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Sermon for Sidra Shemini - Yom HaShoah
April 2010
by Rabbi Geoffrey Hyman

On Sunday it will be Yom Hashoah “The Holocaust Memorial Day” as instituted by the Israeli Rabbinate and now promoted in our own communities.

May I welcome here today “survivors” of the camps and those who escaped from the endangered areas of Europe, whether through Kindertransport or other means.

Today is Shabbat and therefore mourning is forbidden, also we should not dwell on painful matters. Therefore, I do not wish to dwell on the tragic events of the Holocaust today but to focus on the importance that we perpetuate the memory of the “Holocaust” and that that “memory” be handed on to the next generation; that really is the essential task of our generation. Just as our ancestors passed down the memory of the destruction of the two Temples and the subsequent exiles of our people from our land; so too do we have to ensure that we pass on the memory of the Holocaust to our children and grandchildren, as well as the wider world.

In our Sidra Shemini, Aaron loses two of his sons, Nadav and Avihu, during the consecration of the Tabernacle. Aaron’s response to his tragic loss was “Vayidom Aharon” - “silence”. In the aftermath of the Holocaust which wiped out six million of our people together with their communities in Central and Eastern Europe, there was a “silence” that hung heavy over our people as they grappled with this immense painful tragedy.

60 years on, we may not have answers, but we know that “Remembering the Holocaust” is something that we must pass on to the next generation. Firstly, to perpetuate the memory of the “Kedoshim” who were innocently slaughtered, and secondly, to teach society the lesson that what starts as prejudice and hatred ends in genocide.

But whilst we remember and reflect on the Holocaust, we must not become left to wither in the past, but be inspired constantly to build for the future to turn “grief into hope”, as put by the Chief Rabbi.

We are a people with a long history of being “hated” with so many attempts down the ages to annihilate us. From Pharaoh to Haman, from Nebuchadnezzar to Titus, we have been conquered and murdered. But so too did we have our mighty heroes who inspired us with hope, like Moses and Aaron, Ezra and Nehemiah, Mordechai and Esther, Mattisyahu with his son Judah the Maccabee, Bar Kochba and Rabbi Akiva.

We just celebrated Pesach with its lesson of hope and our survival - which we must never forget.

Whilst we sometimes “pause” and look back on our long history of suffering, and whilst we are sometimes stunned into silence like Aaron; like Aaron too, we must remember to continue to serve G-d and never forget our mission as G-d’s people.

We as Jews have never allowed ourselves simply to be considered “surviving victims of genocide”, for we are the eternal optimists of the world who with creative genius have contributed well beyond our mere numbers to the advancement and welfare of this globe over thousands of years. The very mission that G-d gave to Abraham those many years ago “to be a father to the nations” – “Av hamon goyim netatich”, and later to Moses, to be “A light unto the nations” - that has stayed with us and has been fulfilled by us many a time.

Look at our contemporary Israel with its heroic battle for its existence - this is another form of this challenge. Israel is the very miracle of this post-Holocaust period. And our very National Anthem is Hatikvah – the very epitome of our being - hope.

So when we reflect on the Holocaust, let us kindle the memorial lights in the spirit of hope and faith of our forbears who never ever gave up and who never resigned themselves to a world of evil.

May G-d inspire us always to live with the vision of hope and faith and to welcome in the era of the Moshiach - speedily in our day. Amen!