How do religious Jews explain the Holocaust?

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@DocCathode

Why wouldn’t he want to go there? I’ve heard the same thing expressed by other Jews. Holocaust survivor and Nobel prize winner Elie Weisel seems to feel that since the Holocaust was so horrible, we should try to get as much good out of it as we can. He received the Nobel Peace prize for using his status as a survivor to get attention and resources to stop other genocides.

Weisel does tell of several other inmates who became atheists. Weisel and many others felt that by ceasing to be Jews, they did Hitlers work for him. Some Jews refer to a six hundred and fourteenth commandment ‘Don’t grant the Nazi’s posthumous victories.’

I don’t remember if it was Weisel or another writer who summed up their experience with “I believe in the sun, though it is not shining. I believe in laughter, though I see only tears. I believe in G-d, though He is silent.”
John Corrado has it right. We were chosen to receive the covenant. This does not make us better than anybody else. It means we have to follow more rules.

Wiesel wrote of a trial that he witnessed at Aushwitz. A bunch of rabbis put God on trial for allowing the holocaust to happen. They conducted it like a real trial with attorneys, witnesses amd a judge. They ultimately found God guilty and condemned him to death. Then they recessed the court and held their normal evening prayer. Wiesel later used this event as the inspiration for his play, The Trial of God.

In another book, Wiesel wrote of his own period of atheism following the holocaust until he encountered a certain rabbi who caught Wiesel’s attention with his passion and faith. Wiesel asked him, “how can you still believe in God after what happened?”
The rabbi’s response was “How can you NOT believe in God after what happened?”

Wiesel claimed that answer turned him around and set him on the road to restoring his faith. I still don’t really understand that answer.

Wiesel himself basically claims that God is simply not all powerful and that it is up to human beings to stop evil.

Other Jewish responses I’ve seen range from the old “mysterious ways” defense to Jews not following God’s law closely enough. I don’t believe there is an “official” Jewish answer to this question. Different rabbis have different takes.

[OtakuLoki]

I hadn’t been aware that Wiesel regained his faith. He never stopped seeing himself as a Jew, but for many years he’d been an Athiest.

[SteveG1]

@Polerius

Yes, but God interfered with the free will of the Pharaoh to get the Jews out of Egypt (i.e. with the seven plagues).

Did he? The choice to comply or not comply was still the pharoah’s decision. If God had simply gone into the pharoah’s mind and made him think “I’m going to turn everybody loose”, then he hasn’t made any choice and had no free will. The pharoahs were god kings. Maybe in addition to freeing the Israelites, it was also a lesson in humility for this ruler and the people who worshipped him as a living god. After all, Egypt was THE major power of that time, and had a god on the throne. That’s way way up on the food chain of politics.

[FriarTed]

@Diogenes the Cynic

In another book, Wiesel wrote of his own period of atheism following the holocaust until he encountered a certain rabbi who caught Wiesel’s attention with his passion and faith. Wiesel asked him, “how can you still believe in God after what happened?”
The rabbi’s response was “How can you NOT believe in God after what happened?”

Wiesel claimed that answer turned him around and set him on the road to restoring his faith. I still don’t really understand that answer.
.

I heard a similar story- not attribute to Wiesel- that a secular Jew asked a rabbi “After the Holocaust, how can you still believe in God?” to which the rabbi replied “After the Holocaust, how can you still believe in humanity?”
Similar to The Trial, I read NIGHT in my first year of college theology class & I found one scene to be one of the most compelling apologetics for Christ- a young boy is hanged at Auschwitz for some minor infraction & someone asks “Where is God?” to which somone replies “On the gallows.”

[Polerius]

@DocCathode

@Polerius

Yes, but God interfered with the free will of the Pharaoh to get the Jews out of Egypt (i.e. with the seven plagues).

No, He didn’t. After each plague (and I’ve heard arguments for 10, 40, and 50 but not 7) G-d ‘hardened pharaoh’s heart’. In other words, He rendered him immune to the overpowering terror that had caused him to agree to free the Jews and allowed him to reach a decision through an exercise of his free will.

A couple of points:

1. If God ‘hardened pharaoh’s heart’, how is that possible without affecting his free will, i.e. his decision-making capabilities?

2. If I hold a gun to your child’s head and tell you to do something, or else I will pull the trigger, and you go ahead and do what I say, how “free” was your decision?

Most importantly, lets not get too technical on the “free will” issue. The main point I was trying to make was that God interfered in earthly matters and made events happen that would convince someone in power (the Pharaoh) to do something good for the Jews.

And God knew exactly what would make the Pharaoh’s mind up.

The tenth and final plague of Egypt was the death of all Egyptian first born - from the king’s first born to the widow’s first born, including first born of livestock. This was the hardest and cruelest blow upon Egypt and the plague that finally convinced Pharaoh to submit, and let the Hebrews go.

**God told Moses that this plague would cause Pharaoh to send the Hebrews away, **

So, why didn’t he do something similar with Hitler during the Holocaust?

No reason why He couldn’t. However, the pharaoh had all the Jews. The Nazis had millions of us, but not all.

I fail to see this as a good enough reason. It’s like a father saying “the terrorists only have half of my children, not all of them, so I won’t interfere”.

