"Never Again" Is Always

 

     "Never Again is the constant retelling of the Holocaust story."-                           Antonio Gueterres, Secretary General of the U.N.

"Never Again" as Guterres suggests has, generally, been associated with the calls by Jews to try and ensure that the atrocities committed against our Jewish people, merely a little over eighty years ago, would be a share of the past.

In recent months, following the horrific attacks against Yisraeli residents by Hamas terrorists, we have been hearing that slogan repeatedly echoed by many. These days, however, the phrase has morphed from "Never Again" to "Never Again is Now."

That, in my view, is unfortunate.

Should this motto of our People be confined strictly to the "here" and "now?" What happens when the "here" and "now" are over? Are we going to wake up to the call only when some other calamity, G-d forbid, befalls our People?

Learning the lessons of our history has been one of the most important tenets of our Jewish faith and tradition.

"Thou shall tell them to your children....,"  "Remember what Amalek did to you..." are but two examples of the directives repeatedly mentioned in our Tanach. "Never Again" is precisely the goal and the intended lessons of these commandments.

The phrase "Never Again" in the context of the Shoah (Holocaust), as quoted above, was first used in a 1961 documentary, "Mein Kampf," by a Swedish filmmaker, Erwin Leiser.
In it, over a shot of Auschwitz, Leiser, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, says, "It must never happen again -never again."

There might be, though, another possible source to this phrase.

In 1926, an Yisraeli poet by the name of Yitzhak Lamdan published a poem entitled "Masada." In one of the poem's passages, where he uses the imagery of th Hora, danced by young Zionists, Landman writes:

                  "Lift your legs,
                   Firm your knees,

                   More and more!

                   In the dance's circling chain
                   Never shall Masada fall again!"

Mount Masada, as those who are familiar with Jewish history, would know, was the last bastion of Jewish fighters against the Romans around 73 C.E.

The heroic story of Masada has become a source of pride to many Yisraelis. "Masada Shall Never Fall Again '' is part of the oath taken by some members of the Yisraeli military who pledge from its mountaintop to defend the Jewish state.

These words became one of the pillars of our Jewish consciousness and the Zionist ethos. Just as these two precepts are part of our Jewish essence past, present and future, so is the slogan "Never Again."

Confining these words to the "here" and "now" diminishes, in my opinion, their vitality and weakens the vow that similar cataclysms to those that happened to our ancestors shall not be repeated.

Restricting "Never Again" to the "here" and "now" might make them, in the words of Rabbi Sacks ZT"L, "sound more like ever again." 

What, then, is a better way to ensure that the sad parts of our Jewish history do not repeat themselves than to pledge "Never Again Is Always" rather than "Never again is Now?"

Shabbat Shalom, fellow Jews and a blessed weekend to all