Not Off the Hook

The radical responsibility of remembrance in an age of distraction

In Hebrew, “Yom HaShoah” means “Day of the Catastrophe.”

Its full name is Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laG’vurah: “Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust and Heroism.”

It’s not just a day of mourning. It’s a day of witnessing.

To witness something sacred, you must know when to stop and look. That’s why the date itself matters—not just historically, but ritually.

Yom HaShoah is observed on the 27th of Nisan, which places it within the week after Passover, intentionally connecting the memory of liberation from Egypt with the memory of genocide in modern times.

The 27th of Nisan was selected by the Israeli government in 1951 to mark a day that would fall between the end of Passover, a time of historical freedom, and Yom HaZikaron and Yom HaAtzmaut, which honor Israeli soldiers and independence.

It also aligns closely with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (April 1943), a symbol of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust—so Yom HaShoah includes not only remembrance of victims but also recognition of courage and defiance in the face of annihilation.

Yom HaShoah is a day that refuses closure. It insists that some things must be remembered even when they can’t be resolved.

It is a reminder that:

Evil is real, not theoretical.

Human beings are capable of erasing their empathy.

Silence and complicity are not neutral.

Memory is resistance.

It also affirms that the Jewish people are not just survivors, but rememberers—and that to remember is itself a sacred act.

Yom HaShoah, also known as Holocaust Remembrance Day, is the day set aside in the Jewish calendar to honor the memory of the 6,000,000 Jews murdered during the Holocaust, as well as the countless others who resisted, suffered, and survived.

But memory isn’t passive. It asks something of us.

It asks whether we’re willing to see clearly—even when it’s uncomfortable, even when it breaks the illusion that evil fades with time.

Just because someone grows old, just because they’ve gotten away with murder, does not mean that they’re off the hook.

Time does not sanctify injustice. It only tests whether a people still care enough to confront it.

Killing in the name of religion, state, family, or commerce is unacceptable to God.

“You shall not murder.” (Exodus 20:13)

Plain and absolute. No exceptions granted for religion, nation, or family.

To kill in the name of any institution or ideology is to reject the radical love Christ demands, and your transgression gets handed down—eternally sentencing your grandchildren to endure your dose of reparations for infusing suffering.

And while the world ignores the weight of memory, it rewards vanity and spectacle. It glorifies attention, not endurance.

I find myself frustrated with people in the secular world who need attention to feel important or valuable.

They’re everywhere—from taking a quick joyride to space for 11-minutes of Instagram photo ops and “profound” life lessons, to getting “world records” for excessive consumption or output, like someone being celebrated for speaking for 25 hours or eating exorbitant amounts of manufactured “food” or dead animals.

Putting these things in perspective—those held in captivity and terror, as well as those charged with ensuring the safety and security of their prisoners—in these circumstances we regularly remain alert for more than 25 hours without comforts.

The feeding frenzy of “journalists” wanting to praise organized “endurance” saddens me.

Celebration of “feats” as a privileged class further reinforces disdain and patience from your slaves.

In fact, the Nazi regime tested all sorts of theories using human guinea pigs they held captive in the name of ethnic cleansing.

Medical experiments, psychological experiments, all sorts of stuff was observed and tracked.

The knowledge base was stolen by the liberating forces, and has been made use of ever since. It’s all well documented.

There’s a reason for German precision and solemnity. “They” killed their people first.

Former SS POWs of both the American and Russian militaries recounted their experiences to me.

They were my neighbors, and I needed to know how humans could become monsters, and how they could re-emerge in society after captivity.

This is the tension we live with: knowing what humans are capable of, and still being asked to love. It’s the highest call—and the hardest.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’

But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:43–45)

It’s one thing to learn about something through the media, another to be told by someone talking about something that they heard from someone else who they may or may not know.

To learn through formal education pushes an agenda, whereas to learn through self-directed research—adding in firsthand discussions with humans who lived history, allowing us to expand our understanding beyond propaganda—that’s social science done by the soul, not the syllabus.

When nobody is funding your learning but you, that’s how you find the intersection of truth.

“A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land:

The prophets prophesy lies,

the priests rule by their own authority,

and my people love it this way.

But what will you do in the end?” (Jeremiah 5:30–31)

So what do we do in the end?

What do we do with what we’ve remembered?

Unless we continue acknowledging and confessing our own sins, we risk becoming the essence of hate.

Remembrance isn’t about guilt and blame. It’s about atonement.

To remember is to honor what happened. To atone is to change because of it.

True remembrance leads us to carry the weight of history not as shame, but as sacred responsibility.

In Israel Yom HaShoah is observed by:

• A two-minute siren sounds across the country. People stop what they are doing—cars pull over, pedestrians freeze—and stand in silence.

• Public spaces close, media content changes, and ceremonies are held in schools, military bases, and government institutions.

• The national ceremony takes place at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem.

Globally:

• Jewish communities hold memorial services with the lighting of six candles, representing the six million murdered.

• Survivors speak. Names are read. Kaddish (the mourner’s prayer) is recited.

• Some communities hold 24-hour readings of names or testimonies.

It is a deeply somber, sacred, and emotionally charged day—not a historical footnote, but a living grief.

We don’t remember for the sake of pain.

We remember because the moment we forget, we risk repeating what should never have been possible.

And so we grieve with intention.

We witness with reverence.

We listen so we can carry.

And we carry so others might awaken.

This is what it means to be alive in a world that still heals.