Day 10: Mount of Olives (Garden of Gethsemane) and Yad Vashem (5/11/12)

by Lee Pinkard on 05/27/12

MOUNT OF OLIVES:

It was an early wakeup this morning (5:00). Oh, I forgot that was for people who properly set their alarm clocks! For the rest of us, we got up at 5:40 and were on the bus at 6:00! This was a special morning. We had private access to a church on the Mount of Olives. Kay Arthur gave a lesson on Matthew 24. It was excellent. She makes scripture come alive. From there we went to the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus often went to pray when He was in Jerusalem. We walked down Palm Sunday Road, where Jesus entered the city on a donkey prior to Passover. We toured the garden and had time to reflect on what was done there and what it meant to us personally. Our tour leader Pastor David Lawson gave a powerful talk on the importance to all of us (who believe) of the decision G-d made on Jesus’ last day here. He pointed out that, all of Jesus’ ministry, came down to this place and THIS time. When He entered the Garden more than 2000 years ago, He left His disciples to go and pray. During prayer, Jesus asked G-d to take “this cup from Him.” He knew what was ahead. But then He said, “but Your Will be done.” The answer was that Jesus was to fulfill His mission. Imagine what would have happened if Jesus had not gone to the cross? We would still be in our sin. There would be no atonement. There would have been no resurrection. We would be doomed to the consequences of sin. However, thankfully, Jesus became the Lamb of G-d that takes away the sins of the world. That changed everything. I am thankful that through grace, our sovereign G-d has given me the ability to believe. By faith, I am His.

YAD VASHEM:

“They came for the Communists and I did not object, for I was not a Communist."

"Then they came for the Socialists and I did not object for I was not a Socialist."

"Then they came for the Jews, and I did not object, for I was not a Jew."

"When they came for me There was no one left to object”

Martin Niemöller, German Pastor

The Holocaust Museum is a tough destination. It is graphic and gut-wrenching. It is impossible to describe. I simply could not do it justice. This was my second visit. It was no easier this time. Yad Vashem means “a memorial and a name.” (Isaiah 56:5—“To them I will give in My House and within My walls a memorial, and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name which will not be cut off.”) There are many victims with no name. The Israeli Government and the Museum, have attempted to collect wherever possible as much information as they can about those that died. They are memorialized here. Of the six million Jews, who were killed, (not as combatants, but as innocents,) 1.3 million were children. You cannot miss this in the exhibits. The faces and names are haunting. I noticed a few things that made a particular impression on me:

1. This dark story for humanity started by creating animosity toward a particular group of Citizens. It pitted Jews against non-Jews. All were Germans (the early focus was in Germany.) It wasn’t class warfare. Maybe you would call it ethnic warfare.
2. Dehumanization tactics soon followed. Despoiling was the strategy; first, by banishment from economic life, then dispossession of material items and identity; and finally the trains to utter banishment.
3. They denigrated mixed race couples, had all Jews wear a yellow Star of David on their sleeve. Then adults and children alike bullied and even killed with government impunity.
4. Where ever Germany occupied a nation (Poland, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Yugoslavia, Greece, Italy etc., methodically one by one) it was as a means to activate the “Final Solution.” That was the name for the German strategy for genocide of the Jews. They would “relocate” the Jews which meant they sent them to death camps.
5. Albert Einstein who developed the Theory of Relativity and won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921 had to leave Germany. He wasn’t “good enough.” Because he was a Jew.
6. A study of Germany in the 1930’s and 1940’s is a story of the rise of big government. Government intentionally nationalized industries, developed hundreds of thousands of new government jobs to “transform” Germany.
7. The first adherents to Hitler’s scheme were the labor unions. They gave him the muscle to take over the rest of the society.
8. They took over education and taught revisionist history.
9. They gave away their freedoms and liberties for the “common good.”
10. I also noticed that the leaders of the Third Riche were educated men. Mostly highly educated (doctors, lawyers, theologians, engineers and professors etc.) This seemed to underscore the “intellectual elite.” The established theory that, they simply knew better what was needed for “the people.” That is frightening. The sentiment has been around in America for decades.
11. I watched the public speeches of Hitler and the “rock star” treatment afforded to him. People simply bought everything they were told.
12. As I walked through the exhibit I began to feel uneasy about our country. We are divided, class warfare is being fomented, and anti-Semitism is as bad as I can remember it in my life. As a nation we are in a truth war which makes our situation much more perilous.

“Remember only that I was innocent and just like you, mortal. On that day I had a face marked by rage, by pity and joy; quite simply a human face."

(Benjamin Fondane, Exodus, murdered at Auschwitz, 1944)

Upon leaving, I found myself reflecting on the quote I first encountered upon entering Yad Vashem:

“A country is not just what it does – it is also what it tolerates.”

(Kurt Tucholsky, German essayist of Jewish origin)

Maranatha!