Lawrence responded to my earlier post on Yom ha-Shoah with some beautifully articulated insights on the sanctity of time in Jewish tradition.

"Time works for Jews very much the way space works for other peoples," he wrote. Yom ha-Shoah is "there just to be there, even if we don't have any rituals or readings that come with it. Memory is how we do monuments."

I commented: "Still, I'm not sure what to do..."

Later, I realized what it was that was troubling me. A monument is a device for marking sacred space. Space doesn't have to be marked with a physical monument in order to be recognized as sacred, but we do tend to erect something physical whenever possible, as a reminder. Similarly, it helps to mark sacred time in some concrete way, whether by holding a service or ceremony, changing our behavior, or simply lighting a candle.

I mention this now because it is Yom Ha-Zikaron, Israeli Memorial Day. Our minyan marked Yom Ha-Zikaron by reciting a special El Male Rachamim in memory of "Israeli victims of war and terror." (Think about it -- five year-olds are now in the same category as combatants.)

In Israel, today as on Yom ha-Shoah, a siren was sounded and a moment of silence ensued. Though there's no source in Jewish tradition for the practice of having a "moment of silence," there is, as Lawrence notes, something very Jewish in setting aside sacred time. Sounding a siren is one way to mark it.

This IDF website features photographs and biographies of fallen soldiers (link via Out of Step Jew). It's worth taking a moment to look at some of the photographs, even if you can't read the biographies (which are in Hebrew).

May their memory be a blessing.

Major Geek points for anyone who enjoys this piece on linguistic features of Yeshivish as much as I did.

Tonight begins Yom ha-Shoah, Holocaust Memorial Day. I'm never sure what to do or think when Yom ha-Shoah comes around. Halakhically, the date has no significance. No fixed prayers or rituals set it apart from other days. Some people think that Yom ha-Shoah should not exist, that mourning for the Holocaust, like all other Jewish tragedies, should be relegated to Tisha B'Av. If we commemorated every tragedy that befell the Jewish people on its own day -- so the argument goes -- we would mourn all year. I used to agree, but now I think that approach is unrealistic. The Shoah looms too large in our communal memory not to have a day of its own.

But how do we mark it? With each generation, we inch further out of the shadow of the Holocaust. Now, we have to go out of our way to "remember" it. Berger says that he often isn't certain "what people mean when they talk about remembering the Holocaust." I am often confused, myself. Are we trying to learn? To preserve a memory at risk of being forgotten? To prevent other horrors from occurring? To bring ourselves to tears? To mourn? At this distance from the awful events, I'm not even sure what it means to mourn.