Rabbi Debbie Reichmann
This week’s Torah portion is Bo: Exodus 10:1 — 13:16
“The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It’s the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.”
These words are from the perennial staple of middle school English class, Lois Lowry’s “The Giver.” The burden is not from the weight of the events themselves, but the isolation that occurs when they are carried alone. This philosophy sits at the very heart of Parashat Bo and the subsequent narrative of the Exodus and provides us a moral blueprint for how we approach International Holocaust Remembrance Day. This week’s parasha tells of the final three plagues and the Exodus from Egypt, and therein God commands the Israelites, “You shall observe this as an institution for all time, for you and for your descendants.”
This is an instruction to transform a lived experience into a collective memory. The Passover Seder is the physical manifestation of this command. It is a sensory immersion into the past where we recall the pain of slavery as we eat the bitter herbs, and we recognize the pain of the plagues visited upon the Egyptians as we shed drops of wine at their retelling. The joy of freedom came at significant price to all involved, understanding that our liberation was intertwined with the tragedy of others. This nuance is vital: memory is not a weapon of triumph, but a tool for empathy. When we say at the Seder table that “we” were slaves — not just our ancestors — we are collapsing the distance between the “then” and the “now,” ensuring that the memory remains a living, communal pulse.
Memory without context is meaningless, and memory without community loses depth. This year, the proximity of Parashat Bo to International Holocaust Remembrance Day offers a somber and powerful resonance. Just as the Exodus is linked to the birth of a people, International Holocaust Remembrance Day is linked to the liberation of Auschwitz. Both are “liberation” stories, yet both are shrouded in the shadow of unimaginable loss. And both are inexorably bound to shared experience. None of us today were alive during the Exodus from Egypt, and those who survived the horrors of the Holocaust will not be with us much longer. The lesson of both the Exodus and the Holocaust is that we do not remember simply for the sake of history. Time softens the edges and fades the vivid colors of the horrific acts of the past. It is in the retelling of the stories, it is in the details that remain, that the past lives on in each of us.
We share together the joy and the pain. As many communities gather to honor International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the stories told and memories shared are meant to instill that communal sharing of the past. Both the Exodus and the Holocaust are not remembered just for the sake of history, but they are imbued with lessons. We learn about empathy, we learn about compassion, we learn that indifference is a sin, and we learn that unity is not the absence of difference but the presence of common goals and dreams. By sharing these memories, we let go of the loneliness and replace it with a shared commitment to a world where freedom is cherished and the dignity of every person is recognized and held holy.
Rabbi Debbie Reichmann has been the rabbi and Jewish spiritual director for the Interfaith Families Project of Greater Washington since 2020. She joined IFFP in its 25th year and is proud to serve this vibrant community of interfaith families.
