I was on a meaningful walk of the memorials today at Yad Vashem. Today’s fast of the 10th of Tevet when some 2500 years ago the Babylonians besieged Jerusalem, foreshadowing the eventual destruction of the Temple. The Rabbis decided that on this day we would observe the yahrzeits of all those who perished on unknown dates.
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While walking around I could not stop thinking of the current events and our history. We survived the destruction of Jerusalem and the Holocaust and we will win the current war too. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s quote came to mind.
“When I first stood at Auschwitz-Birkenau the question that haunted me was not, “Where was God?”. God was in the command, “You shall not murder.” God was in the words, “You shall not oppress the stranger.” God was saying to humanity, “Your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground.” God did not stop the first humans from eating the forbidden fruit. He did not stop Cain from committing murder. He did not stop the Egyptians from enslaving the Israelites. God does not save us from ourselves. That, according to the Talmud, is why creating man was such a risk that the angels advised against it. The question that haunts me after the Holocaust, as it does today in this new age of chaos, is “Where is man?”
Shabbat Shalom
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