Rabbi's Blog

Dear OZ family,

The 26^th of Nissan has been canonized onto the Jewish calendar as the half-way point between the beginning of the Warsaw ghetto uprising and Yom Ha’atzmaut. The original name of this day was Yom Hashoah u’Gevurah, commemorating not only the utter devastation and destruction, but also the heroism of those who fought back. There were many forms of resistance and the State of Israel grew out of the same notion that we will not sit back and be victims of the world’s murderous viciousness, complicity and apathy towards the Jewish people. “Shoah” is a Biblical word, used in Tehillim, Iyov, Eicha, and by such prophets as Yeshayahu, Yechezkel and Tzephania, and connotes a total destruction, like something burnt to ash. The Greek translation of a burnt offering, the “Olah”, also connects to this idea, for it is “Holocaust”.

Sancheriv, Nevuchadnetzar, Haman, Antiochus, Titus, Hadrian and many others thought to render our people to the ash-heap of history and they are all but a distant memory, while we carry on the torch of the Torah’s Mitzvos, Avodah, and Chesed. The prophet, Zechariah declares that our saddest days, even Tisha B’av will become days of joy in the Messianic era. That will be when the reason for fasting on those days are no longer apparent. The reasons for Yom Hashoah are regrettably very much with us, and we must still call out the vicious hatred that could lead an advanced society to kill 1.2 million children, because there are others today who claim to want to do it again.

Amazingly, this day is referenced in the Shulchan Aruch as a fast day from antiquity. It is the Yahrzeit, according to the Seder Olam, of Yehoshua, Moshe Rabbenu’s disciple (See Orach Chaim 580:2). If Yom Hashoa is the half-way point between two polar opposite events, let us also remember the great Biblical hero, Yehoshua who held up the Torah that Moshe revealed to us, while crossing us over into the Promised Land. He completed our first Yom Ha’atzmaut, and was also the first to defeat the forces of Amalek, that we still need to defeat today. My father, who fought with partisnas during the war, loved to sing the partisan song in Yiddish , that speaks of the ground of Europe soaked with the blood of countless innocents among our people. The last words of the song are “Mir zeinen da”, We are still here. That always angers the most despicable people who look to Amalek for inspiration. Perhaps when we finally destroy Amalek and finish the work that Yehoshua started, the 26^th of Nissan will be a festive day as well.

Be safe.  Be healthy.   Be excellent.

Rabbi Allen Schwartz

Rabbi Allen Schwartz

Congregation Ohab Zedek

118 West 95^th Street | New York, NY  10025-6604

Phone 212.749-5150, ext 200 | Fax 212.663-3635

E-mail ras@ozny.org

Website:  www.ozny.org