April 25: St. Mark and Yom HaSho'ah

Today is a double Holy Day. On the Church Calendar, today is the feast of St. Mark the Evangelist. For our Jewish cousins, today is Yom HaSho'ah (Holocaust memorial day).
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Collect of St. Mark: Almighty God, by the hand of Mark the evangelist you have given to your Church the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God: We thank you for this witness, and pray that we may be firmly grounded in its truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Readings: Isaiah 52:7-10, Psalm 2, Ephesians 4:7-8,11-16, Mark 1:1-15 (or Mark 16:15-20).

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Yom HaSho'ah Prayer

by Rabbi Israel Zoberman

Elohei hazikaron vehatikva, God who bids us to carve hope out ofremembrance:

This awesome Spring season, no less so than the Days of Awe in the Fall,is dedicated to memories. Memories are the building blocks of Jewishhistory, which, in turn, provides for our own distinct consciousness. Pesach's themes of oppression and redemption assume contemporaryrelevancy. Ruthless bondage in ancient Egypt finds a terrifying parallelin the Shoah, and past liberation is reenacted through Israel's rebirth.

To be a Jew is living with history's extremes, enduring the tensionbetween despair and exultation and turning them both into life-shapingforces. A child of the covenant is keenly aware of history's impact tobless and to curse. We thus remain bereft in face of the Shoah'soverwhelming magnitude.

When words freeze and the link to life threatens to disengage, we turn tothe Kaddish prayer for supportive reassurance. Its consecrated spiritdoes not drag us to the dwelling place of utter desolation, to consume oursouls as were the bodies of unforgettable kin whose tragic loss everdiminishes the joy of celebration. The hallowed prayer of sanctificationallows us to preserve our very humanity, enabling us, hopefully, togradually climb from the hollowness of the valley of the shadow of deathto the mountain where faith abounds, so that we may trust again man andGod and live to be sustained by both.

The intoning of the Kaddish, bringing us closer as a family sharing thelingering pain of the past, is a negation and an affirmation. It is anegation of the creators of the Kingdom of Night who conspired to uprootthe commanding presence of El Melech Chai Verachum, our Living andCompassionate God and King, whose praise we dare proclaim even whenenveloped by impregnable darkness hiding His own essence of goodness. Itis a repudiation of messengers of evil who would rob the human experienceof its sweet promise.

It is no wonder that in our tradition, affirmation transcends negation,for the people of Israel have resolved not to succumb to a vision of aworld devoid of blessing. We have chosen to embrace the power of hope,witnessing that our people discover meaning when there seems to be none,and creating life when faced with death. The only kind of prisoners wefreely elect to be is prisoners of hope. That is our Jewish vocation, forHatikvah is our anthem. Amen.

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Yom HaSho'ah Seder Haggadah