PESACH AND THE “YOM” HOLIDAYS

By Stan Schroeder

This year Pesach and the “Yom” holidays: Yom Hashoah, and Yom Hazikaron, fall in April, and Yom Ha’atzma’ut on May 1. In the Hebrew calendar Pesach starts the 15th of Nisan, Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) is the 27th of Nisan unless it would be Friday (like this year), advanced to the 26th of Nisan, Thursday, April 24th, and Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day in Israel) is the 4th of Iyar, but this year the 2nd, Wednesday April 30th. All these holidays are connected, and in chronological order.

Pesach celebrates our liberation from slavery in Egypt (Mitzrayim) and our journey to the Promised Land. We tell the story of our exodus at the Passover seder. We enumerate the ten plagues that God placed upon the Egyptians so that Pharoah would allow the Israelites to leave. We explain the symbols of the matzah we ate after departing in haste, the maror representing the hardships we endured, and the karpas symbolizing our renewal. This is the core story of the Jewish people. This is the story that tells of our wandering in the desert wilderness and eventually emerging as a people capable of becoming a nation, a light unto the nations of the world.

We do become a nation in Biblical times, build a Temple to God, have it destroyed and go into exile, come back and build a second Temple, only to have it destroyed, and once more disperse into the Diaspora. Nearly 2000 years pass with Jews surviving crusades, expulsions, and pogroms to establish communities throughout the world and lead western civilization in science, the arts, and, and commerce. Then in the 1930s, with the rise of Hitler and his Nazi Party, began an era that became known as the Holocaust. In 1939 there were about 17 million Jews in the world. By 1945 that number would be reduced by 6 million. Over one-third of the Jews in the world, most of those living in Europe, were murdered by the Nazis.

The date for Yom Hashoah, the 27th of Nisan, was selected by the Israeli Knesset on April 12, 1951. It is a date during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising which started April 19, 1943, and falls one week before Yom Hazikaron.  In 1943 April 19th coincided with the 15th of Nisan, the start of Passover.

Although shoah is often translated as holocaust, in Hebrew it actually means calamity or catastrophe. The word “holocaust” is seen as offensive to many Jews because it has a Greek pagan origin and is associated with burnt sacrifices.

On the eve of Yom Hashoah in Israel, there is a state ceremony at Yad Vashem. At 10:00 am on Yom Hashoah, throughout Israel, air-raid sirens are sounded for two minutes. During this time, people stop what they are doing and stand at attention; cars stop, even on the highways; and the whole country comes to a standstill as people pay silent tribute to the dead. On the eve of Yom Hashoah and the day itself, places of public entertainment are closed by law.

After World War II the nations of the world (in particular the United Nations) recognized the need for the Jews of Palestine to have a nation of their own. The UN voted to a partition plan that would divide Palestine (administered by Great Britain since the end of World War I under a League of Nations mandate) into a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews of Palestine accepted the partition plan and established the State of Israel. The Arabs of Palestine and the other Arab nations rejected the partition plan and attacked the fledgling State the following day. Actually, fighting had been going on between the Jews and the Arabs since the UN vote, while the British looked the other way or actually aided and abetted the Arabs.

As we know Israel survived the onslaught of the Arab armies and a succession of truces were declared. However over 4,000 fighters and 2,000 civilians were killed before the final truce. That was almost one percent of the entire population. To honor those fallen in the War of Independence and subsequent wars, Israel commemorates the holiday of Yom Hazikaron (Day of Remembrance or Memorial Day). At first it was combined with the anniversary of the declaration of the State, but since 1951 this solemn holiday has been the day before Yom Ha’atzma’ut (Independence Day).

Yom Hazikaron now honors members of security and paramilitary units who were killed fighting Arab attacks going back to1860 when Mishkenot Sha'ananim, the first modern Jewish settlement outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem was built, and civilians murdered by acts of terrorism. Last year there will be over 25,000 military and civilian terror victims honored.

The custom of sounding air-raid sirens throughout Israel is carried out twice for Yom Hazikaron: a one-minute siren at 8:00 pm in the evening at the start of the holiday, and a two-minute siren at 11:00 am on the day, itself. There are ceremonies at military cemeteries throughout the country. Almost everyone visits a cemetery as almost everyone has a relative who fought and died during Israel’s 60 years.

This brings us to the last of the “Yom” holidays, Yom Ha’atzma’ut (Independence Day). At nightfall (when three stars are visible in the sky) following Yom Hazikaron, the mood changes from solemn to joyous as Israelis celebrate their anniversary of independence. The journey we have followed: from redemption from slavery, to the ovens of the Shoah with the murder of six million Jews, to the ultimate sacrifice of Israel’s brave men and women in gaining a State and preserving it, to the celebration of the only Jewish State in the world.

And it is in our lifetime that we can see these events in context. So as we tell the story around our seder tables, let us appreciate what we have, because the freedom from slavery in Egypt has led inevitably to the freedom we enjoy in America. And on Yom Hashoah as we remember our people murdered in Europe, let us recognize their suffering brought the attention of the world to our plight. And the opportunity to have a Jewish State was created. On Yom Hazikaron let us pause to recognize the terrible price already paid, and Israel’s men and women are continuing to pay, so that a Jewish State guarantees us a safe home if we need it. And finally on Yom Ha’atzma’ut let us celebrate Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, and their achievements we can all be proud of.

Please see my Yom Hashoah poem in the right-hand column.

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Board Meeting Dvar Torah (October 2, 2019)
By Owen Delman

“Blind obedience without the restraint of reason or morality is dangerous.”

“Abraham should not be honored for willing to kill his child because of a command from God.”

“The key word is blind — this is the stuff of fanatics and terrorists.”

These are some of the concepts regarding the Akedah discussion today. There are rabbis who refuse to include the Akedah in their Rosh Hashanah services because the concept is unacceptable. They reject any of the interpretations which attempt to justify the basic premise of God commanding a sacrifice. Given the holocaust with the murderers using as a defense that they were “just following orders” (an example of ‘blind obedience’) they condemn the whole concept.

Bringing it into our present day, they say if there had been a trial of Abraham he would have used the defense of “God ordered me to do it” and that this is quite similar to the defense stated by the assassins of Yitzhak Rabin who claimed that to give any part of Israel back would be a denial of God’s plan for Israel.

So how should do we deal it?

In Stan’s Torah study group we often hear the refrain “but that can’t be true” or “but that doesn’t fit with something in another part of the bible.” The questioner gets reminded that these are stories, parables used for teaching concepts.

After services yesterday, (where I had posited a number of theories of what the Akedah meant) a friend came up to me and asked me which one was the correct interpretation.

I asked him with which one he felt most comfortable because there is no one answer.

The Bible is not history, not an accurate accounting of past events

Let me stop for a moment: I’ve studied history and literature. Let me explain the differences.  History is a written account of past events based on the author’s examination of events and documents to back up his conclusions. Literature is a creation of an author perhaps based on fact or wholly conceived by the author. The Akedah is a story in the Torah meant as a lesson; a piece of literature. In the study of literature it is accepted that it is less important what the author meant as opposed to what the reader sees in the work — how it affects him. There is no correct answer, only how the viewer is affected by the piece.

Once a piece of art (literature, painting, sculpture, etc.) is given to the world, it matters little what the artist meant. What is important is how it is perceived and how it affects the contemporary viewer.

When you understand the Akedah for what it is to our day, to us, it becomes much more understandable. Those rabbis who won’t even allow the Akedah to be part of their Rosh Hashanah story may be missing a wonderful teaching lesson for the sake of political correctness.