Invocation for the Colorado House of Representatives
Holocaust
Memorial Day
April
12,2018
Rabbi
Joseph R. Black
Temple
Emanuel – Denver, CO
Our God and God of
compassion:
In the Jewish Calendar
– this day is called Yom HaShoah – Holocaust Memorial Day.
This morning we
stand – not merely in prayer – but in remembrance.
We remember the
more than 13,000,000 souls destroyed in the nightmare of the Shoah – the Nazi
Holocaust. Among those innocents
exterminated by the Nazis were:
·
Intellectuals
·
Communists
·
Socialists
·
Catholics
·
The Mentally and Physically infirm
·
Gypsies/Roma
·
Gays and Lesbians
·
And, of course – 6 million Jews – of
whom 1.5 million were children.
These numbers are
not new. I have lived with them all of
my life.
My mother passed away
this past June at the age of 91. She was
born in Leipzig, Germany. She lived
through Kristallnacht – the night of broken glass that took place on November 9th,
1938. She and her parents were able to escape
to America and begin new lives here – but the shadows of that night and the
months and years that followed, never disappeared from her consciousness until she
suffered a stroke on the day after her 91st birthday. As devastating as that event was in our lives,
in some ways it was a blessing since it allowed her to find relief from the fears
and anxieties that plagued her all of her life as she confronted the memories of
her experiences as a young girl in Nazi Germany.
Today, Jews and people
of faith all around the world remember how hatred and bigotry came together with
modern technology to create a machinery of death that had never before been witnessed
in human history.
Auschwitz,
Birkenau, Bergen Belzen, Dachau, Treblinka – these and so many other names are forever etched into
our consciousness – these places of pure evil that taught the depths to which human beings will descend
in order to deny the Divine Image implanted within each of us….
In trying to
understand the enormity of evil represented by the dark period of the Shoah we
must accept the fact that in some cases there can be no understanding. To state that one and a half million children
died for a reason is blasphemy. In a world
where we strive to see God’s presence, the reality of evil can eclipse even the
brightest flame of holiness.
Our task, in
remembering those precious souls who perished, must be to strengthen our
resolve to call out and combat evil wherever and whenever it arises. When we
are silent, we are complicit.
Elie Weisel – the
great writer and teacher wrote:
"The opposite
of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness,
it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And
the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference."
When we turn our
backs to the ugliness in our world – we are desecrating God’s presence in our
midst. Let us remember that with the
holiness implanted within us comes the responsibility to shine a light on both
good and evil – wherever it may find itself.
I now will chant
the El Malei Rachamim – the prayer of
remembrance for those who perished.
Thank you for sharing this beautiful invocation, but also the story of your mother (may her memory be a blessing), and her story of what she experienced during the time of the Shoah. May more places recognize this day, the way that Colorado did.
ReplyDeleteRabbi,
ReplyDeleteWhat awonderful message before the Colorado legislature.You are not only a credit to the Jewish community, but to the entire state of Colorado.
I’m proud to not only call you as my rabbi, but also as my friend.
Please continue as an advocate for the Jewish community.
Kal and Liz