Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Taking to Heart the Incomprehensible


Yom HaShoah, the day Israel set aside to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust starts tonight at sunset and ends tomorrow night.

This is a picture I took about 10 years ago of the entrance to the B'nai Brith Martyrs Forest & Anne Frank Memorial in the Jerusalem area. Read more here on the Jewish National Fund website - make sure to scroll down.


This is a picture from the surrounding area. A beautiful area to remember those lost.

Take a moment tonight to think of those lives destroyed. A survivor reminded me a couple years ago, when she was watching my young kids running around the park, that it wasn't just the 6+ million that were murdered, but also their children and potential grandchildren and so on. Millions upon millions. Mind blowing.

It's really too big to contemplate. I suggest that we individualize it to be able to apply it our own lives. The Jews of the Holocaust were murdered simply because they were Jewish - whether they were religious or not did not matter to the Nazis. A Jew was a Jew. To honor these souls we need to think about adding something Jewish to our lives that we have not done before. There is much to choose from - reading something Jewish for 5 minutes a day, putting a mezuzah up on your doors, checking those mezuzahs, lighting Shabbat candles, spending time with someone who doesn't get many visitors, volunteering in a Jewish food bank, sign up for Jewish adult education class, sign your kids up for Jewish education... these suggestions are only a drop in the bucket of Judaism.

What do you think you'll take on?

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