What Does Never Forget Mean?
At sundown tonight begins the 27th of Nissan on the Jewish calendar, which in 1951 was established by the newly independent Jewish State as "Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laG’vurah" (יום הזיכרון לשואה ולגבורה) - Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day. We know it today as simply Yom HaShoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day.
It is the day that Israelis and many Jews throughout the diaspora commemorate the 6 million Jews and 5 million non-Jews that were murdered in the death camps of the Nazi regime of World War II. It also commemorates those that gave their lives rebelling against mass persecution and in defending against the many local attacks against Jews in pre-Israel Palestine.
As a child of holocaust survivors, and a direct descendant of a multitude of family members murdered in the holocaust, pogroms, and terrorism of the last 1 1/2 centuries, I am particularly sensitive to and connected with this day and its significance.
Today, the Jewish people and those that value life and truly serve the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, are keenly aware that although they have taken on a variation in forms, hatred of the Jewish people continues unabated. I encourage you to pray for Israel and the Jewish people and for the "Peace of Jerusalem" as the Psalm commands.
But I implore you not to stop there. Speak! Act! Stand! Speak truth to those who have manipulated and revised facts to support their ideological malfeasance, which means you must not be ignorant of the facts of history FROM THOSE WHO HAVE LIVED AND EXPERIENCED IT. Act in ways that manifest who you are and what you believe. Stand in the face of opposition and do not back down.
Loving others means standing with the truth, sharing it with grace and urgency. Yes, it means turning the other cheek when personally persecuted for standing on the truth. But do not be mistaken, turning the other cheek DOES NOT MEAN you should ever let that personal persecution compromise your stance. Continue speaking, acting and standing again and again.
You have heard it said to "Never Forget!" Never forget is not a passive stance. It is active, like our faith - it is measured not by what we believe, but by what we are DOING. Speak, act, stand.
With eternal redemption as the scalet thread of God's plans and purposes, even in the midst of seeming contradiction, we stand with the writer of Psalm 121:
A song of ascents:
(1) If I raise my eyes to the hills, from where will my help come?
2 My help comes from Adonai, the maker of heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot slip — your guardian is not asleep.
4 No, the guardian of Isra’el never slumbers or sleeps.
5 Adonai is your guardian; at your right hand Adonai provides you with shade —
6 the sun can’t strike you during the day or even the moon at night.
7 Adonai will guard you against all harm; he will guard your life.
8 Adonai will guard your coming and going from now on and forever.
With Love,
rav Daniel.