Let us pray to Hashem with one voice.
Yom Hashoah, the long, shrill siren wails and all movement stops. It’s a steady sound that brings a nation to attention, united in memory of 6,000,000 of its own. I notice how it contrasts with the stop and start sound of the Nazi sirens that must have sent shivers into the hearts of the Jews caught in the noose of annihilation. A police force in the U.S. had to change the sound of their police car sirens because it was too reminiscent of the sound of the SS.
Many years ago, when I first visited the children’s exhibit at Yad Vashem everyone was saying that it was strange. A circular building didn’t look like a memorial. But once inside, it accomplished what the designer must have intended. The room was pitch black except for hundreds of twinkling lights shining all around being reflected by mirrors. I was completely disoriented. I had to hold tightly to the railing and even then I took just a few steps and couldn’t continue. I was afraid of the dark. I couldn’t see a step in front of me. I was afraid of falling into the thick blackness. Choshech – darkness- like the ninth Plague.
At that time, one of the exhibits in the museum was the shoes. Thousands of shoes. Real children wore those shoes. They played hopscotch in those shoes, played ball in those shoes, went to school in those shoes, went to shul (synagogue) in their Shabbos (Sabbath) shoes. They lost their shoes under their beds, their mothers scrambling to find the shoes so their children could go off to cheder (school). Jewish kinderlach (children) wore those shoes.
Today, at the new Yad Vashem museum, I am moved by the silver, mountains of silver judaica, some in boxes, and some in the room settings. In the new museum they have actual furniture set up in small settings as they would have been in someone’s home. My mind can see the dining room tables set with the silver judaica. Silver bechers, goblets, a father making Kiddush, silver laichters, candelabras, a mother lighting Shabbos candles. Parents blessing and praying for their children. Real people, real families. How many of these families were shocked out of their Sabbath reverie by the sound of the sirens?
Since the expulsion from Gaza, we hear the sirens again. Fifteen seconds to run for cover. Sirens blaring, but instead of hiding from the Germans, Jews are running from katyushas. The smell of smoke, the smell of death, the smell of the gas chambers, the smell of the crematoria.
Korbanos, sacrifices, how did they smell in the Bais Hamikdash, the Holy Temple? Anyone smelling death surely atoned for their sins.
I remember my grandmother telling me of the pogroms in her shtetl. The family hid in the cellar. Anyone outside was killed. Did they have fifteen seconds to run for shelter?
I remember my father telling me of his father visiting us in Kfar Darom when we lived there. He was so proud to go on shmira, security watch, with my father. A Jew should not have to run and hide from pogroms, from Nazis or from suicide bombers.
On Yom Hazikaron the sirens wail again as we remember our soldiers who fell in every war. Young people who made the ultimate sacrifice. We remember the soldiers who have been kidnapped and are still in captivity. With Pesach just behind us, we remember that Hashem took us out of Egypt, our nation proudly marching in achdut, unity. We received the Torah at Mount Sinai in achdut. On Lag B’Omer we remember that it was the lack of achdut that caused Rabbi Akiva’s students to die.
Despite our differences politically or in our individual religious observance, we must stand in achdut today as never before. In every generation our enemies rise up against us. Jews of all stripes marched together to the gas chambers, Jews of all stripes were murdered in suicide bombings. Let us remember and never forget all that we have been through.
On Erev Shabbos, Friday afternoon, when I am visiting my grandchildren in Israel, they take me out to the mirpeset, the porch, to hear the siren. A different siren ushers in the Sabbath, one accompanied by music. This is my nachas, family joy, singing and dancing with my grandchildren to greet the Sabbath.