Students and teachers travel from North Carolina to the Virginia Holocaust Museum in order to study the events of the Holocaust, and the atrocities of genocide that should never be forgotten or repeated in our modern pursuit of repairing the world.

 This October, the Jewish Holiday Simchas Torah was celebrated. Jewish mysticism teaches us that the holiday only comes to full actualization three weeks after the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashana. The purpose of this holiday is a rededication to the year-round study of the Torah. The Torah on display at the Holocaust Museum has special significance. It came from the Malvazinka in Prague and was written in 1850. Students to the museum learn that this torah is one of 1,564 damaged Holocaust Sifrei Torahs (Scrolls of the Law) that arrived at Westminster Synagogue in London on February 7, 1964.

 The holiday Simchas Torah is a celebration of the idea that the Torah can give readers year round shelter as both a practical and spiritual guide. Students learn that in World War II, the scrolls (along with other Jewish treasures) were labeled and catalogued under German direction in preparation for a permanent exhibition of relics of a defunct culture, while the millions of observers of this culture were destroyed.

 The sacred scrolls were painstakingly restored by the Memorial Scrolls Center with the cherished hope of reinstating them in Jewish life to serve as a memorial to the vanished communities who once treasured them. During the Jewish High Holidays observers renew their special relationship to the Divine—“with life itself,” said Rabbi Yisroel Cotlar.

 By visiting the Holocaust Museum, students have the opportunity to learn how spiritual instruction provided a shelter for the Jewish people before, during, and after the holocaust. On Simchas Torah, the bible tells us oneness with the divine can be achieved through celebration, through dancing, singing, and joy. “And from it, we draw our inspiration for the rest of the year,” Rabbi Cotlar said.