Yom HaShoah Song Selection & Understanding the Week Ahead

The post-Pesach “Yom”s” are a lot.

Just days after Pesach ends, we observe Yom HaShoah. Just one week later, we commemorate Yom Hazikaron and celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut. First, we try to properly capture the magnitude of the Holocaust – the trauma, horror, and heroism. Then, in what is very different than our American experience, Israel transitions in a mere 24 hours from somberly remembering those killed establishing and defending the State to joyously celebrating her independence. Talk about a busy week!

Each year, I try to find a new insight, a different emotional or spiritual approach to a week of sadness, anger, inspiration, memory, and exultation. This year, I found meaning in the song selection of the Communal Yom HaShoah Commemoration.

The ceremony featured a very familiar structure. There is a candle lighting ceremony by survivors and descendants of survivors. A cantor chants an emotional Memorial Prayer and Tehillim is recited. Of course, the children sing. A choir is key to any commemoration. Music is a powerful tool for remembrance. Plus, the participating children develop a deeper appreciation of the importance of participating in Shoah remembrance. (It also means more people attend.)

As I listened to the songs sung, I felt a range of emotions. First, there was sadness and longing. The opening song was a Yiddish song recounting the past. We were taken back to the Old Country as the horrors of the Holocaust shocked the Jews from their everyday lives. Next was “Ani Ma’amin, which recalled the many who still believed in redemption even as they were about to be murdered. While a testament of faith, those words were, ultimately, a desperate, final, doomed plea.

The next songs transitioned to faith. The choir sang Shlomo Carlebach’s “Gam Ki Eilech” based on Psalm 23. The beautiful melody elevated the classic declaration: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, because You are with me.” For You are with me. We seek comfort and security in the knowledge that God accompanies us even in dark times. God’s presence was also the theme of the next song. It was another “Ani Ma’amin,” but not the one about Moshiach. The words to the lovely tune sung by Dveykus were from Rambam’s first declaration of faith: “I believe with perfect faith that the Creator creates and rules all creatures; and that God alone made, makes, and will make all things.” God is in charge – past, present, and future. We are no longer oppressed and doomed with nothing to look forward to except the Messianic era. We regain our “faith footing” and find comfort in God’s omnipresence and omnipotence. God runs the world.

The children concluded their performance with a version of “Im Eshkacheich Yerushalayim.” No matter what, we carry with us a vision of Jerusalem.

The songs captured the Yom HaShoah, Yom Hazikaron, Yom Ha’atzmaut emotional roller coaster. From darkness and desperation to comfort and confidence to restoration and redemption.

Most importantly, the Yom HaShoah commemoration featured a survivor sharing his story. Especially as the number of survivors declines, we must take advantage of every opportunity we can to listen to them in person. Paul Gross was born in 1937 in Hungary. He was 7 years-old when the Jews were rounded up and put on a train. Luckily, his train did not go to Auschwitz. He and his family were taken first to a makeshift camp in Austria before they ended up in Theresienstadt until liberation.

Mr. Gross recounted that when the Jews were being marched to the train, he imagined he was soldier. All the Jews were wearing yellow stars, and he viewed his as a “badge of honor,” a military insignia, and he marched swinging his hands back and forth. Despite the horrors he faced, he remembered the Jewish pride he felt.

On one lapel, Mr. Gross was wearing the yellow “Jude” star that he had worn 80 years ago. On the other, he wore the IDF pin he wore as an Israeli soldier 10 years later. A Holocaust testimony spanning from darkness to determination and, ultimately, defense of the Jewish homeland.

In Parshat Shemini, we read of the tragic death of Aharon’s two sons. Nadav and Avihu. Afterwards, Aharon responds twice. The first is through silence – “Vayidom Aharon.” In the second response, Aharon pushes back against Moshe’s accusation that the Kohanim made a mistake. Aharon progresses from passive acceptance to active engagement. These two responses are two different ways we respond to tragedy. Sometimes, we are silent. We don’t know what to do. Other times, we take a stand. We question, we challenge, or maybe we fight.

During the week of Yom HaShoah through Yom Ha’atzmaut, we go through both responses. We are silent, lost, bewildered, sad and despondent, and then we are transformed through the actions and heroism that created the State of Israel.

On Wednesday night, I experienced this journey through the songs of Jewish children. It’s the Jewish journey past, present, and future. We must encounter the horrors of the Shoah to fortify ourselves against the enemies of today, to feel that God is always with us, and that our future is in Jerusalem.

Paul Gross concluded his remarks with two powerful declarations:

“Netzach Yisrael lo yeshakeir – The glory of Israel endures forever.” (1 Shmuel 15:29)

“Am Yisrael Chai!”

