Amidst all the remarkable headlines of recent days—Osama bin Laden’s death, the Hamas-Fatah rapprochement, the Reform movement’s strife over the “pro-Israel” credentials of its incoming head and more – we paused this past week to commemorate Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day. In the faces of often somber crowds, we were reminded that the era of those who experienced the depths of humanity’s self-inflicted horror is drawing to a slow close. That is a natural progression, but cause for profound sadness and deep reflection.

In a remarkable chapter in the annals of Jewish history, the American Jewish community has built the museums, created the educational curriculums, printed the books and produced the movies to remember. Unfathomably, some still deny the Holocaust, allowing their intense hatred of Jews to undermine its powerful lessons for all humanity. For certain, we must always guard against such efforts.

Yet, we also must acknowledge that with memory’s framework built, we need to focus on building the Shoah’s moral legacy. We must ask what in 50 or 75 years we want people to know about humanity’s most documented crime, and then see what we are doing to make that happen.

Whether we like it or not, many younger adults say they are tiring of hearing about the Shoah. I believe that is more an indictment of how the topic is presented than the material itself. So a core challenge is how to make the Holocaust relevant anew. That could mean opening conversations along uncomfortable lines:

• What does the Shoah say about our need to support Israel AND how the Jewish state deals with the Palestinians? (I do not equate the two, but we must be prepared for the talk.)

• Likewise, what does “never again” mean in how our approach to suffering in Sudan, China, Syria and elsewhere?

• Finally, how can we put the Shoah into the context of Jewish history without being overwhelmed by it?

The admonition of the Talmudic sage Rabbi Tarfon remains as clear now as 2,000 years ago: Ours is not to complete the task; neither is it to desist from it.