Yesterday, my study partner in New York, sent me a picture of her new, baby grandchild. The first of her generation. It’s an unremarkable picture of a tot on a playmat on the floor clutching a stuffed giraffe. Except that she is not unremarkable in the least. Nor is the photo. She is the great-grandchild of Holocaust survivors. And she lives. And someday, she will tell the story. That fills me with hope.

And yet…I stand before you today with some deep concerns. One Jewish response to the Holocaust has been, “Never again.” For some that means never again to Jews. They find peace in knowing that Israel is once again a homeland for the Jewish people, a safety and security net despite the wars and all the people sworn to destroy Israel and push it into the sea. For others, they mean “Never again, to anyone, at anytime.” And yet…there have been more wars and more genocide. I was asked to participate in a call today about the genocide of Rohingas in Myanmar.

And yet…my parents didn’t want me to be a rabbi. They were afraid I would be too visible. Too easily a target. People would just know where to get me. I rebelled, and so here I stand. They were not ready to forgive Germany, or the German people. Ever. We didn’t buy German products yet somehow, my first car, a used Volkswagon Rabbit was OK, precisely, because it was used. And when I went to work for a German software company, they were not at all happy.

Recently, I was again asked if it was smart for me to wear my kippah, this keppah, even sitting in a coffee shop in downtown Elgin. Right here in downtown Elgin.

And yet, I continue to wear my kippah. Proudly. Hineini, Here am I. I stand before you today, wearing this kippah that clearly identifies me as a Jew.   It too fills me with hope.

Two weeks ago, a man walked into a synagogue in California and shot a woman to death. It is the seventh armed attack on a Jewish organization in 10 years. The Elgin Police Department sent an officer before we at Congregation Kneseth Israel even knew an attack had happened. That fills me with hope.

Can we draw the line between what happened in Poway and what happened in Germany and Europe. Perhaps, when we read the perpetrators manifesto. Or we read the accounts of a different Holocaust Memorial event this time in Arkansas where some neo-Nazi white supremacists chanted “Six Million More.” Anti-semtism is real. It still exists. It is, as Rabbi Lord Sacks, the Chief Rabbi Emeritus of Great Britain says, the canary in the coal mine.

As part of becoming a rabbi, I wrote a thesis on the 13 Attributes of the Divine. The Lord, The Lord G-d is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, full of lovingkindness, extending kindness to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin. And then it adds but visiting the sins of the parents to the children and the children’s children to the 3^rd and 4^th generation. That little baby is the 4^th generation. What sin did she commit? How will she think of forgiveness and reconciliation in her generation?

Rev. Martin Niemoeller, a German Lutheran pastor said after the war:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

How will each of us speak up? How will we prevent the next Holocaust from happening. How will we be Upstanders instead of Bystanders?

On the Friday night after the Poway shooting, I opened the doors of the synagogue and we had 15 guests join us who wanted to share Shabbat with us and extend their support and solidarity. Those people that joined us, despite their busy schedules. They were Upstanders. That fills me with hope.

It fills me with hope that I have been given the key and the code to the church across the street, by another Lutheran pastor, because sadly, what if? That church, and many in Elgin are Upstanders.

At that service, I played this song. Ani Od Chai, Still I live. It was sung by 600 Holocaust survivors, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. (Play song) https://www.theicenter.org/resource/koolulam-am-yisrael-chai

That song fills me with hope. Still I live. Yet I live. We sitting here today, all do. It is a solemn responsibility and task, to not forget our past and remember the vision of the future, where no one is afraid to sit under their vine and fig tree.

My confirmation class will read this quote of Edmund Flegg, a French Jew who saw the approaching hoofbeats. He wrote it for his grandson. When my students read it in two weeks, it will a dor v’dor, a generation to generation moment. It fills me with hope too.

I am a Jew because born of Israel and having found it again, I would have it live after me even more alive that it is within me.
I am a Jew because the faith of Israel requires no abdication of my mind.
I am a Jew because the faith of Israel asks any possible sacrifice of my soul.
I am a Jew because in all places where there are tears and suffering the Jew weeps.
I am a Jew because the message of Israel is the most ancient and the most modern.
I am a Jew because Israel’s promise is a universal promise.
I am a Jew because for Israel the world is not finished; we will complete it.
I am a Jew because for Israel humanity is not yet completed; we are completing it.I am a Jew because Israel places humanity and its unity above nations and above Israel itself.
I am a Jew because above humanity, the image of the Divine Unity, Israel places the unity which is divine.
I am a Jew because in every age when the cry of despair is heard the Jew hopes. (Edmund Flegg)

 This reading fills me with hope.

You serve at a hospital. The best one I visit. And last year I visited 12 area hospitals to visit congregants. There are roughly 6000 Holocaust survivors in Chicagoland. Perhaps you have treated some. I would imagine you have done so with skill and with care and compassion. Your attendance here today fills me with hope as we remember. I hope you will also remember to stand up for victims everywhere. That you will become Upstanders.

And that picture of the baby on the playmat…that fills me with great hope.