Just More Matzah & We’ll All Be Free!

Can one ever eat enough matzah?

I know. Some of you are thinking: “Even a little is too much.” Nevertheless, as Pesach ends there is a practice to fit in just a little more matzah on the last day.

Rabbi Eliyahu Kramer, the Vilna Gaon, noted that the Torah gives us contradictory messages regarding the mitzvah to eat matzah. In one place, it commands us to eat matzah at the Seder, and in another, it says, “Eat matzah for seven days.” Many just assume the Torah is telling us that since we cannot eat bread, our only choice is to eat matzah over Pesach with a special requirement at the Seder. The Vilan Gaon understood differently. There is an OBLIGATION to eat matzah at the Seder, but one FULFILLS a mitzvah whenever one eats matzah during Pesach.

While some suffice with Seder matzah, the Vilna Gaon took advantage of the last day of Pesach to have a sort of “Seudah Shlishit,” which is usually only eaten on Shabbat, and eat just a little more matzah to fulfill one more mitzvah. Those who follow the Vilna Gaon have a little meal with matzah as Pesach ends called a “Neilat HaChag,” which means to close out the holiday.

Chasidim have a similar practice called “Seudah Besht” (Meal of Rabbi Israel Ba’al Shem Tov) or “Seudat Moshiach” (Messiah’s Meal). It originated as a meal to commemorate the Ba’al Shem Tov being saved from a shipwreck that took place on Pesach. The meal closes out the festival of the Exodus with an eye towards the future redemption described in the Haftorah of the last day of Pesach (Isaiah 11). Chabad chasidim turned the affair into a quasi-Seder with four cups of wine and songs of salvation.

Why does redemption need more matzah?

Matzah has multiple messages. It is the “bread of affliction” and “poor man’s bread.” When we eat matzah, we are reminded of slavery and subjugations past and present. Matzah is also the “bread of faith.” The Talmud teaches that matzah is the bread of answers. Kabbalah calls it the bread of healing. Eating matzah reminds us of the original salvation which fortifies us to face subsequent and current challenges with strength, confidence, and anticipation for redemption.

Matzah tells the story of a painful past at the same time as it inspires hope in a better future.

In the final weeks before Pesach in 1944 amidst the horrors of Bergen-Belsen, Jewish inmates, starved and broken, turned to the Bluzhever Rebbe, Rav Yisrael Spira, with an impossible request: permission to bake matzah. Risking his life, the Rebbe petitioned the brutal camp commandant, Adolf Haas. Miraculously, Haas agreed to submit the request to Berlin, which approved a limited amount of flour to be used in place of the prisoners’ daily bread. With great devotion, the prisoners built a makeshift oven and baked matzah while singing Hallel, experiencing a brief moment of spiritual freedom.

But soon after, a smuggled letter from another inmate was discovered, and Haas accused the Rebbe of betrayal. Despite being threatened with execution unless he named the culprit, the Rebbe stood firm, ready to die rather than inform. Haas ultimately spared his life but destroyed the matzah oven. Only a very few matzahs had been baked already, and the question arose—who should eat them?

A widow named Bronia passionately insisted that the children should eat the matzah – “One day soon, they will be free, and they will rebuild their lives and conduct Sedarim of their own. They should eat it because they represent the future.”

On Seder night, the Rebbe led a Seder for the children, planting seeds of hope amidst the darkness. A year later, the camp was liberated. Eventually, Bronia married the Rebbe, and her two sons who ate the matzah that Pesach night became his children. One of those sons later became the next Bluzhever Rebbe; the other helped publish his teachings. From ashes and agony, a legacy was rebuilt, and a future preserved. (From Haggadah Touched by Our Story, Rabb Yechiel Spero, p.20-22)

The children who once ate matzah in Bergen-Belsen carried with them the spark to ignite the fire of Jewish continuity, a living rejection of despair. Matzah is a powerful symbol. Eating matzah fortifies us for the future.

Rabbi Yitz Greenberg wrote, “Freedom is in the psyche, not in the bread.” At the same time, eating matzah is a tangible encounter with an expectation for redemption and confidence in the future. If so, I’ll have some more, please.

Pour Out Thy Wrath!

It comes towards the end of the Seder.

After Birkat Ha-Mazon and just before Hallel, we pour a cup for Eliyahu HaNavi, open the door, and recite:

“Pour out Thy wrath upon the nations that do not know You, and on the regimes that have not called upon Your name. For Jacob is devoured; they have laid his places waste. Pour out Your great anger upon them, and let Your blazing fury overtake them. Pursue them in Your fury and destroy them from under the heavens of the Lord.”

