01 November 2009

Yad Vashem

Yad Vashem is the Israel Holocaust Museum, and there is no other museum like it in the entire world. The emotions it stirs come from the depth of the human heart, yearning for all human suffering to cease. It was a powerful, emotional, and even tragic experience at times. It certainly was not the first Holocaust museum I've ever been to, and it probably won't be the last. But it is the only museum on the Holocaust built by Jews for Jews. you can only go through on a guided tour, and all of the tour guides are related in some way to survivors of the pure evil of the Holocaust. It's hard to say that you enjoyed something like this. How can you have a good time looking at pictures of starving children and reading about the lengths that mothers would go through to protect their children? I don't know if I had a good time. There was certainly no joy involved in the day. But I learned and felt things that every human being should feel. our teacher told us a story about two Jewish children's reactions to the museum: As they walked out of the museum, one of the youth turned to the other and said, "We can never let this happen to us again." While the other responded, "We can never let this happen to anyone ever again."
The experience was juxtaposed with my homework assignment that night for my Palestinian class. We were assigned to read and write about the massacres of Palestinians by Israelis during the Israeli War of Independence in 1948. It was unfathomable to me that any Jewish or Israeli person, whether intimately connected to the Holocaust or not, could ever allow such things to happen, let alone just 3 years after the Holocaust. The despair I felt that night was crippling on behalf of the sorrow that people experience from acts of hate. I was frustrated with how dramatic my feelings seemed, but there seemed to only be darkness for the future if such hate persists, and I caught a glimpse of how Enoch may have felt when he wept for the sorrow of the world. Thank goodness for our Savior and His Gospel that show us the way to peace. Thank goodness for His love and the chance we have to share it with everyone around us. This is a point that has been driven home to my heart continuously since I've been here. Love is the point. Love is why we are here on earth, why God sent His Son, why we are in families, why we experience joys and sorrows, why we share the gospel, etc. Love is EVERYTHING. Sorry for my soapbox, but a fire for love has been lit underneath me. :)




2 comments:

  1. Um, I love this. I totally know what you are talking about, how you feel, etc. I love you! I miss you!

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  2. I wish we could have read more about the Palestinians in our day. Our whole class was focused on the past and then on our very last day our teacher told us Palestinian history from 1900- present, including his personal experiences of being deported from Israel. It was the best day of class and we all couldn't believe we didn't get more time to study it. Thanks for your post on love and hope as well.

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