The Hebrew Bible lays down the command: Zachor - remember. Throughout Jewish history, Jews have been commanded to remember. In the Bible, God commands us to remember the stories of Creation, so that we will treasure the earth and protect it. We are commanded to remember that we were slaves in Egypt, so that we will remember what it felt like to be the stranger, the outsider, the oppressed. Time and again we are told - remember.
After the Holocaust, we heard the call again. But this time the call was not just to the Jewish people, but to humanity. We are commanded to remember so that the memories of those who perished, and those who suffered, will be honored. And we are commanded to remember so that the future can be different than the past.
We also remember that the 20th century was filled with genocide - the Jews, the Gypsies, the Armenians, the Cambodians, Rwawnda, Darfur...so many more...so many lives senselessly taken, so many cultures decimated.
This is a week of remembrance, tonight the Jewish people will observe Yom HaShoah, our Holocaust Memorial Day. On Friday, Armenians will observe the memorial day for their people who perished in a genocide as well.
Our shared lesson is that we must not only remember, but we must also bear witness to the world that such hatred, such horrible suffering, has ripple effects across countries and continents, and down through the generations, reaching our own shores, our own citizens as well.
One of the lessons we have learned from these atrocities is that we cannot be silent in the face of injustice.
We all have an obligation to look around at the world we live in and reach out to those who are oppressed or discriminated against. We have an obligation to say stop when innocents anywhere are being murdered. Because with remembrance comes the obligation to do more than remember, we must also pursue righteous action.
We pray to the Holy One of Blessing, the Creator of all humanity, to open our hearts to all people. May we not be so blinded by our differences that we fail to remember that all humanity is created in the Divine Image. May this be God’s will--AMEN.