2000 - Fifty-five years later: "What exactly was the Holocaust, Rabbi?"

Rosh Hashanah Eve

FIFTY-FIVE YEARS LATER: LEST WE FORGET

“One generation passes away and another generation cometh; and the earth abides forever.” So says the preacher Kohelet.

It’s difficult to believe that over half a century has already elapsed, an entire generation and then some has already come and gone since those days. Fifty-five years, since V-E Day – since the end of that war. Fifty-five years, almost a lifetime. And we who were children then, we who have never aged, find the passage of so many decades difficult to accept.

Fifty-five years already? But we're still too young to measure our days in generations ... aren't we? Yet, the clock has ticked, the calendar pages have turned, and as we gather on this eve of Rosh Hashanah, even the poorest at numbers must realize that 55 years have passed since the end of the Holocaust. And we would be remiss to let the occasion pass without remembrance. Fifty-five years, since the kingdom of night, since the days of the evil empire, since the nightmare – the Shoah.

“What exactly was the Holocaust, Rabbi?” The one asking was a young woman – a Confirmand, and very bright. I blinked and probably gulped audibly, somewhat incredulous. “Are you serious?” I asked.

I knew my response was reactive – unthinking, facile, a play for time. Of course, she was serious. How was she to know about an event that took place 40 years before she was born? Was she asking about mathematics or literature or about friends and family – the stuff of school and home conversation? Was she asking about computers or community events – information that is readily available to her? Was she asking about dating or drugs or parties or fashion, about modern music or pop culture, TV programs or celebrities? No, of course not, for these make up the given of her personal cultural milieu. Her question was: "What exactly was the Holocaust, Rabbi?" That’s all she asked.

How could she be expected to know? I know, and you who were alive in the days of Roosevelt or Truman or even Eisenhower know, because it was the "given" of our youth. Information about the Holocaust was very much a part of our cultural milieu. In the morning of our lives, we awoke to news of Midway, and Guam, and Munich, and the Sudetenland, and Stalin, and FDR, and Churchill, and Tojo, and Hirohito, and Mussolini, and Hitler. Our doodles were of Messerschmidt’s and P-38s. Each evening, families gathered around the radio to hear Gabriel Heater and Walter Winchell reveal the events of the day in Europe and in the Pacific. We didn’t know then of drugs or of rock music or even of television, but we did know just about everything that had to do with “The War.”

“One generation passes away, and another generation cometh ... ”

Kohelet was right. Fifty-five years pass, and a new generation cometh. So, what do we tell this next generation? And how do we tell them? What are the words? How do we impart the full tale ... the extent of the tragedy? Do we take them to the Holocaust Museum in Washington or to Yad VaShem in Jerusalem? For sure, but then what? Do we get them copies of Schindler's List or Night and Fog or any of the documentaries now available for the VCR and the DVD? Of course, but then what? Do we take personal responsibility for the telling? Can we know and not tell? But, where do we begin? Do we begin with Germany? Do we start in America? Do we tell the tale in the first person singular ... or in the plural?

Some would have us begin in the 1920s after World War I had ended, and explain in great detail how the Treaty of Versailles set the stage for the rise of Hitler in Germany. But that feels like an excuse; and the Shoah was utterly inexcusable. Besides, the Holocaust has to do with the victim, not the criminal, so why begin with causes? Better to begin with events. But what events? A People as complex as we Jews is not measured or explained or defined by one brief period of time. The woof and warp of our historic fabric is an interweaving of many yesterdays – almost four millennia worth of yesterdays.

Enough, Rabbi. Stop draying on. You don't have all the time in the world. One generation passes, another cometh. What exactly was the Holocaust? Tell her, already! Tell her! What exactly was the Holocaust ... the Shoah?

All right. You insist. I’ll tell her.

"There are no words adequate to describe the Holocaust," my child. We can barely find words to explain love, or beauty, or dignity, or life – positive emotions, kind and generous and pleasant virtues. Therefore, can we even begin to find words adequate to describe absolute hatred, total ugliness, insufferable indignity, architected death? I don't think so.

And so, let me begin with a metaphor. A recipe. Take one people: Jewish. Break, and separate from all others. Surround with walls much as a bowl confines its ingredients. Beat well. Bake in ovens until done. Bizarre? Not bizarre enough! Let me continue with numbers – a dehumanizing calculus. The Holocaust claimed six million Jews; divide by some four years of planned slaughter, that comes to 1.5 million Jews murdered each year, or 130,000 Jews killed each month, or 4,300 Jews put to death each day, or 180 Jews slaughtered each hour, or 3 Jews put to death each minute ... gassed, shot, burned, beaten, stoned, starved, drowned, experimented on, tortured, humiliated, run over, murdered! Three Jews every minute of each day, every day of each week, every week of each month, every month of each year, year after year ... after year ... after year ... after year. That, my child, that was the Holocaust!

