Good afternoon, Chaverim,
Yesterday was Holocaust Remembrance Day, the day we recall the Allies’ liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp and honor the more than one million Jews (including beloved family members of our Beth Am congregants), and other innocents whom the Nazis murdered there. So, it seemed only fitting to honor the courage and wisdom of Elie Wiesel, one of our most well known Holocaust survivors, by sharing this quote with you today…
Here is today’s Gratitude Thought in the Middle of a Pandemic:
Elie Wiesel
“For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.”
As the years pass and we continue to lose our surviving first hand witnesses, and more and more people free feel to deny that the Holocaust occurred at all or to make false and disrespectful comparisons between today’s pandemic discomforts and inconveniences and the horrors of the Holocaust, Ellie Wiesel’s message feels more important and more remarkable than ever.
I am as “over” the pandemic as everyone else, but let us never forget what others have endured and survived so we can put our own experience, as uncomfortable and difficult as it may be, in more reasonable perspective. Let us emulate this lesson from Elie Wiesel and be grateful for “every hour” we are granted, let us recognize the “grace” that presents itself each and every time we meet someone and share a simple smile (even if we are smiling behind our masks!), let us appreciate the many blessings we still enjoy even as this pandemic grinds on and on, and let us continue to hope and pray that the massive loss of life the whole world is enduring due to this terrible virus comes to an end soon.
Shabbat Shalom to all,
Marci
