Holy Days Archive

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YOM HASHOAH

By Irving Greenberg

When the children of Israel accepted the covenantal mission, they did not anticipate the hatred that would be directed at them. The climactic killing, the Holocaust, came close to destroying the people. Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) is the day on which Jews confront radical evil, reel under its blows, remember its victims, assess its lessons, but, ultimately, stumble on toward the goal of redemption.

By degrading the values and teachings of Judaism in the course of annihilating the people, the Nazis challenged the credibility of Jewish hope to perfect the world as well as that of God who is the partner and guarantor of the covenant. Yet neither Jews nor God yielded their dream. Having barely survived, the Jewish people responded with an extraordinary outburst of life and faith -- creating the State of Israel and renewing Jewish life worldwide. Still, neither life nor faith can be the same.

Yom HaShoah -- 27 Nisan -- is not an anniversary of any one event; after all, the mass killing went on every day of the year. 27 Nisan is connected to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, but having been moved away from that exact anniversary, it serves to commemorate all who died.

The liturgy of the day is in process. The most wide-spread ritual observance is the lighting of memorial candles for the six million. When present, survivors are often asked to do the lighting. The megillah (scroll of memory) for the Shoah has not yet been established. Community and individuals typically improvise readings, selected from the overwhelming accounts that pour forth endlessly from the Kingdom of Night and its survivors.

Some collect the names of victims, especially family members; some recite those names for a period of time to snatch memory out of the jaws of oblivion.

Giving tzedakah is central to this day. Giving reasserts the value of human life. Taking responsibility for others repudiates the indifference of the bystanders which made the Holocaust possible. Thus authentic Jewish memory leads to acts of loving kindness rather than to hatred or revenge.