At that rate, in less than 10 hours every Jew in this synagogue would be gone, in less than three weeks, every Jew in this entire state would have been no more. That was the Holocaust! Do you begin to understand? Let me make the point in still another way. Let me speak to you through music. You see, songs are to a people what the soul is to a body. A song can probe the spirit and character, explicate the morale and condition of the times, and measure the hopes and strengths of a people ... or the lack thereof. A song can delight or it can affright. It gives wing or ... it gives warning. Did our people know the Shoah was coming, you ask? Some knew. Some surmised. But something so cruel, so massive, so inhuman ... who could possibly believe?

"ES BRENT -- IT BURNS" [choir]

It burns, brother, it burns.

O dear God, the city is in flames.

Only blackened, empty walls remain

Yet, you, brother, just stand there, arms folded

and watch ... in disbelief.

It burns, brother, it burns.

It all depends on you.

If the city is so dear

Take your tallis and smother the fire.

Or quench it with your blood

Show what you can do

Don’t just stand with folded arms

and watch ... our city burn.

It burns, surely, it burns.

Tongues of fire swallow everything

Angry winds swirl and howl around us

Don’t just stand with folded arms

and watch ... our city burn.

It burns, yes! The flames leap high and devour. Our communities, our ghettos they set on fire. With whips they round up and evict and round up and chase out and gather up and transport ... to God knows where. But a house, a city, our people have left before. Did we not leave Egypt in haste, and Babylonia, and Spain? Anatevka, always and everywhere, Anatevka! Those places we left. We ran. And we lived to rebuild our lives anew in some other place. But not so this time. Not the Holocaust. Germany and Poland, Rumania and Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were not Egypt, were not Spain, were not Anatevka.

"MEIN KLEINER MARTIER -- MY LITTLE MARTYR" [choir]

Sleep my child, my little martyr.

Shut your little eyes tight.

My dear one, you don’t know about leaders,

Sleep in sweet calm.

A leader came – a Nazi,

He leads the world into an abyss.

We Jews suffer more than anyone

From the leaders, to this day.

He doesn’t allow us to have children

No more Jewish noses.

And you, my child, so beautiful.

Came untimely into this world.

Sleep now my child, and let me sleep

A blessed sleep, in sweet calm.

In the ghetto it was forbidden to give birth. In Egypt, too, they killed our babies. But this Hitler knew not Pharaoh. In Egypt we worked hard and then we left. For Hitler we worked hard and then we died. Thousands of Jewish children boarded trains at the Austerlitz Station. “Workers to the right, women and children to the left.” Those on the right stoke the fire; those on the left into the fire! And Jews ... will bear no more children.

Let's see, how shall we die? Such a question! But the only sane question left to us. Shall it be gassed in a van or bullet beside a gaping trench, or perhaps poison gas in a shower room or there is always a cost free solution ... starvation? Human being as symbol. Symbol of incipient death. Take me, but not my tomorrow! Tomorrow is hope. Tomorrow is Israel. Tomorrow is light and laughter and abundance. Tomorrow is God. My child is my tomorrow. Take me, but not my child. Run, Yankle; hide Itsik, “Shah - shtill, mine kind,” you will be one in a hundred thousand. You will live.

"A YIDDISHE KIND - A JEWISH CHILD" [choir]

Far away in a Litvish village

There stands a house without a roof

Through a little window

Little children are looking out

Little boys with heads alert.

Little girls with blond braids

And with them also looking out,

Are two dark eyes.

Black eyes full of charm

A little nose, and

Lips made for kissing

Firmly braided black hair

His mother brought him here

All wrapped up, at night.

Kissed him heartily and wept

And quietly said to him –

Here my child will be your place.

Listen to your mother's words

I am hiding you here

Because your life is in danger.

Play nicely with these children

Be quiet and obedient.

No more Yiddish words, no Jewish song.

Because ... you are no longer a Jew.

The child begs her,

“Mother I want only to be with you.

Don’t leave me alone.”

The child weeps bitterly

She kisses him

But nothing helps

The child repeats: “No, no,

I don’t want to stay here ...”

She takes him in her arms

And hugs him gently

Filled with anxiety and fear

She leaves the house

And goes out into the night.

A cry is heard, “Oh, my child,

I left you with strangers.

