I’ve struggled to understand what exactly ‘Never Again’ means. I believe we have a moral responsibility to our ancestors and to our history to remember the Shoah. We have the obligation to not forget what Jewish life in Eastern Europe was like prior to the decimation of its communities. We must honor the lives of the 6 million Jews killed, the 2.5 million children who were robbed the chance to live fuller lives, who knew atrocity far too young. And we owe it to the survivors who knew unspeakable horror in their lifetimes, trauma that we will never comprehend.
Part of ‘Never Again’ means that we recognize the evil that gave way to the Holocaust and work to ensure nothing like it happens again. ‘Never Again’ asks us to be aware of the ways that societies use hatred and prejudice to control others and assert power. I learned from my grandfather, a survivor himself, that this was one of the most important learnings we could take from the Shoah, the learning we had to take.
And I am often asked what to make of various comparisons to the Holocaust in our contemporary society. The question is not whether nothing or anything can be compared to the Holocaust. When comparisons are drawn to other historical events or current ones, it means that situation holds tremendous evil. Of course, there is evil all around the world but if anything can be compared to the Holocaust, then it has lost its uniqueness; it no longer has the power in our historical memory that it should. But if we can’t compare anything to the Holocaust, then we haven’t learned any lessons about how to apply the evil and hatred of the Shoah to our own sense of morality.
This Yom HaShoah, I was thinking about the importance of creating a delicate balance. Of understanding the profound impact that the Shoah has had on our people as a whole and the imperative to not draw comparisons simply to something we don’t like. And yet, part of ‘Never Again’ is precisely drawing on what we’ve learned from the Shoah and using it to identify the type of hatred that gave way to such atrocity.
The moral force of the Holocuast must shape our own moral consciousness today. It must be unique enough that we feel its tremendous, haunting power. The memory of the Shoah, the memory of those lost, must impact the way that we view the world, and it must impact the way we respond to hatred. This is our charge, this is ‘Never Again.’
Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Sarit
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