A Visit To Some Real Heroes

There are moments in life, sometimes unexpected, when you arrive at a time that makes you stop and just “be”. A few days ago, I had that experience. I was honored, as part of a trip, to be at the American cemetery at Omaha Beach in Normandy. We went on this trip because the Normandy part was the highlight. As you walked through the entrance to the cemetery you are overwhelmed with the sight of rows and rows of grace markers, crosses and stars of David. Row after row! You have no choice to reflect that this is sacred ground. A guide reminded us that the average age of those soldiers was in the low twenties. When you see the beach, the cliffs and the topography that challenged them, you come to understand, as no film can, how daunting and, in many ways, suicidal the mission was. These graves give testimony.
In walking around the memorial, saying Kaddish at the grave of a young man, Jewish, from New Jersey, you could not help but wonder about the difference in time. This was a week or so before the election. The friends we were traveling with got into a discussion that evening about the sacrifice that these soldiers gave, and now 80 years later, the country they died for seemed to have wandered off course, from a sense of a common cause to a lack of civility and a not-so-subtle permission to isolation and social division. We could not help but think what these heroes (and they are) would think of our current America!
I am writing this on Nov. 10. A strange juxtaposition of events and thought this weekend. It is an anniversary of Kristallnacht. It is Veteran’s Day tomorrow. Now I know that far too many people do not study or read, or to be honest, care about history. But we do so, as so many have taught, at our own peril. World War 1 did not end all wars. World War 2 did not end all wars, despite the shadow of nuclear devastation. Korea, Viet-Nam, Iraq did not either. Hate and division, power and control still exist. As we tried to parse out the Normandy day, sitting on a river cruise and being waited on, we tried to understand and place what we had experienced that day within the context of our own lives. We knew that we had visited real heroes. That by keeping their memories alive, they would not be forgotten, even though so few of that generation and that operation remain alive. But memory is powerful, especially in Judaism.
Normandy also reminded us of who real heroes are. Could we have done what they did? Yes, a different time and circumstances, but still, you cannot help but wonder, “what if…”? So, what can we take from this? Maybe that we are commanded to remember the past, to continue to honor the real heroes of life, who, each in their own way, contribute to the overall welfare of life and that we have the sacred responsibility to carry the memories on in the way we live, and when necessary, to stand for right in the face of evil.
And if you have a chance to visit Normandy, do so.
Shalom,
Rabbi Richard F Address

Rabbi Richard Address

Rabbi Richard F. Address, D.Min, is the Founder and Director of www.jewishsacredaging.com. Rabbi Address served for over three decades on staff of the Union for Reform Judaism; first as a Regional Director and then, beginning in 1997, as Founder and Director of the URJ’s Department of Jewish Family Concerns and served as a specialist and consultant for the North American Reform Movement in the areas of family related programming. Rabbi Address was ordained from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in 1972 and began his rabbinic career in Los Angeles congregations. He also served as a part time rabbi for Beth Hillel in Carmel, NJ while regional director and, after his URJ tenure, served as senior rabbi of Congregation M’kor Shalom in Cherry Hill, NJ from 2011-2014.