‘We mourn through learning Torah’: Boston Jews unite in study to remember Oct. 7 victims

(JNS) Some 75 people gathered at Congregation Kadimah-Toras Moshe, a nearly 85-year-old Modern Orthodox synagogue in Brighton, Mass., on Sunday for a siyum, a celebration marking the completion of a unit of Torah study, in memory of the victims of Hamas’s terrorist attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Yaakov Jaffe, the rabbi of Maimonides Kehillah, a Modern Orthodox synagogue in Brookline, Mass., told JNS that studying Torah to mark the Oct. 7 massacre is “a sort of paradoxical reassertion that despite all the hardship, we are even more committed to this Torah.”

“The Torah is what makes us who we are,” Jaffe added.

His synagogue, which meets at the Maimonides School—a Modern Orthodox day school—was one of seven Orthodox shuls that were a part of the Oct. 6 siyum.

Jason Strauss, the rabbi of Kadimah, told JNS that one of his congregants approached him last spring with the idea of organizing a siyum to mark the anniversary of the attacks.

“A lot of times, when someone passes away, people will put together a siyum on Mishnah,” he told JNS. “We just took that idea and extended it to everyone who was killed on Oct. 7 as a way to get lots of people to feel like they are participating and doing something to memorialize the people who were killed.” (The Mishnah, which is part of the Oral Torah, was codified by the third century of the Common Era.)

Both rabbis told JNS that making a siyum allows members of their congregations to take direct action to memorialize the Oct. 7 victims. In this instance, the congregations collectively studied all six sections of the Mishnah, which the rabbis said is a word that can be rearranged to spell neshama, Hebrew for “soul.”

“There’s not always something you can physically do, especially when you’re across the ocean from Israel, but we believe that learning Torah and, or doing any mitzvah does have some kind of spiritual impact on the people who passed away,” Strauss told JNS.

“Asking people to learn Torah and be part of this siyum gives people the opportunity to feel like they’re doing their part for the people who are killed,” he said.

The Rabbinical Council of New England co-sponsored the siyum, as did its member synagogues Maimonides and Kadimah and Beit Sasson-The Sephardic Congregation of Newton, Beth Abraham Synagogue of the Sephardic Congregation of New England (Brookline), Congregation Beth-El Atereth Israel (Newton), Congregation Shaarei Tefillah (Newton) and Young Israel of Brookline.

‘The redeemer of people in captivity’

Bonnie Pomper, the aunt of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, an Israeli-American kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 and executed in Gaza in August, was one of the speakers at the siyum.

“I’ve heard some people say, ‘Oh, your nephew was the face of the hostages. He’s gone, and I don’t have the energy to go on,’” Pomper told JNS. “I find that stunning because Hersh is one of the hostages.”

“There are still 101 hostages left, and I can say as the aunt of a hostage who went through this, the stories I’ve heard while he was in captivity, the torture that he endured, it is essential that we get the others out as soon as possible,” she said.

Pomper told JNS that she developed an appreciation for the “mundane” readings and prayer she read by “rote” over the years as she studied her portion of the Mishnah for the siyum.

“What does it mean to be the redeemer of people in captivity?” she said. “I’ve said that for years and only now do I think about, hey, that really has a connection to me.” (One of the daily morning prayers recognizes God as “freer of hostages.”)

During the afternoon service on Sunday, which was a fast day, Tzom Gedaliah, Jaffe explained that it was “framing” Oct. 7 “within the continuum of Jewish history” to read the Torah portion for fast days, which is about the biblical sin of the Golden Calf, and to recite the prayer Avinu Malkeinu (“Our Father, Our King”), which was composed during the Crusades.

That reflects “the many challenges that our nation has faced and the perseverance that we’ve had throughout,” he said.

Nomi Burstein, who is part of the Kadimah congregation, told JNS that participating in the siyum was “all about unity, especially at a time like this.”

“It doesn’t matter where you are, who you are, what your background is,” she said. “Getting involved in something for the whole community is very important.”

David Eisenberg, a member of the Maimonides shul, told JNS that a siyum “shows the commitment to completing something that’s meaningful by itself,” and commemorates those whom Hamas murdered and treated brutally.

“This shows that we are still around to be creative and be productive,” he said.

‘Get things done’

Ann Geller, who is a Kadimah member, learned a Mishnah that addresses uncertainty.

“Our strength is learning Torah and to mark time by learning,” she told JNS. “We mourn through learning Torah,” she added.

Pomper told JNS that the memorial gave the greater Boston Jewish community “a sense of purpose” amid the High Holiday period of “introspection.”

“What can we do to be a better community? What can we do to bring the hostages home?” she said. “The stronger we are as a community, the more we can act as a community, and try and get things done.”