Yom Yerushalayim, on June 6, is another day to fulfill the obligation of v’higadita l’vincha bayom hahu. Tell your children about the one million children – the most innocent of victims – who died in the Holocaust. Tell them about the special pavilion for children at Yad Vashem in Israel, the Hall of Mirrors, where you stand and listen to the names and ages of all those children – six months old, two years, five years, ten years. Babies, young boys, young girls. You will cry. This is the story of Pesach and what Pharaoh wanted to achieve, akin to b’nei Yishmael’s aspiration to eliminate all Jewish children from the land of Israel.
And finally, Shavuot night, when you are learning and spending time with your children, is a wonderful occasion to intersperse these stories.
Some of you reading this are not first, second or third generation Holocaust survivors. It remains equally important for you, too, to tell these stories; to ask your friends’ parents who are survivors to share a story with you.
We have so much to be thankful for, so much to be proud of. We have several opportunities in the coming weeks that are natural fits to discuss the Shoah. Even those survivors who never discuss this, who could never, even in their minds, relive Auschwitz, would want to know that future generations know and understand.
The stories we heard from our parents at the seder table are what my wife and I will tell our daughter about “that day,” bayom hahu, the exodus from Auschwitz. And we hope she will pass it on to her children, b’ezrat Hashem.
We must never forget.
We must always remember.
It is the responsibility of Jewish yuppies, beemers and boomers – like it or not.