Rabbi Moshe Taub
May, 2019
Every year at this time I begin to write a column devoted to the controversies and history behind the establishment of Yom Hashoah- Holocaust Remembrance Day. Every year I start, and every year I lack the courage to complete it.
It is a sensitive topic, understandably, as so many reasonable people may be confounded as to why any reasonable person –let alone gedolim who lost so much in churban europah – would not fully embrace this day.
However, as I trust the dedicated reader of this space had learned, my goal in this column is rarely to give my own opinion, rather to share information of the views of true talmidie chachamim. Or, as I often tell my balla battim: a rabbi like myself is as best a part of the judicial branch of halacha, not the legislative, hameivin yavin.
Yom Hoshaoah is an interesting polemic, for as opposed to other areas of halacha and hashkafa where the Jewish State and our gedolim have disagreed, this dispute was not a quarrel over importance –as neither side held a monopoly on suffering during the war-rather one of zemanim, or dates.
Across the gamut of the frum world –from the holy chassideshe Rebbe’s to Rav Moshe Feinstein (Igros Moshe Y’D 4:57;11) to Rav Soloveitchik (Nefesh Harav 198; Halakhic Positions of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Volume 4, p. 98) –many felt that such a tragedy should rather be reserved for Tisha b’Av.
This would be different than, for example, the massacres of tach v’tat.
For those perhaps unfamiliar with that history, in the mid 1600’s we suffered horrible death and destruction at the hands of Chmielnicki. The suffering was horrendous, and even the types of death were savage, tortuous and unspeakable. The total numbers of kedoshim killed was in the tens of thousands, at least, as we do not have known exact figures (some estimates go as high as a half-a-million deaths!).
In commemoration of those events the gedolim of that time sanctioned a day of remembrance, the 20th of Sivan. Although seemingly a strong proof to the veracity of also establishing a special day of remembrance for the Holocaust outside of Tisha B’Av alone, Rav Moshe and others however point out a crucial distinction.
“This that six times 600,000 were killed at the hands of Hitler and his henchman, would certainly be worthy to commemorate with a special day of fasting and teffilah, and you are bothered why we (the olam hayeshivos) have yet done no such thing…this is not comparable to the Cossack Chmielnicki of tach v’tat where we were killed largely in Ukraine and Poland and for which a special day of fasting and selichos was established. This is because that tragedy was in a centralized location, and in addition did not happen through the governing body rather from those rebelling against their own government [the Cossacks were a paramilitary organization, MT]. Whereas (the elected leader) Hitler had sought to capture places all over the world where Jews lived, wishing to take over the world, and kill all Jews in the process, and for which, further, (was not only a governing body, but) was a vociferous force for which we were not saved until Gd had mercy on us…”. (Igros Moshe, ibid.)
Rav Moshe was expressing the idea that precisely because the Holocaust was so enormous and unique in its vastness that we are obligated to see it not as an isolated incident but rather as a part of the mosaic of our long and prophesized galus. This in turn demands its reservation for Tisha B’Av.
Rabbi Soleveitchik, in fact, seemed to have had convinced Prime Minister Menachem Begin to seek to change the date to Tisha B’Av –they indeed had a history together for Dov Begin, Menachem’s father, served as gabbei in Rav Chaim Solevietchik’s shul in Brisk! – but to no avail. The Prime Minister was told that to do so would rob children-then on summer break-of a Holocaust education.
Indeed, Rashi alludes to their view of reserving Tisha B’av as our day of remembrance for all galus tragedies.
King Yoshiahu gave birth to a renaissance in Torah at a time when it was needed desperately. His death at the hands of Pharao Necho was a horrible blow to bnei yisroel and the future of eretz yisroel.
In Divrei Hayamim the pasukim relate –in far greater detail than found in sefer Melachim – the exact circumstances of his death. After which we read the following pasuk (2:35:24): “Then Yirmiyahu said kinnos over Yoshiahu; all male and female singers would mention Yoshiahu in their kinnos until this day –they created a firmly established custom in Israel”.
Rashi explains the meaning behind this ‘firmly established custom’ by explaining that we remember this incident on Tisha B’av. He goes to say that this is day we remember our galus tragedies. He offers an example of how in his day the recalled their own tradjedies. He was referring to the Crusades of 1096.
A few years ago my father was asked to speak at Michlalah Seminary in Israel on Yom HaShoah. He built a brilliant thesis around one of the most fascinating discussions of the subject, one articulated by Rav Yitzchak Hutner in a famous piece written for the October 1977 issue of the Jewish Observer. This article galvanized vociferous debate, and offered a scathing history to the founding and philosophy about this day of commemoration, even rejecting the term ‘Shoah’ and Holocaust. He further critiqued seeking to establish this as a day to show our newly found strength, might and ability to now self-defend –culminating in their seeking to establish this day on the day of the Warsaw uprising. In fact, many may not even know that the official full name for this day is not Yom HaShoah, rather Yom Hazikaron L’Shoah U’L’Gevura –The Day Remembrance For The Holocaust and Strength.
In his view, although more enormous in size than in the past, it still must stay linked to the narrative of our galus, and not independent of it.
I would not dare seek to capture the style and grace of Rav Hutner and would rather simply urge the reader to find the article and read his views themselves, as well as some of the respectful responses to it.
However, there is another concern, and one that pains me greatly. Over the past fifteen years that I have been in the rabbinate, and as alluded to above, I have attended many, many events on this day. My first one, in Buffalo, was attended by well over 1000 people at the local JCC. The next year it was 800. By the time I left twelve years later it was about 150 people…and people were still saying “We got a good crown tonight”
Some survivors passed on, many non-affiliated may not be as aware of the exact Hebrew date, and the marching of time itself have all colluded to lead to a dampening of this day’s force in so many places.
Perhaps the gedolim who did not wish to officially establish this day understood that we can be confident that even if Yom Hashoah sadly loses its force in 30, 50 or 100 years, we will always remember these kedoshim on Tisha B’av. For, as we ended last column: “There is a danger, always, of trying new things, new ways to celebrate and remember the old. Rather, by staying true to how we have done things in the past we secure the memory of important events and people for the future. For, when and if the world stops marking the holocaust yearly, we will still be saying the Bobover Rebbe’s and Rav Schwab’s haunting kinnos on tisha b’av.”
Zechuseihem Yagen Aleinu
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