Yom HaShoah

This evening is erev Yom HaShoah - the night of Holocaust Remembrance Day.  Around the world people will gather this evening and tomorrow to remember a horrible time in our human history and pray that in our remembering will come the wisdom not to allow genocide occur again.  We know from our most recent history that it takes more than remembering, because we are still killing our own and the "other" in record numbers throughout the world, by war and by starvation.  We pray tonight and every night for peace and freedom ...until everyone is free, we cannot be free.  This is our fervent prayer.  It is the obligation of every Jew to create a space for peace and freedom to enter our lives and the lives of everyone.  We know it takes more than prayer.  It takes, "praying with our feet"...as Abraham Joshua Heschel called it.  Today and everyday we must speak truth to power about all of the policies that keep our fellow humans oppressed, ignorant and enslaved by fear, hunger and poverty. This is why we remember. This is why we must never forget.