This brief declaration is, for me, a source of fascination and many formative Seder memories. My practice (except when living on the 11^th floor of a Manhattan apartment building) is to actually go outside for this declaration. Each year, Naama recounts and imitates one of her childhood Seder guests in Memphis reciting the passage in a Southern drawl, “Pour out Thy wrath.” (I hear her imitating that voice as I write this!)

The call itself is powerful. We shout out for justice and vengeance against those who have persecuted us throughout history. Afterwards, we invite Eliyahu, who personifies the eternity of the Jewish people and is a harbinger of redemption, inside to our Seder for a sip of wine. Since he has previously made thousands of stops, I wait anxiously for him to spill some wine. (I swear he actually did at my Seder when I was 4 years old!)

Alas, it comes late into the Seder, after three cups of wine, lots of matzah, and a big meal. It’s easy to overlook the power of this short statement.

“Shefoch Chamatcha” first appeared in the Haggadah as part of the Machzor Vitry compiled around 1145 by Rabbi Simchah, one of Rashi’s students. This timeframe makes sense as an angry call to vengeance was certainly relevant after the devastating First Crusade. The Jewish experience made this declaration a permanent part of the Seder. Jews have suffered throughout our history. While we’re not known for vengeance – and we’re more likely to call out to God to impose it, sometimes, enough is enough. 

At the Seder, we recount the Egyptian oppression. We experience the bitterness and the tears. We then “experience” the Exodus and redemption. At the same time, this experience cannot but help but bring to mind subsequent oppression. We made it out of Egypt, but what about…the destruction of the Temples…the Inquisition and expulsion from Spain…the pogroms…the Shoah…October 7?

At the point in the Seder when we are about to sing Hallel, and thank and praise God for leaving Egypt, we stop for a moment of reflection. We snap out of our historical reverie to consider our current circumstances. We thank God for the Exodus, while considering Jewish history and the present. We can’t let our enemies off the hook on this night when we celebrate our initial freedom.

The Seder night is called “Leil Shimurim,” the night of protection. Jewish tradition teaches that we can feel more confident and secure on this night. Some have the practice of leaving the door unlocked, and some of the protective prayers of the bedtime Shema are omitted. I believe this confidence is why we open the door, go outside, and loudly declare “Shefoch Chamatcha.” We’re not afraid to call for justice and vengeance. It’s our “We’re not gonna take it anymore!” moment - even if our neighbors won’t understand the Hebrew verses we recite.

Some feel our call for vengeance is out of character. The verses are more appropriate for our Biblical enemies like Amalek or the idolators of the Talmud and less relevant to today’s nations. After all, not all non-Jews are enemies. In recent years, some have removed “Shefoch Chamatcha” from the Haggadah. Others replaced it with what was claimed to be a 16^th century version which begins, “Pour out Your love…” This version turned out to be a forgery and a modern innovation.

“Shefoch Chamatcha” remains relevant.

In March 2023, Dr. Ruth Wisse wrote in The Wall Street Journal, “Some Jews have removed this section altogether from their Seder recitations. But moral evasion doesn’t improve the world.” With all that is broken and evil, with all the Jewish people have experienced and are experiencing, with 59 hostages in Gaza, we must demand justice and vengeance. As Dr. Wisse put it:

“If Jews believed in a God of justice, how else but through some call for justice could we remain Jews? Politically, theologically, and above all humanly, the call to God would actually prove indispensable for a people that does not do unto others as coalitions of evil have done — and in some cases still openly plan to do — unto them.”

Rabbi Menachem Kasher, a prominent scholar and prolific author, published a Haggadah in 1956. Rabbi Kasher, who famously suggested adding a fifth cup of wine at the Seder in our times due to the establishment of the State of Israel, felt that “Shefoch Chamatcha” could not be recited without acknowledging the unprecedented events of his generation. He wrote:

“Before recitation of the paragraph ‘Pour out Thy wrath” and Hallel and the Great Hallel, let us turn to two great epochs of our time: 1. Chaos and destruction…and 2. Liberation and rebuilding…We, members of the most unfortunate generation in all the years of Israel's exile, with our own eyes have beheld the annihilation of one third of our people at the hands of the savage Nazis…When we recite ‘Pour out Thy wrath,’ we are reminded of ‘the nations that know Thee not.’ And when we recite ‘To Him Who alone doeth great marvels,’ we recall the miraculous events accorded us by the Eternal in our own days and our own Holy Land; for this is the beginning of the redemption of people and soil, and the gathering of the exiles…”

What has true in the aftermath of the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel remains just as true today in reaction to the world around us. “Shefoch Chamatcha” is not merely an historical interjection within the Seder liturgy. It’s an opportunity to take a stand against evil and injustice against Jews today. We will not be silent against Jews haters, Israel deniers, and hostage takers. There is an easy solution to the the war in Gaza: Hamas surrenders. There is no excuse or justification for accusing Israel of genocide. People who do so are not well-meaning or ill-informed. They are our enemies, and we demand justice and cry out to God for vengeance.