I could do nothing else.”

A mother walks, talking to herself

And outside, cold and late

The wind blows in her face.

“God watch over my only child.”

Better times will come

Our troubles will someday end.

Our nation will be equal to all nations

I sing this to you and I hope.

To destroy us – is not their luck

Palestine will be ours

Decorated in blue and white.

And called Eretz Yisrael.

It will be a Jewish land.

There, children who are friendless,

Needy and tormented will go.

In the Pioneer brigade

My child will go,

I hope you will be a faithful chalutz.

Sleep, my little boy, sleep.

This, too, was the Holocaust – desecration, degradation, deprivation, deportation, denial of dignity, despair, disease, and death ... always and everywhere ... death. But to the litany of “d’s” let us not forget to add one more. The Holocaust was also defiance. Only a proud people can defy the masters of death. Only a people of wisdom, and faith, and courage can defy the law of whip, and fang, and bootjack.

Defiance takes many forms. Take up arms; we did. Become partisans; we did. Grovel in pits, crawl through sewers, run from forest to forest – all this we did. Resist and flee – this, too, we did. But those are not the only forms of defiance. To insist on your right to maintain sanity when the world about you insists on insanity, is also defiance. To refuse the nightmare and insist on the dream, is also defiance. To refuse to become in your soul what they make you become in body if you are to survive – is great defiance. To retain faith and to teach faith even when the fire licks at you; to spit in the eye of the whirlwind that hovers directly above, that is defiance. Yes, to hope, to dare hope ... when fate has already stamped its seal on your soul, that, davkah, is defiance.

"ZOG NIT KEINMOL -- NEVER SAY" [choir]

Don’t every say you are walking the last mile.

When cloudy skies dim the blue days

Our most longed-for hour shall come

Our step like a drum beat will sound

We are here.

From the land of green palms to the land of white snow.

We come with our grief, we come with our pain.

And where there fell a drop of our blood

There our might and our courage will also sprout.

The sun of tomorrow will shine for us today.

And yesterday will vanish with the enemy

But if the sun is late on its route

Like a promise this song should

go from generation to generation

This song was written with blood not with ink

It's not a song of a bird on the wing

This song was sung by a nation among fallen ruins

With weapons in their hands.

So don’t ever say you are walking the last mile

Even though cloudy skies dim the blue days

Our much longed-for hour will come

Our step-like the beat of a drum will sound – we are here!

Symbols? We’re a broken-window people! Everyone throws stones at us. But we are a people who insists on living with windows. What can we expect?

Symbols? We are a textbook people! Everyone besmears our pages. But we are history’s first and foremost textbook people. What can we expect?

Symbols? We are a law-receiving people! But those who can not be so good as to live by such moral laws, break them. What can we expect?

Symbols? We are a people chosen by God! God? What God? Whose God? Where is God? The God of no other people and the God of the Universe and none else. They are jealous. Our God, not theirs – that’s it – they are jealous of our God! What can we expect? Can we expect our God? Now, God – can You please manifest Yourself ... now? We, Your people, are dying!

“Anochi Adonai Elohecha – I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other symbols before me ... ”

But Ribbono Shel Olam - Sovereign of the Universe ... You are not our symbol, we are Your symbol. Maintain us as a living symbol. Save us. Redeem us. Teach us faith and courage. Teach us again to believe. Teach us to be Your living symbol – again and again and again.

"ANI MA’AMIN – I BELIEVE WITH PERFECT FAITH" [choir - no reading]

“What exactly was the Holocaust, Rabbi?” Her question is still with me, and I want very much to answer, but the question has no answer. It wasn’t exactly anything. It was a darkness too dense to fathom, and a pit too deep to measure. It was a time too long to endure, and a pain too great to bear. It was a particular lesson with universal application. It was a burden no one else can really understand, and no one else can share.

Exactly, my child, the Holocaust was a struggle to the death! Yes, it was a struggle to the death between the forces of evil and the Jewish people. And we Jews ... and we Jews won!

“Six million died! One-third of our people perished, and you say we won?”

Of course we won. Jews are a flourishing people, a vibrant, living symbol still, are we not? Of course, we won. Of course, we won. Was there ever any doubt that we would win, O Lord?

"KADDISH" [choir]

Yisgadal, V’yiskadash (2)

How many are no longer here

Let the hour be holy

We cry for them without noise

Yisgadal, V’yiskadash

What more is left to us

Than bitter tears

For the victims – for their ashes.

“One generation passes away, but another generation cometh” ... and then another ... and now another ... and still another ... ! Was there ever any doubt ... O Lord?