ELAINE HIRSH PRESENTING SHOFAR ZACHOR AWARD TO RUTH CALLAHAN, PHD
To read the introduction by Elaine Hirsh, Click here
Acceptance remarks by Dr. Ruth Callahan
When Kae Knight, President of PHSA, wrote to tell me that I was to be presented with this award, I was dumbstruck. It was very unsettling to learn that I would receive an award for teaching about an experience that no one who has not had could ever truly understand.
Researching the idea of the award has been a journey of discovery for me, and the more I learned, the more I see the responsibility this honor brings.
I had always known that the shofar was blown on solemn occasions and now I believe I understand why as well — as the shofar embodies what I understand to make Judaism possible: the call and the covenant.
Abram, we may presume, is apparently quite an ordinary person, until one day he receives a call from G_d, and his world is changed forever. G-d commands him, “Lech Lecha —— Go” and he does.
Eventually G-d offers Abram the covenant of circumcision and with that comes a new understanding, a new people and a new commitment to the sacred.
As one literal translation of the word “shofar” is “a sense of incising,” it seems that the blowing of the shofar commemorates both of these holy moments — as our daily lives are suddenly pierced and we are laid open to the presence of the sacred.
It is in this way that I perceive this award. Your experiences as survivors, your hearts, have called to me to go on my own journey, to earn my own revelation.
Now it is my responsibility to bring your suffering, your wisdom, your generosity of spirit, your lives — and the lives of those no longer able to speak for themselves — to the students in my Holocaust Studies classes, both here and in Prague — to anyone who would hope to become righteous in the service of his fellow man.
As the horn, the shofar, may curve back on itself, back to G-d’s first call, so does it also finally straighten and send forth the call — and thus the covenant — to everlasting generations.
Once again, I would like to express my gratitude for the honor of your recognition of my small contributions to keeping the commandments to remember and to teach that same remembrance.
This is the obligation and the privilege inherent in tikkum olam — the rebuilding of the world and the beauty it requires.
Thank you.