Why We Remember, Why We Fight, Why We Live: Yom HaShoah U’Gevurah Reflections
- Rabbi David Baum
- Apr 24
- 5 min read
After the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, my grandfather Frank z'l, a Holocaust survivor, gave me advice, the talk that he never thought he would have to have with his grandson in America, on how to handle Nazis and bigots.
Six months after that conversation, I had another surreal moment, this time with my son. He came into our room crying in the middle of the night because he had a nightmare. The next day he was in a really sour mood, but he wouldn't say why he was upset. Finally, as he lay in bed, he called me to him and asked me to lie with him. He told me about the nightmare he had – that a gunman came into shul. He was scared for me, for all of us, and he hid in the kitchen. It was in response to what he heard in the background, on the radio, on television, the whispers of the adults around him.
On October 7, Jewish civilians were once again attacked for being Jews, but this time, in masse, leading to 1200 deaths, and hundreds taken captive by the enemy. 59 hostages still remain in Gaza, with an estimated 20 hostages who are surviving under conditions Jews have not gone through since the Shoah.
Unfortunately, as we saw in 2018 in America, and in Israel on October 7th, the terms “Never Forget” and “Never Again” are as relevant today as they were in 1945.
On Passover, we sang a song, “Ve Hi SheAmda.”
וְהִיא שֶׁעָמְדָה לַאֲבוֹתֵינוּ וְלָנוּ. שֶׁלֹּא אֶחָד בִּלְבָד עָמַד עָלֵינוּ לְכַלּוֹתֵנוּ, אֶלָּא שֶׁבְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר עוֹמְדִים עָלֵינוּ לְכַלוֹתֵנוּ וְהַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מַצִּילֵנוּ מִיָּדָם.
“And it is this that has stood for our ancestors and for us, since it is not [only] one [person or nation] that has stood [against] us to destroy us, but rather in each generation, they stand [against] us to destroy us, but the Holy One, blessed be He, rescues us from their hand.”
Is this our destiny? In every generation, will a person, or is it a nation, stand up against us to destroy us? Is it our destiny that we turn to God in each generation to rescue us from their hands?
This holiday is a testament to the nullification of part of this quote. We will always look to God, but we are taking our defense into our own hands.
In Israel, Yom HaShoah is part of the Israeli High Holidays. Rabbi Donniel Hartman from the Hartman Institute explains this idea:
“Vis-a-vis Yom Hashoah, in the early Zionist narrative, there was a deep rejection of the passivity and the powerlessness of European Jewry and an implied criticism of them for their complicity in their own deaths. For the Zionist, Israel was the antidote to the Holocaust, the land of the new Jew who did not go like sheep to slaughter, but who rather trained in the art of warfare and was capable of defending himself in times of danger. The move from Yom Hashoah U’Gevurah to Yom Hazikaron and Yom Haatzmaut was a transition from the past, which in many ways we remembered in order to forget, to the new Jewish reality, which is Israel.”
In other words, Yom HaShoah was a cautionary tale for Israelis - if we want to thrive, we have to leave the old Jew behind. There was a tremendous cost to this idea - the survivors.
Rabbi Yitz Greenberg wrote in his book on Jewish Holidays, The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays: “The innocent victims, abandoned and betrayed during the Shoah, were blamed afterwards for not being heroic fighters. The survivors who were living martyrs should have been gathered up lovingly and nursed back into life. Instead they were kept at arms’ length surrounded by silence, judged out of context, and made to feel guilty.”
Many of the survivors who came to Israel fought in the IDF, and many gave their lives in the war for Independence. Many of the Jews came with a background in the military, unlike the early Zionists. Two of my great-uncles with military backgrounds were promoted to Captains in the IDF and led Jews into battle. And yet, their struggle for survival during the war went unnoticed.
Of course, there were numerous examples of armed resistance by Jews during the Holocaust in Europe, but even the survivors who never picked up a gun were warriors. My grandfather was a prisoner at the Mauthausen concentration camp. Every day, he had to walk in front of electrified wires, and every day, a new prisoner would throw themselves on the wire to end their misery. The survivors went through daily horrors that few can comprehend, but they survived with a strength that can inspire us all today. If they survived, so can we.
Israel was a new beginning for our people.
For the last 2,000 years, we have been welcomed into a non-Jewish country. We thrive given that freedom to be who we are, the population feels threatened, they rise up against us, we get kicked out, and the cycle starts all over again.
These holidays are a message to Israelis and Jews: the game will not work in a global world. The Shoah could have been the end of our journey, but it was a new beginning. On Yom HaShoah U’Gevurah - remembrance and heroism day, we remember our resistance to the Nazis and all of our enemies - you may try and kill us, but we will survive.
We must look at the survivors and learn from them - each survivor could have given up every day during the Holocaust - but they never did. And because they never did - many of us are here alive.
We have to remember that even if you are a Jew surrounded by the comforts of the modern world, all of us are survivors. After death, we rebuild, we keep going, the journey continues. We never forget where we came from, who we lost along the way, and we never forget where we’re going.
Rabbi Donniel Hartman writes, “All Jews are survivors - This is the real meaning of Yom Haatzmaut following both Yom Hashoah and Yom Hazikaron. It reshapes and redefines Israel as a family that mourns together, and through the memory of the price we have paid to be free Jews, it redefines the meaning of Israel. Israel must be that which remembers, and through that memory constantly commands itself to be worthy of the price we paid. It is a memory that commands us to embrace life and challenges us to live it to the fullest, to build lives individually and collectively of greatness. That is the task of Israel; that is the legacy of our past and the challenge of our future.”
Am Yisrael Chai - the nation of Israel and the Jewish people live, and will continue to live.
May we never forget the sacrifice of the survivors, the 6,000,000 Jewish victims of the Holocaust along with millions of others. May we never forget the victims on October 7th, and may we continue to choose life as a people.
For those interested in past writings on Yom HaShoah u’Gevurah, please check out:
Comments