H7: Responses to Holocaust

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The power of God

The most authentic Jewish response seems to be that of
Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits. God, in giving us the freedom to
choose to be good, at the same time necessarily gives
us the freedom to be evil. God teaches us what goodness
is, but He does not intervene to force us to be good or to
stop us from being wicked. This is the incredible Jewish view
of the power of God. God is powerful not through His interventions in history but through His self-restraint.

Am yisrael chai! - The people Israel lives!

So when human beings do evil it is human beings who are to blame, not God. But then the crucial question arises: If God leaves the arena of history to human freedom, then where do we see the God of History? Rabbi Berkovits answers: God reveals His presence in the survival of Israel. Not in His deeds, but in His children. There is no other witness that God is present in history but the history of the Jewish people. Hence the demonic character of the Nazi project. The Final Solution was an attempt to destroy the only witness to the God of history.

The covenant was challenged, but it survived, and that makes all the difference. After the Holocaust, thousands of Jews journeyed to Israel. The creation of the State in 1948 revealed God's presence at the very moment when we might have despaired altogether. Instead, the state revitalised the Jewish people in countless ways. The miracle that testifies God's existence is that the people of Israel still exist. Though they walked through the valley of the shadow of death, am yisrael chai, the people Israel lives.

Looking for meaning

The only meaning to be taken from the Holocaust is that people are capable of limitless evil. Six million of our people died, al kiddush Hashem, in the sanctification of God's name. They suffered as God's children. We find meaning not in the Holocaust but in the fact that the Jewish people survived the Holocaust. The state of Israel does not explain or justify the Holocaust, but it does show that God is still with His people and that the covenant between Him and us, His people, survives.

A Jew today

Chief Rabbi Sacks points out that discussions of the Holocaust always reveal two important facts about being a Jew today. Firstly, the Holocaust means different things to different people. As we have seen: for some it confirms their faith, for others it confirms their lack of it. For the radical it creates a new covenant; for the traditionalist it shows the strength of the old one. For some it shows how God suffers with His people, for others it proves that He does not care. The point is that these approaches do not converge. The multiple responses to the Holocaust show how fragmented our people have become.

But the second fact turns back on the first. The Holocaust reminded us that we are one people. The Final Solution made no distinctions between Jews, whether assimilated, secular, religious or traditional. Surely, therefore, we must learn to live as a unified people. Jews disagree about the meaning of the past, but we all agree on wanting a future. Faced with destruction, the Jewish people renewed their covenant with God. Our story continues...

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