We were all there - Words for Yom Hashoah

Holy yidden, as I sit here in Yerusahalyim 20 minutes before the sirens on Yom Hashoah with much pain and grief in my heart I want to offer everyone a reminder to take some time out on Yom Hashoah for reflection. Just yesterday I told someone that I was feeling a little distant from the commemoration of Yom Hashoah until I pulled of my shelf the book Eim HaBanim Semeichah (for those of you who have not read it, it deeply inspired my Aliyah 4 years ago and its words written during the horrors of the Holocaust hold just as much Truth today).

I know that there are a variety of approaches as to how to commemorate the day, including the concept not to mourn on Nissan and that we commemorate in connection with Tisha B'Av, however my internal reality is nevertheless saying Stop and contemplate.

Either as descendants of holocaust survivors or as descendants of soul of Am Yisrael, we as a nation have an obligation in personal and national healing from this collective trauma.... To take to heart what the spiritual lessons of the times may have been... To put an intention towards Healing and Rectification (Tikkun).

After lighting a candle in memory my tears flowed. Underneath the tears the words Hashem Hashem kel rachum vchanun erech apayim rav chesed be emet (the line from the torah that Hashem gave Am Yisrael to do teshuva following the golden calf) kept coming to me.

Hashem please cleanse us from our past...From not knowing you, trusting you, and our own intuitions. For wanting to fit in so much with our surrounding cultures that we forgot to place you and torah wisdom first...for not running home to Eretz Yisrael...Please Hashem forgive us for closing off and believing you had abandoned us. Please assist us in our teshuva. Please strengthen us to follow in you ways of Emet next time.