2nd generation: Each of us is a living memorial

This past week, I seized a rare opportunity to spend a Chol HaMoed evening with my family at Manhattan’s Museum of Jewish Heritage. This was a rare opportunity for me for several reasons—I rarely close my office early, now that our daughter Tara is married we rarely have a chance to spend leisure time with her and her husband, and our family rarely visits Jewish museums. My wife and I are “second-generation” survivors; both of my in-laws and my father survived the Holocaust. Growing up in my house was like a permanent visit to the Holocaust museum. With such profound childhood experiences, few museums captured the terror and the awful realities of the Holocaust. Despite all of that, we seized the day and explored Jewish Heritage in the Lower Manhattan facility. As I walked through the museum and saw artifacts and images of our people’s long history, I was brought to the verge of tears. The most powerful moment for me was when we reached the end of the museum and stood at a picture window looking out on the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. My wife and I were misty-eyed, and my children who were with me stood awe-struck. The whole experience of the evening together was supremely emotional.

It is this mixture of emotions I am overcome by every year on Yom Ha’Shoah. As Pesach—z’man herutaynu (our time of redemption)—comes to an end, we are forced to come to terms with another year of Moshiach’s delay. Every year at the Seder we open our door to Eliyahu, and every year I am reminded of how my father-in-law used to shake the table to show my children how Eliyahu drank the wine; every year I am greeted by the black night sky and sometimes a breeze that reminds me that no one stands on the other side of my threshold. Another Pesach is behind us, and the remembrance days of Yom Ha’Shoah and Yom Ha’Atzmaut follow on its heels. Again, growing up as a “second-generation” survivor, every day is a Holocaust remembrance day. Yet, on my visit to the Jewish Heritage museum, standing at that picture window with my family all staring at the port that greeted our previous generation’s huddled masses, Yom Ha’Shoah took on a deeper meaning.

 I heard a powerful thought about Yom Ha’Shoah in the modern conscience, a great thought by Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau when he addressed Beth Shalom Congregation several years ago. His talk centered on what Yom Ha’Shoah must mean to second-, third-, and fourth-generation survivors and beyond. He said that no part of the Holocaust is comprehensible; no loss of human life is explainable. In spite of this, the day of Holocaust remembrance, he argued, is not about mourning the martyrs. It is not, he emphasized, a day to remember or cry for those victims of the Holocaust who died “al kidush Hashem” (in the honor of G-d). Instead, Yom Ha’Shoah is a day to reflect on, commemorate, and laud the survivors who exited the fiery gates of Hell and continued to live “al kidush Hashem.” This is the meaning, Rabbi Lau explained, that it is Holocaust Remembrance Day, not Holocaust Memorial Day. Each of us needs to be reminded that living “al kidush Hashem” is why we are here.

Glancing out that window at the site where my father and my in-laws first stepped foot into the goldene medina and continued to live vibrant Jewish lives “al kidush Hashem” brought the meaning home for me. Each of us who is brave enough to make our actions match their divine inspiration, each of us who proudly upholds halacha and Jewish customs, each of us is a living monument to the Holocaust because we did not allow our neshamas—our spirits—to be dampened. Every year when we chant “Ani Ma’amin” (I Have Faith) at a Yom Ha’Shoah ceremony, we recommit ourselves to live lives to a higher purpose and to instill in our children pride and joy in their rich Jewish heritage.