Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day

We believed it was possible to be like everyone else. To integrate. To learn. To advance. To take from European culture what seemed enlightened, wise, moral, and to become part of it ourselves. Already in 1913 Rav Kook identifies a culture that glitters on the outside, but whose happiness is in great doubt. He argues that Europe is not a safe haven, that it is not a beacon of values, and that its future happiness is in doubt. And so indeed it was. For a nation must have a value to live by, and not a disconnected flow of life. On this day we must remember that a nation must have values to live by, and not merely survival. The more we connect to the source of our life, in our land, in our identity, the more we will succeed in guarding and preserving our future.