“Shefoch Chamatcha” is our declaration that we’re moving forward and confidently confront all those who oppose us.

Events since October 7 have shaken us to our cores. “Shefoch Chamatcha” gives us each a chance to regain our voice, step outside, and demand redemption, freedom for the hostages, and a better world.

To Be Adam is Divine

Let’s not talk about animal sacrifices. Let’s talk about who sacrifices.

Vayikra begins with sacrifices. Sacrifices are a big part of Judaism. As a nation, our first act was the Korban Pesach, the Pascal Lamb. Sacrifices play a continuing role in our development as a nation from Sinai to the Mishkan to the Beit HaMikdash in Jerusalem.

What is the logic in all this?

Rambam explains sacrifices as part of our evolving religious nature. How are we, finite beings, meant to connect with an Infinite Supreme Being? Humans need a medium to connect with God. Enter sacrifices which were very familiar to the original Jews. Sacrifices were THE way to connect to the deity. God provided Jews a familiar medium to serve Hashem. Eventually, we can move beyond sacrifices to prayer, Torah study, and more intellectual and spiritual means of connection.

Ramban disagrees with Rambam. Sacrifices have an eternal message. Korbanot comes from the word karev, which means close. Sacrifices remind us of our need to seek ways to get closer to God. The sacrifice is an ultimate example of giving all to God. We can’t give over our actual lives to God, but we need to appreciate the idea of sacrificing to perform the mitzvot.

How we can relate to sacrifices may be found in the verse that introduces them:

אָדָם כִּי־יַקְרִיב מִכֶּם קׇרְבָּן ה'

When Adam draws near and presents an offering to Hashem…" (Vayikra 1:2)"

Who is Adam?

On a simple level, Adam means a person, a mensch, any person. On a deeper level, the Torah is making a statement – and issuing a challenge – to each of us.

Until this point in the Torah, we had Bereishit, a Torah timeline of the history we need to know - creation, the flood, our patriarchs and matriarchs, the 12 tribes, Yosef and his brothers, and the descent to Egypt. Next, we have Shemot, “Book Two” as the Midrash calls it. We recount the people’s emergence from slavery to become a nation, the miracles of the Exodus, the covenant of Sinai, and the ability to create holy space (the Mishkan) with our own hands.

Now, we are coming to Vayikra. That’s where it all begins. God calls to Moshe, and the very first instruction is “Adam,” when Adam desires to come near, to act, to reach their potential. Who or what is Adam, and what do we need to do?

Adam is each of us, who we are, where we come from, who we can be, who we should strive to be in our life’s journey.

As Adam, we come from Adama, dust. We have humble origins. Like the original Adam, we are each unique and special. No two are alike. Adam has a linguistic similarity with the word “adameh - I compare myself to God.” We walk in God’s ways.

The Talmud (Sanhedrin 37a) advises: “Each and every person is obligated to say: The world was created for me.” We have tremendous potential for impact, accomplishment, and achievement. We need to embrace our true Adam – the whole picture of where we come from, who we are, and who we can be with the right choices and actions.

Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Peshischa taught that every person should have two pockets. In one pocket there should be a piece of paper saying: "I am only dust and ashes." When one is feeling too proud, reach into this pocket and take out this paper and read it. In the other pocket there should be a piece of paper saying: "For my sake was the world created." When one is feeling disheartened and lowly, reach into this pocket and take this paper out and read it.

We each join two worlds. We are fashioned from clay, but our spirit is the breath of Hashem.

“When Adam draws near and presents an offering to Hashem…”

We need to be in touch with our inner Adam. We need to be in touch with our inner selves, our sacred humanity, and the sacred humanity in others. We need to “draw near” and step forward, bringing our whole selves to living our best lives as Jews, family members, friends, neighbors, citizens, and supporters of Israel.

Appreciating our humanity, our humility, our uniqueness, and our potential should motivate us to be the best we can be while seeing the same characteristics in others. That is the essence of sacrifice. That’s sacred work. That’s our mission.

Be an Adam! Be a Mensch!