Tuesday Morning Torah – April 10, 2018
Tomorrow night begins Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Memorial day. As a reminder, everyone is invited to our memorial service that will begin in the Main Sanctuary at 6:30PM. Following the service, our teens will be interviewing a number of survivors and children of survivors. Anyone who wishes to attend the interviews is certainly invited to do so.
We prepare to mark this memorial at a time of significant increase in our society of anti-Semetic incidents. Any in or around my generation who grew up learning about the Holocaust and imagined (like I did at one point) that we had somehow completely evolved into a largely tolerant society, where anti-Semitisim was only found among the fringes and levels of hate speech/crimes in general had decreased was sadly mistaken. Indeed according to the ADL, the number of anti-Semitic incidents (in this country) was nearly 60 percent higher in 2017 than 2016, the largest single-year increase on record and the second highest number reported since ADL started tracking incident data in the 1970s.
As people who promised never to forget, I encourage each of us to hold onto these statistics this week and make some conscious time to actively remember those who perished in this horrible atrocity. What might you do to remember those who were killed in the Holocaust? What might you do to work to promote peace, mutual understanding, peace, and tolerance among humanity. Whose story do you know? Whose story can you tell? What can you do to educate family members, friends, and others about the dangers of anti-Semitism, and the lessons that come out of the ashes of the Shoah. Yes, it is a tall order, but as our rabbis taught, while we are not obligated to complete the task, neither are we free to ignore it (Avot 2:21).
A few resources to consider:
For those who are interested in a short, but wonderful resource to teach children about the Holocaust– click on this HBO Documentary. It also includes a few videos with recollections from survivors.
If you would like to light a candle in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, feel free to stop by the office tomorrow to pick one up.
There is a community Yom Hashoah Program happening through CHHANGE at Brookdale beginning at 9:30am on Friday, April 13th Featuring Dr. Peter Hayes- author of a number of books focusing on the causes and ideology behind the Holocaust. Click here for all details.
Lastly, below is a poem, and a prayer that you can recite tomorrow evening as you light a candle in honor of those who perished in the Holocaust.
LISTEN TO THE WIND
Words spoken by Dr. Elie Wiesel on a visit to Aushwitz.
Listen to the wind, for there is nothing else we can listen to.
For this was the place where children became old and where old men had no children to console.
Listen to the stones, for the stones themselves were broken as our hearts were broken.
For this is the place of eternal night. Never will there be sun here.
Do not trust your eyes. There is no sun here.
Never trust anything else, for there is no one to trust here.
In this place people were so abandoned, so doomed, and their solitude and silence were such that even now we capture something simply by being here.
This is the place- a kingdom.
Can you imagine: four million people lived and vanished overnight in this place.
We could build a nation with four million people.
There would be enough doctors, enough teachers, enough parents, enough children, enough princes, enough beggars, enough merchants, enough dreamers to build a people.
And this space, which became the grave of man’s heart, that kingdom vanished.
Listen to the wind. And listen to the sky.
For we are here to pray as in a cemetery.
But this is no cemetery. They have no cemetery.
They did not even have a cemetery. We are their cemeteries.
A Prayer for Yom HaShoah – Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
Today, on Yom HaShoah, we remember the victims of the greatest crime of man against man – the young, the old, the innocent, the million and a half children, starved, shot, given lethal injections, gassed, burned and turned to ash, because they were deemed guilty of the crime of being different.
We remember what happens when hate takes hold of the human heart and turns it to stone; what happens when victims cry for help and there is no one listening; what happens when humanity fails to recognize that those who are not in our image are none the less in God’s image.
We remember and pay tribute to the survivors, who bore witness to what happened, and to the victims, so that robbed of their lives, they would not be robbed also of their deaths.
We remember and give thanks for the righteous of the nations who saved lives, often at risk of their own, teaching us how in the darkest night we can light a candle of hope.
Today, on Yom HaShoah, we call on You, Almighty God, to help us hear Your voice that says in every generation:
Do not murder.
Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbour.
Do not oppress the stranger.
We know that whilst we do not have the ability to change the past, we can change the future.
We know that whilst we cannot bring the dead back to life, we can ensure their memories live on and that their deaths were not in vain.
And so, on this Yom HaShoah, we commit ourselves to one simple act: Yizkor,
Remember.
May the souls of the victims be bound in the bond of everlasting life. Amen.
