Yom HaShoah and the Flood
As a kid, there’s a certain kind of dream , a fantasy, really — that school would suddenly be canceled. Maybe a snowstorm would roll in, or a power outage would darken the halls. A break from routine, a surprise gift from shamayim. You’d daven, half-joking, half-serious: just one more day off after Pesach before school begins.
No one — not even the most imaginative child — ever prayed for a flood day to cancel school.
But that’s exactly what the students of Na’aleh Girls High School got this week. It almost sounds biblical when you say it out loud — school is canceled because of a flood.
The Monday morning after Pesach — Isru Chag, when we’re usually easing back into life, resetting our homes, and preparing for the final stretch of the school year — we found out that Na’aleh, where I teach, had flooded. Not a leak or a drip — a full building shutdown.
And while this unexpected disruption wasn’t part of a global pandemic, the sudden shift felt eerily familiar. That old COVID feeling came rushing back — not just the logistical scramble, but the emotional disorientation. The sense of having the rug pulled out from under you, again. For some students and teachers, it stirred up real, heavy memories.
That’s because school isn’t just a place of learning. It’s a place of rhythm. Of friendships. Of connection built in the buzz of hallways, the laughter between classes, and that intangible sense of belonging that school uniquely provides. When that disappears, even temporarily, we feel it.
And maybe that’s why this week’s timing — with Yom HaShoah falling right in the middle of it all — hit differently.
Last night, our shul hosted Na’aleh’s Names, Not Numbers event — a powerful, student-led Holocaust remembrance program that reflected months of preparation. Students study the Holocaust, learn how to conduct interviews with sensitivity and care, and ultimately sit down with survivors to record their stories. But the goal isn’t just to gather information — it’s to build relationships. To listen with empathy. To connect.
This year, our students interviewed four survivors, including Mr. Michael Epstein. Over the course of the project, they got to know him — not just his story, but the person behind it. So when his wife passed away suddenly just a few months ago, the students didn’t hesitate. They showed up to pay a shiva call. Because at that point, they weren’t just documenting memory — they were part of it. The story became theirs. The memory became personal.
Several survivors were present at the event last night. But what struck me most was what they were wearing: dog tags. Not from their own past, but from ours. Dog tags bearing the words: “HaLev Sheli Shavui b’Gaza” — My heart is in Gaza.
“Bring them home now.”
Survivors of one generation, bearing the burden of another. A visual bridge between eras of loss and longing. Between memory and reality. Between history and heartbreak.
This year, Yom HaShoah felt more fragile. My grandparents — both Holocaust survivors — are no longer alive. Sara’s grandfather, who used to speak each year to packed rooms across multiple communities, can no longer do so. There was no official moment of handoff. But it happened. The responsibility to remember — and to remind — is now ours.
We often speak about zachor, remembrance, as a responsibility — but it’s more than that. It’s a choice. A deliberate act of holding on to what must not be forgotten. And yet, globally, that memory is slipping.
This past year, the Claims Conference released its first-ever Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness Index across eight countries, including the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, and Poland. The results were sobering:
Across all countries surveyed, large portions of the population did not know that six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.
In the United States, 63% of Millennials and Gen Z did not know the correct number.
Nearly half of American adults couldn’t name a single concentration camp or ghetto.
In Romania, Hungary, France, and even Germany, nearly a quarter of respondents believed that two million or fewer Jews were killed.
These numbers aren’t just statistics. They’re warnings — of fading education, of disconnection from truth, of how fragile our collective memory can be.
And so, even when the ground shifts — when buildings flood and students are displaced — we keep teaching. Not just subjects and schedules, but presence. Responsibility. Story. Resilience.
Maybe this week wasn’t about a flood. Or a program. Or even a single day of remembrance.
Maybe it was about realizing how fragile our footing can feel — and how firm it still must be.
We tell the stories again.
We walk forward — with memory in one hand and hope in the other.
And perhaps, at the heart of it all, is the pasuk we recite on each Yom Tov, on Rosh Chodesh, and at the Pesach Seder:
“Lo amut ki echyeh” — I will not die, but I shall live (Tehillim 118).
I’ve read these words hundreds of times, but only recently began to hear them differently. If I will not die, doesn’t that already mean I will live? Why the redundancy?
Years ago, at one of Sarah’s grandfather’s talks, someone asked him a question that cuts straight to the heart. Her grandfather, Rabbi Mayer Moskowitz, a Holocaust survivor who dedicated over fifty years to teaching Torah and inspiring generations, had just finished recounting the horrors he endured. A woman in the audience asked, “How do you stay so positive? Why aren’t you angry?”
Rabbi Moskowitz paused, then answered quietly:
“If you hold on to anger, you give your enemy a place to live inside you — rent-free.”
He added, “I’m disappointed that human beings were capable of doing what they did. It’s sad for them.”
For years, he said, he hadn’t spoken about his experience. He wasn’t sure people would even believe him. “Who would think human beings could sink to such cruelty?” But in time, he made a conscious decision — not only to survive, but to live. Not just to stay alive, but to live with meaning, with purpose, with dignity.
He didn’t quote Tehillim that day, but in many ways, he lived those words:
“Lo amut, ki echyeh.”
Not just I will live — but I choose to live.
Rabbi Mayer Moskowitz, like so many survivors, taught us that even those who walked through unimaginable darkness can still choose light. That to live with kindness and joy is a powerful act of resistance. That to teach Torah, to raise a family, to greet the world with strength instead of cynicism — is a victory.
It is often easier to live as if life is already over. To let our circumstances define us. But our grandparents didn’t. The survivors didn’t. And we can’t either.
So in our own lives — in the disruptions, in the uncertainty, in the rebuilding — may we carry their strength forward.
May we remember.
May we teach.
And above all,
May we live.
“Lo amut, ki echyeh.”
I will not die.
I shall live.
