There just seem to be numbers that trigger responses automatically. Say six million and I guarantee you most people (certainly most Jews) will think about the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust. The truth is, the six million is only an estimate. It’s probably more. A lot more. Whole towns and families erased. Yad Vashem has spend decades collecting names. Time is running out; with so few survivors left. My mother’s mother was a survivor; my father’s family lost a whole branch that was left behind in Europe and simply disappeared. Six million Jews…gone…and in some strange way…found.
I’m not big on the idea of January as the start of my new year but it’s hard not to recognize this day at least as a financial start/end point for most companies. In Israel, at the beginning of the solar year, the government announces the lates national population totals. As 2019 enters, it was announced that there are now just under 9 million people living in Israel.
How amazing, I thought to myself, that so many people living here in such a relatively short period of time. What struck me, however, was a different number. According to that same announcement, 6,668,000 Jews live in Israel. There’s that number – six million Jews (and more).
We can never forget the Holocaust. We can never get back what was taken from us. But. But we can rebuild a stronger Jewish people – and that’s what we’ve done. Over six million Jews now live in Israel. In another year or two, we may well cross the seven million mark. But there is something so inspiring, so comforting, knowing that at this moment, from above there are six million Jews watching us. And here on on earth, in this small land, there six million Jews honor, remember, and fulfill the dreams of all those taken from us.