We are talking about the brutal death of 6 million of God’s followers. No matter what percent of the overall Jewish population it was, that’s still something that should have been stopped, if one was able to stop it.

[DocCathode]

@Polerius

. . .
Most importantly, lets not get too technical on the “free will” issue. The main point I was trying to make was that God interfered in earthly matters and made events happen that would convince someone in power (the Pharaoh) to do something good for the Jews.
. . .
So, why didn’t he do something similar with Hitler during the Holocaust?

. . .
We are talking about the brutal death of 6 million of God’s followers. No matter what percent of the overall Jewish population it was, that’s still something that should have been stopped, if one was able to stop it.

So, what should the percentage be? Should G-d constantly be rescuing each and every Jew? If your answer is yes, I suggest you read one of the ‘force field’ theology threads. If your answer is no, what percentage do we have to reach before G-d should intervene?

[Polerius]

@DocCathode

So, what should the percentage be? Should G-d constantly be rescuing each and every Jew? If your answer is yes, I suggest you read one of the ‘force field’ theology threads. If your answer is no, what percentage do we have to reach before G-d should intervene?

Of course the answer is no. But, whatever the threshold is, 6 million people is above it.

[DocCathode]

Polerius For G-d to be guilty of sitting by and doing nothing, He’d have to exist. If G-d exists, that would tend to imply the existence of the soul and an afterlife. If we have everlasting souls, physical death becomes considerably less important. You may (for future reference note that I used the qualifier may) have a point about how the six million suffered in the camps. But, their deaths were not endings but a transition.

Re The Threshhold

So the number of Jews who must be threatened with death is more than one and less than six million.

X > 1

X < 6,000,000

Is X greater than 5? 10? Is it less than 2,000,000 ? 1,000,000?

[Polerius]

@DocCathode

Polerius For G-d to be guilty of sitting by and doing nothing, He’d have to exist. If G-d exists, that would tend to imply the existence of the soul and an afterlife. If we have everlasting souls, physical death becomes considerably less important. You may (for future reference note that I used the qualifier may) have a point about how the six million suffered in the camps. But, their deaths were not endings but a transition.

If one believes that physical death is not important, then this whole discussion is moot, since the whole world could die and it would not matter one bit.

To have this discussion, we must assume that, for one reason or another, physical pain and death matter.

Re The Threshhold

So the number of Jews who must be threatened with death is more than one and less than six million.

X > 1

X < 6,000,000

Is X greater than 5? 10? Is it less than 2,000,000 ? 1,000,000?

This is getting silly.

I think we can agree that the president of the U.S. should not be informed by his staff whenever 1 american dies (since people die al the time), but that he should be informed of the death of 6 million americans.

Now, where is the threshold, greater than 5? 10? Less that 2,000,000?

It doesn’t really matter. It is less than 6,000,000.

[DocCathode]

@Polerius

If one believes that physical death is not important, then this whole discussion is moot, since the whole world could die and it would not matter one bit.

The death of the whole world would necessarily involve the death of all Jews, and thus be in violation of the covenant.

To have this discussion, we must assume that, for one reason or another, physical pain and death matter.

I’ll agree with you on physical pain. I’ll even throw in emotional pain as a bonus.

But I honestly believe that if I live so that the good deeds in my life outweigh my sins, then after death I shall be reunited with all my deceased friends and relatives who made the cut. My Uncle Max died just over a year ago. I believe that he now inhabits a realm of great joy and goodness. I miss his voice. I miss the smell of his cigars. I miss the antiquated slang he used. I miss his annoying habits. But, he is not gone. What we put into the ground was empty shell. It was just another house Max had moved out of.

This is getting silly.

I think we can agree that the president of the U.S. should not be informed by his staff whenever 1 american dies (since people die al the time), but that he should be informed of the death of 6 million americans.

Now, where is the threshold, greater than 5? 10? Less that 2,000,000?

It doesn’t really matter. It is less than 6,000,000.

It does matter. The Covenant twixt the Lord and Abraham was that his children would be as numerous as the stars. There are a few million of us around these days. Six million more would be nice. But, we were not wiped from the face of the Earth.

You seem to feel that Covenant has not been kept. What then do you think are the terms of the contract? If you feel G-d has not held up His end of the deal, I want to know exactly what obligations you think He has. Why do you feel He was required by the Covenant to prevent the death of six million Jews? You feel that He is not obligated to prevent the death of one Jew. Why exactly is that?

[SteveG1]

@DocCathode

No, He didn’t. After each plague (and I’ve heard arguments for 10, 40, and 50 but not 7) G-d ‘hardened pharaoh’s heart’. In other words, He rendered him immune to the overpowering terror that had caused him to agree to free the Jews and allowed him to reach a decision through an exercise of his free will.

No reason why He couldn’t. However, the pharaoh had all the Jews. The Nazis had millions of us, but not all.

Maybe there are other reasons also. The pharoah, which many believe was Ramses the Great was for the most part an intelligent and competent ruler. In short, he may have still had some good in him, he may have still been redeemable, and most of all, he was sane. Hitler had no good in him and was almost a perfect evil and crazy as a bedbug besides. Hitler was already immune to horror and death because he ordered it. He enjoyed it. Even God won’t reason with a crazy person. (???)