Not from the ashes of the Holocaust

I note that today is officially “Yom Hashoah.”

I have often had a difficult relationship with this day. First of all, the selection of a day in Nissan to mark the Holocaust is an oddity in terms of Jewish tradition. Our Sages taught that we refrain from eulogies during this month since it is a joyous one, with Pesach (the Holiday of Freedom) and the flowering of Spring. That’s why, for example, I don’t say the “El Maleh” prayer on my mother’s yahrzeit, since it falls in Nissan. To create a memorial day, arbitrarily, in Nissan, runs contrary to logic in the context of Jewish history, especially considering that the Shoah took place every single day of the year – and thus could have been literally any day.

Alas, the primary reason 27 Nissan (this year it’s a day early) was chosen by the somewhat out of touch with tradition (or rebellious, anti-religious) leadership of early Israel was in one-step with the desire to flip the day marking the Holocaust into something the Shoah mostly was not: A day of Heroism, unduly stressing the bravery of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. That was mostly because our nation’s secular leadership had difficulty grappling with the fact that the overwhelming majority of Jews killed were not heroes and did not resist; they simply went like sheep to the slaughter, helpless and clueless. That was incongruent with the new Zionist ethos that was necessary to propagate during the early pioneering moments of the new nation-state. Thus, when marking the Shoah – far too much emphasis is placed on the relatively few acts of bravery (laudable and extremely significant nevertheless) instead of the plain devastation that was.

Which leads me to an additional reason for my difficulty with the official “Yom Hashoah” – that being that the Holocaust of the 20th Century, as horrible as it was, was not the greatest tragedy to befall the Jews in the annals of our history. I admit that this is a harsh statement to maintain (and I have even gotten myself into a bit of trouble for stating so in the past, including with family members) – but if you take a bird’s eye view of Jewish history, there is no denying such. Certainly, the loss of Jewish independence and the destruction, persecution and wholesale murder that came along with it, twice, and during each of which even greater percentages of Jews were killed (as part of total population) than during the Shoah – were far greater tragedies which are marked with 4 different days of mourning and fasting for thousands of years now, including one designed as a catch-all moment (10 Tevet).

The Shoah was (is) raw – and unlike other pre-modern travesties is documented and hence there is greater emphasis on it. However, that emphasis is problematic because it feeds into the dangerous narrative, utilized high and wide by both those who hate us and even “ourselves” – claiming that the prime reason/function of the modern Jewish state is grown out of European guilt and Jewish necessity to just not be killed, as though the justification for the creation of Israel is the destruction that was the Holocaust. Of the Jewish state as but a safe-haven from anti-Semitism, irrespective of its location, disconnected from the non-tragedy elements of Jewish history.

The propagation of the Shoah as more significant a tragedy than any other in Jewish or human history gnaws dangerously away at the legitimate and true purpose of Jewish destiny – which is the return to Zion and the moral platitude of representing the actual purpose of the Creator from the plateau of our ancestral homeland, speaking our ancient language and deciphering divine moral code for dissemination to humanity.

This minute focus on the Holocaust (and anti-Semitism) as cause and justification for the emergence of modern Israel, in fact, is one of the underpinnings for the great ideological breakdown we have been witnessing in some corners of Israel since October 7^th: That the one (from their perspective) purpose for which the Jewish State was created (to prevent the murder of Jews simply for being Jews) was violated. When that is your perspective, not only did particular people or systems or strategic concepts fail on the morning of October 7^th – the very core purpose of the Zionist enterprise (if you view it simply or primarily as a safe-haven for Jews) turned out to be an abysmal failure.

With the “religion of preventing another Holocaust” deemed a failure, some people, particularly those Israelis most disconnected from Jewish tradition (many of whom come from very influential left-leaning segments of Israeli society), have lost faith in the viability of the Jewish state as they understand it and genuinely struggle with its evolving demographics and pull toward tradition (and hence they grasp at a supposed battle for purported liberalism and democratic values – as though these are the purpose as opposed to the means, and about which they are in actuality clueless and mistaken).

Which leads me to an additional reason that I have difficulty with the way this day is marked – and which I humbly feel I have the standing needed to claim all the above. As the grandson of Holocaust Survivors with a mother who was born in a DP camp in 1947, in whose proximity I was raised and in whose shadows my entire life outlook was formulated, I know what the significance the 1930s and 1940s held for them – and I live the consequences of the legacies by which they lived and the decisions they undertook in the aftermath of World War II. I was raised on survival for a purpose. On staying the course. On maintaining tradition. On faith. It wasn’t about lighting a candle for the Holocaust but rather about putting on Tefilin despite the Holocaust. And lighting Shabbat candles. And reading the parsha each week. And going to shul each morning even with rain or sleet or snow or unbearable heat. And sacrificing financially so that your children study Torah no less than general education. And spending more money, even when money is tight, on the more reliable kashrut. And singing at the Shabbat and Seder table (even though Zeydie had an awful, horrid singing voice). And looking forward, not back, at the promise that is your posterity that they might fulfill the destiny which you were chosen to carry – not irrespective of the despair that you may have witnessed, but because of it. Not to dwell on the pain but to focus on the national mission and make it personal.

Marking a special day, not in sync with core tenets of Jewish tradition (in the month of Nissan, hyper focusing on small samplings of bravery instead of the majority experience), to me, negates the power of the transmission of Jewish tradition which is the true mark of heroism.

My grandfather – Holocaust Survivor – was a hero – but not because of anything brave he did while experiencing the Hell of Auschwitz. He was a hero of spirit because after emerging from the valley of death, literally; after learning that his wife and their five children and his brothers and his parents were murdered – with every excuse in the book to throw it all away – he stayed with Jewish destiny, chose the tumultuous path of maintaining tradition and cleared the course toward fulfillment of Jewish destiny as the Creator intended for his descendants, his people and humanity at large. That is the sense of purpose which enables his descendants, today, to be actual heroes, both spiritually in continuing the dictums of the purpose which he demonstrated, and physically in the actual manifestation of our destiny in modern, sovereign Israel. Not from the ashes of the Holocaust, but from the tenacious perseverance of commitment, focus and faith.