Yom Ha-Shoah

Ezekiel 37

The Valley of Dry Bones

¹ The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. ² He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. ³ He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?"
I said, "O Sovereign LORD, you alone know."

⁴ Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! ⁵ This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath ^a]">[a] enter you, and you will come to life. ⁶ I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.' "

⁷ So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. ⁸ I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

⁹ Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.' " ¹⁰ So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

¹¹ Then he said to me: "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, 'Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.' ¹² Therefore prophesy and say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. ¹³ Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. ¹⁴ I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.' "

This verse came to mind last night at the Yom Ha-Shoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) memorial service that I went to with my cousin. It's a moving experience to be in Israel, the land of the Jews, remembering the event that was almost the end of the Jews. To be in a land that God provided for his people after years of suffering, just like he prophecized in this verse in Ezekiel. The ground I was standing on last night was the home for the Israelites thousands on years ago and despite Assyrians, Persians, Babylonians, Romans, Greeks, Turks, Brits, Arabs and Nazis, it's still the home for Israelis and Jews today.

The ceremony was incredibly moving- many people in the town came up and read off the names of their family members who perished in Poland or in the camps. It was hard to conceive that if the person's grandfather hadn't survived, that person wouldn't be on that stage. It's hard to imagine what our world would look like if those that perished had survived and were able to have families and children and grand-children and great-grandchildren. To listen to songs and poems who words came from letters written in 1939 and 1943 by people now long-gone but never forgotten, to sing Hatikvah, the Jewish national anthem, a song that has one of the most haunting melodies- so different from the grandeur of the Star-Spangled Banner. To listen to a survivor speak about his victory over the Nazis. We do this so that we don't let their memory slip away.

We remember, so that we don't ever forget.