Lest We Forget

The one phenomenon that unites the Jewish People, the one devastating reality that obscures each and every argument we create amongst our own kind, is the raw and unexplainable hatred of others toward us. I am a heretic, and an unrepentant one. I am a man who changed his mind, his life, and his gods. Yet, I am still a Jew, no matter where I go, whom I lay next to, or what I consume. My paradigm shift, radical as it seems to my kindred people, will not save me from the ravages of blind hatred, and nor will strict adherence to Torah save me either. The Talmud says, “Once the Destroyer is permitted to destroy, it makes no distinctions between the good or the bad.” Though I wholeheartedly disagree with the theological implications of the concept, it conveys an accurate picture of the chaos brought on by warfare and human failings. The Holocaust, being perhaps the truest expression of that dictum, is the singlular event that unites Jews more than any other in our long and troubled history.

The Holocaust, however, was not an exclusively Jewish matter. It never was. We were not the reason for it. We were the excuse for it. Blood-lust, greed, racism, nationalism, and envy still infect the collective psyche of humanity, and every so often, as in Armenia, Europe, Uganda, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, and the Sudan, this subconscious thirst for war and tribalism surges to the surface, and takes both the weakest and the strongest from amongst us without rhyme or reason. We must remember the Holocaust because we remember our own possible failings as human beings; the latent desire for revenge of presumed wrongs committed, allegiances to imaginary gods, or blind and raving fervor for a dyed piece of cloth hung from a tall, fancy stick in the middle of a town square, unfurled amidst the clamor of patriotic hymns and military cadence.

No, we are not the German people of 1930. We are somewhat worse than they were. We envision the Holocaust as something that happened to someone else in another time, when we know quite well, that deep down, even we may find ourselves saying similar words, positing similar philosophies, and voting for similar national policies, without reflecting as to where those small and seemingly justified-at-the-time actions led humanity in the end. We will take another human being, remove our feelings for the humanity in him, and destroy him as one would a mosquito, without a pang of conscience or a fleeting thought. In the end, our arrogance and forgetfulness of the past will make us like those who hated us if we are not vigilant over ourselves, and not just watchful over the character flaws of others. In an age of high speed coummunication and satellites we can, at the flick of a button, see our history unfold before us. That amazing capability should help us to know better than they did, yet it doesn't.

When I witness many Jews in America and Europe rise in support of outright fascism and corporatism, the invasions of foreign lands, the death penalty, oppose civil rights for some members of society, condone the inhumane treatment of prisoners of war, and a host of other notions once thought discarded by civilization as backward and unenlightened, I fear a new kind of fear. I fear that many will pledge allegiance to a flag and forget the humanity behind it, or pray to a god and forget the man praying next to them, and forget that time, which normally heals all wounds, also brings about 'historical amnesia' in some. I fear that we, the victims of time, have forgotten the real lessons of the Holocaust.

Forgetfulness is a double-edged sword. It heals one disease and creates yet another in its wake. Let us not forget that the liberties we wish for ourselves are the very same liberties and freedoms we must grant to others, even to those whose actions and ideas we find reprehensible or morally offensive. We can easily be duped into believing that there are ideas that possess humans, and we demonize the person based upon that ideal, never considering the possibility that they are merely humans holding ideals and not ideals holding humans. All of humanity is driven by the same needs, passions, and biological mechanisms. The core of who we really are, in spite of what we say or do, differs little from the Moslem, to the Jew, or to the Atheist.

Let us also be careful in what we are willing to agree with, because we may not always be sure what exactly it is that we are agreeing to. The unwillingness to look back will ultimately prevent our ability to see forward, and this lapse in reflection always leads to unintended and tragic consequences. In the end, that policy or law we thought so necessary for our immediate survival may be turned upon us and become a ‘Destroyer’ that makes none of the crucial distinctions necessary to permit freedom, life, and liberty for all equally.

“The tumult and the shouting dies;
The Captains and the Kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice
A humble and a contrite heart.

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget – lest we forget! “

(Rudyard Kipling, from Recessional, 1897)