I just finished reading The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult, and it is one of those rare books that stays with you long after you’ve turned the final page. At its heart, it is a story about grief, guilt, forgiveness, resilience, and the stories we carry with us throughout our lives. One of the most powerful characters, Minka, shares her experience during the Holocaust, and through her eyes we are reminded of the unimaginable suffering endured by millions of innocent people simply because of their religion.

As I read her story, I found myself thinking not only about the past but also about the present. With the rise of antisemitism around the world, this feels like a particularly important book to read. The Holocaust may seem like distant history to some, but books like The Storyteller remind us that history is never as far away as we think. The lessons of the Holocaust are not only Jewish lessons; they are human lessons, reminding us what can happen when hatred, prejudice, and discrimination are allowed to grow unchecked.

What struck me most, however, was the symbolism of bread woven throughout the novel. The main character, Sage, is a baker. Early in the story, she talks about making bread and how it cannot be rushed. The dough must be left alone, given time to rest, given time to rise. If you interfere with the process or try to force it, it simply will not become what it was meant to be.

I found myself thinking about how beautifully that mirrors life. Grief cannot be rushed, healing cannot be rushed, forgiveness cannot be rushed. Sage carries tremendous guilt over the death of her mother in a tragic car accident, while Minka carries memories of surviving one of history’s darkest chapters. Both women are burdened by pain, yet neither can force healing to arrive before its time. Like bread dough quietly rising beneath a kitchen towel, growth often happens beneath the surface, unseen and unnoticed, until one day we realize we have become stronger than we once were.

As I reflected on Minka’s story, I was reminded that every generation has a responsibility to remember. We must remember the victims, remember the survivors, remember the stories, because when we stop telling the stories, we risk forgetting the lessons. The memories entrusted to us by Holocaust survivors are now our responsibility to carry forward.

No nation, no religion, no ethnicity, and no group of people should ever have to live in fear because of who they are. We must never allow any individual, organization, or country to raise its ugly head and discriminate against others because of their faith, nationality, race, or heritage. The moment we begin dividing people into “us” and “them,” we start down a dangerous path, one history has shown us can lead to devastating consequences.

For me, The Storyteller was more than a novel. It was a reminder that compassion matters, courage matters, memory matters, and that some of life’s most important lessons can come from the simplest places. In this case, it came from a loaf of bread, quietly rising on a counter, teaching us that healing takes time, that growth often happens when we least expect it, and that patience is sometimes the greatest gift we can give ourselves.

The stories of the past still have something important to teach us today, and they are lessons we cannot afford to ignore.