Jewish.”
    Moishe turned his face away from a cold, stiff breeze that found its way down Third Avenue. “No one can, or should, force you to ‘feel Jewish,’ or go forward with the bar mitzvah,” Moishe said. “I think all of our young men should ask themselves before their bar mitzvah if they ‘feel Jewish’ instead of just going through the motions because that’s what their parents expect.” He patted Zak on his shoulder. “You know, I’m glad you are giving this so much thought; you’re not like all those thirteen-year-olds who are mostly looking forward to the party and getting money from their relatives and friends of their parents. If you don’t feel Jewish in your heart and soul, then you should not go through with it.”
    Zak smiled slightly and nodded. “Thanks, Moishe. I knew you’d understand. I just don’t want to disappoint my dad. When Giancarlo and I first talked about it, he wondered why we were doing it. But then he started teaching classes at the synagogue and I think it got him to think more about being Jewish. I think he got into the whole thing, maybe more than me and Giancarlo.”
    â€œYour father wants what’s best for you,” Moishe assured him. “He is a good man who, perhaps, has grown in his own relationship with God by examining