This past week, we marked Yom HaShoah. Each year, we are asked to do something simple yet impossibly heavy- to remember. In years past, remembrance has involved viewing and listening in a physical sense. But as we look towards the future, remembrance is transforming into something different.
As a child, I had the ability to sit before survivors and hear their stories. I knew tales of older relatives, and I saw the numbers tattooed on their wrinkled skin. I knew my own Saba’s story of escape and hiding. We know that young people today will not have those same opportunities to hear the stories firsthand. Because of that, we must think about what it means to remember when the storytellers are no longer here to share their stories. As second-hand listeners, we must recognize that the memory is no longer something we can simply receive. Instead, it’s something we must actively carry and hold onto.
Here in our own community, that call to remember is not abstract. At Temple Rodef Shalom, we are part of a congregation that was shaped by the vision and leadership of someone who held these memories first hand. These are not just stories we tell, but a legacy we inherit and hold.
In that spirit, I want to share a story that temple member, Sam Simon, shared with me, about our founding Rabbi, a Holocaust survivor of several concentration camps. In Sam’s own words, here is a bit of memory we may carry forward.
”We stopped on the way for lunch in a quaint restaurant/cafeteria. Sitting across from Rabbi Berkowits and me was a slight, older man – thin. He kept starring at us during the meal, and toward the end his eyes light up, and he almost lept across the table, in a loud voice: “I remember you! I remember you! You were the boy who sang in the showers!!!”
Yes, Lazlo Berkowits at 16 years old, a prisoner of the Nazis would “sing in the showers.”
Holding this story close, we are not only called to recall the things that happened to our people, but to honor them in the way we live today. We are reminded to build community with intention and to recognize the humanity in others, even when it is difficult. May we honor those who lived, and those who were lost, not only by remembering them today, but by living lives that ensure their stories are never forgotten. May we always have a song to sing, even in the hardest moments. Zichronam livracha- may their memories be a blessing for all of us.
Shabbat Shalom,
Cantor Sydney Michaeli
