Yom Hashoah

Rabbi's Notes - May 2005

by Rabbi Margaret Holub

Lately in my study life, such as it is, I have been enjoying the shivery pleasure of opposites and paradoxes. So, for example, last week we read my beloved, vexing Torah portion which, among other matters, talks about the uncleanness of women's menstrual blood and the consequent need to keep women from touching any holy thing (including their husbands) when they are bleeding. Because of the approach of Passover, there was an additional Torah reading that Shabbat -- which commands the Israelites in Egypt, on the night before the Exodus, to kill a sheep and paint its blood on the lintels of their gates to protect them from the Angel of Death. So between the uncleanness of blood and the saving power of blood in those two passages something vibrates. I like that. I've been seeing opposites and paradoxes all over the place.

Right now I am taking a break from my Pesach cleaning to write this. But I know that this will come to your mailboxes after Pesach and before Yom Hashoah. And today I find myself feeling that same kind of vibration of paradox between those two days. Pesach celebrates -- or "remembers" -- our salvation from slavery in Mitzrayim. Yom Hashoah mourns -- or "remembers" -- our destruction in the holocaust. Two opposite kinds of memories, in many ways...

These past few weeks I have had several of my annual morally-challenging conversations with folks about the plagues of the exodus and especially the killing of the firstborn Egyptians. Yesterday, by contrast, I read Bruno Bettelheim's peculiar critique of Anne Frank's story, in which he asks: if the Franks could organize everything else as well as they did, why didn't they bring along a few guns as well?

That way they could at least kill a couple of Gestapo agents and to some extent control the way they died.

Why did the innocent firstborn of Egypt have to die for our freedom? Why didn't more Jews fight back against the Nazis? The paradox of the enemy...

When we were strangers in the land of Egypt, God freed us with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. When we were long-time residents and citizens in Europe, and our neighbors turned on us, no one -- and notably not God -- freed us. The paradox of salvation.

Because we were redeemed from slavery in Egypt, we must recline at our Seder tables as a symbol of our enduring freedom. Because anti-Semitism always lurks, we must never be at ease. The paradox of the aftermath of trauma.

Because as strangers in Egypt we were rescued from slavery, we must have particular compassion for the stranger and the oppressed. Because as citizens in Europe we were abandoned, we must place our own survival above all other commitments to the world community. The paradox of lessons learned.

As with most paradoxes and oppositions, typically each of us leans towards one side or the other. And so the individuals in our little Jewish community, and throughout the Jewish world, might fall, to some degree, between what we might think of as Pesach Jews and Yom Hashoah Jews. Pesach Jews want well for everybody, even the enemy. They want hesed, compassion, liberation for all. After all, we were freed from slavery. Shouldn't everybody be free? Yom Hashoah Jews want to survive, which calls for Gevura, strength. In a perfect world there would be freedom for all. But in this vastly imperfect world we must be vigilant on our own behalf since certainly no one else will be watching out for our welfare.

Redemption and destruction. An almost perfect set of opposites. But, as with all true oppositions, there is that little vibrating thread between them. So it happens that on Pesach, even while reclining at the most beautiful and bountiful table of the year, in between giving thanks for the feast and welcoming Elijah to herald the World to Come, we open the door for a minute to the anti-semites in the street and say "Pour out Your wrath on those who don't know Your Name..." It's like a little spasm of Yom Hashoah in the middle of Passover bliss. Many modern haggadot add readings here about the holocaust, making that paradoxical connection explicit.

And at Yom Hashoah, when we grieve and rage about our helplessness and our aloneness in the world, sometimes we can feel even in that moment a thread of commonality with other peoples who have also experienced genocide and collective oppression. We might feel that, in contrast to the indigenous people of Darfur, holocaust is in our past and not our present. And we have come through our Shoah with some resource, some energy, and some abundance to offer to the world community for healing.

The contemporary holiday of Yom Hashoah has far less fixed ritual than the 3,000 year old holiday of Pesach. And so there is no obvious mirror to that "Pour our Your wrath..." moment in the Seder. But perhaps one could find that little vibration of paradox in the double meaning of "Never Again!" Never Again may genocide be inflicted upon the Jews, no matter the cost of defense, no matter how many firstborn Egyptians have to die for our safety. But also a softer, more wistful "Never Again." Never Again should anyone have to suffer as we did. And, alas, others have and are and probably will.

It is possible on Yom Hashoah that we might even feel a faint intimation of the Divine Presence -- certainly not the Mighty Hand and the Outstretched Arm but perhaps still a subtle sense of something other than absolute abandonment -- the distant other end of a thread of paradox, the Pesach end.

I more and more think of Yom Hashoah as a day of deep mystery and inwardness, a day of contemplation, a day to listen for the quiet messages and gentle vibrations that exist in the midst of the overwhelming bitterness of the day. Just as there is always more to learn about Passover, more layers to unfurl, so that the messages of the festival go more and more deeply into the soul, so too is there always more to consider about Yom Hashoah.

This year at Yom Hashoah we will be privileged to hear Toby Lurie's spoken word Symphony on the Holocaust as part of our service of remembrance. The symphony is written for four voices -- distantly reminiscent, perhaps, of the four children whose different questions shape the Passover seder. And it is replete with silences and places for improvisation, as any rendering of the holocaust in words would need to be.

It is my hope for Yom Hashoah this year that our observance, with all its voices and all its silences, opens our hearts. The memory from Pesach will be fresh: we were strangers in Mitzrayim, we were oppressed, and God heard our weeping and reached into history to save us. And then on Yom Hashoah we will remember the opposite, that we were living more or less in safety, more or less in peace, and our neighbors turned on us and destroyed us. And almost no one reached into history on our behalf until late, late in the story, when a vast amount of damage had already been done.

And somehow we will hold both memories in our hearts and minds and let them try to speak to each other.

"Ha-Makom yinachem..." May we be comforted, together with the mourners in Zion and in the world. It is possible on Yom Hashoah that we might even feel a faint intimation of the Divine Presence -- certainly not the Mighty Hand and the Outstretched Arm but perhaps still a subtle sense of something other than absolute abandonment -- the distant other end of a thread of paradox, the Pesach end.

I more and more think of Yom Hashoah as a day of deep mystery and inwardness, a day of contemplation, a day to listen for the quiet messages and gentle vibrations that exist in the midst of the overwhelming bitterness of the day. Just as there is always more to learn about Passover, more layers to unfurl, so that the messages of the festival go more and more deeply into the soul, so too is there always more to consider about Yom Hashoah.

This year at Yom Hashoah we will be privileged to hear Toby Lurie's spoken word Symphony on the Holocaust as part of our service of remembrance. The symphony is written for four voices -- distantly reminiscent, perhaps, of the four children whose different questions shape the Passover seder. And it is replete with silences and places for improvisation, as any rendering of the holocaust in words would need to be.

It is my hope for Yom Hashoah this year that our observance, with all its voices and all its silences, opens our hearts. The memory from Pesach will be fresh: we were strangers in Mitzrayim, we were oppressed, and God heard our weeping and reached into history to save us. And then on Yom Hashoah we will remember the opposite, that we were living more or less in safety, more or less in peace, and our neighbors turned on us and destroyed us. And almost no one reached into history on our behalf until late, late in the story, when a vast amount of damage had already been done.

And somehow we will hold both memories in our hearts and minds and let them try to speak to each other.

"Ha-Makom yinachem..." May we be comforted, together with the mourners in Zion and in the world.

© 2005 Rabbi Margaret Holub

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