18 April 2012. 27 Nissan 5772. 11^th Day of the Omer.

Yom HaShoah v'HaGveurah. The Memorial Day of the Shoah and the Resistance.

The day started hot. Marsha and I went for hike in the "Judaean lowlands" – about 45 minutes outside Jerusalem on the way toward the coast. We saw a huge patch of wildflowers. Red, purple, yellow, white, green…it was God's paintbrush. A final remnant of an incredible springtime here thanks to the winter's rain. There was an intense wind from the desert, a sharav. Sand was on its way. By the time we returned to Jerusalem in the early afternoon, visibility was dropping and the city was covered in dust. By the late afternoon the winds shifted, the temperature dropped from 35 to 18 (Celsius). Harli and I tried to go bike riding but nearly got blown off our bikes. No matter – Yom HaShoah v'hag'veurah was approaching. The streets were quieting down already. Coupled with the wind, people were not coming outside to play.

As the sun began to set, we went to a local Reform synagogue, where we sang the evening prayers and the high school seniors presented poems and readings for this day. One of the service leaders shared a story of two men after the Shoah. One man asked, "After all that has happened, how can a Jew believe in God?" The other man replied, "After all that has happened, how can a Jew believe in man?" Sitting in the sanctuary, I thought of a teaching of Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav who said, "If you believe that it is possible to destroy/spoil (the world), then you can believe that it is possible to repair (the world)."* It is our hope and expectation of repair that gives us the energy and ability to survive all that has happened to our people. Repair does not erase memory. Repair does not heal emotional hurt and often cannot fix physical pain. Repair does not mean that evil or wickedness or negativity is removed from our lives. But repair helps us work through what has happened…or what has not happened.

Sitting in our apartment in Jerusalem tonight, I can feel the weight of the country, of the emotion, of our history. Radio stations** are filled with shows and music related to the Shoah. Israeli television stations are off the air, with the exception of related programming: documentaries, movies, and the like. Restaurants, by law, are closed. Tomorrow there will be ceremonies around the country.

I attended a late night lecture about artwork from the Shoah. One of the presenters showed artwork (portraits) from Terezin and compared it to Greek portraits from 2,000 years ago found not far from Israel. I was unable to understand all that she said but from what I gleaned, the Greek portraits were created to remember people who had died. The pictures were lovely and seemed nearly perfect. The Terezin pictures were less perfect and were done of people with an uncertain future. They were created to reflect a moment in life and to demonstrate that people were still alive, despite the horror, the doubt, the fear. And we are still alive she emphasized. I will add: the sadness of our contemplation of the Shoah lies not only in recalling what has happened but that seventy years later, we are still uncertain of the future. But despite it all, we still create, we still dream, and we still live.  Eitan reminded me tonight that the power of this day lies not in its sadness but in noting that we are here, alive, in Israel, in Germany, in Poland, in the United States. And we are far from dead.

Warsaw Ghetto

May the memory of the 6,000,000 Jews and the 5,000,000 non-Jews who died in the Shoah be for a blessing. May all those who perished at the hands of evil, when man's inhumanity to man reached unfathomable heights, have not died in vain as we seek to repair this world from all that is broken.   

  

*I learned this teaching about a year ago and quite by chance happened to see it inscribed on a door lintel in an artist's studio/frame shop a few days ago. Only in Israel can you find a Rebbe Nachman quote on the wall of a frameshop.

**If you have access to something like "TuneIn Radio" on an iPad (or whatever device), search for an Israeli radio station like Galgalatz.