בס”ד
Understanding and Denying the Holocaust
בס”ד
Understanding and Denying the Holocaust
A. The Chosen or the Choosing People?
“How odd To Choose
Of G-d The Jews”
This question by the witty anti-semitic poet was given the response:
“It’s not so odd,
The Jews chose G-d”,
or when Christians make the claim:
“Not so add
As those who choose
A Jewish god
But spurn the Jews”
G-d created the world in order that man should achieve the highest level of happiness. This depended upon keeping the code of life which the Creator has given to man. But mankind as a whole did not achieve this. So one man, Abraham, who chose to spread faith in one G-d was given a “path of life to uphold justice and righteousness” (Genesis 18,19). G-d said to him: “I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. And you shall become a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you and all the families of the earth will be blessed. But those who curse you will I curse through you (Genesis 12,8). This implies that the spreading of these teachings by Abraham and his descendants would meet with a positive response, but could also meet with opposition from those who abuse their freedom, and reject G-d and His teachings, and will be cursed by G-d. But all those who are willing to accept this teaching, all the other families of the earth, shall be blessed through you.
The descendants of Abraham, the people of Israel were again given the choice at the foot of Mount Sinai, when G-d said: “If you will listen to My voice and observe My covenant, you will by My treasure from all the nations because the whole earth belongs to Me” (Exodus 19,15), that is, all mankind should turn to Me. This covenant “to be a Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation” (v. 6), G-d made with the people of Israel in no man’s land, in the Sinai desert, so that the separate holy nation would bring the word of G-d and His pattern of life to the awareness of all the nations.
This Priestly Kingdom national society by morality, finds its fulfillment in the Ehozer Land the fulcrum of three
Continents, the Land of Israel, which means “g-d rules”. When the nation dedicates its individual and national life to establish the Kingdom of G-d on earth “All people of the earth will see that the name of G-d is proclaimed over you, ויראו ממך and they will revere you. Or, from you they will learn how to revere G-d” (Deuteronomy 28,10).
However, From the beginning of our history there were nations who rose attempt to destroy us as did Pharaoh and Amalek who risked their lives in order to destroy the people of Israel. Therefore: “Remember what Amalek did to you when you were leaving Egypt. He struck those of you who were weak, spiritually. And he did not fear G-d“ Hw hated the consaene and morality and Israel.
Why does G-d allow suffering of the Jewish people?
The prophet Amos (3,2) answers this question: “You alone did I know from among all the families of the earth. I had a close connection with you. I expected you to be my representatives upon earth. Therefore I will hold you to account and punish you for all your iniquities. “If we do not live up to our responsibilities, G-d hides His face. men just as Israel as the priests for all the nations, are held to account. So G-d removes his protection until we learn to turn back to Him. He hides himself so that we should seek Him. When the kingdom of Israel was established, it reached, its highest fortune and development under King Solomon. He built Temple which became a centre of prayer also In his consecration prayer, he declared that the Temple in Jerusalem should become a centre of prayer to the One G-d for all mankind. Unfortunately, Israel did not keep up to the level that was expected, the Temple was dertrayed and the people exited.
The Lost Term Tribes, the Babylonia Exile and Second Temple Period followed by dertunchction and Exile by the Romans, and the world-wide Dispersion and persention, were literal fulfillment of the _______________________ in Levitations 26 and Deuteronomy 28.
This suffering reached its worst point in the Holocaust which is hinted at in the first covenant made with Abraham and the people of Israel in Genesis 15, ברית בין הבתרים also honor as ‘The Holocaust”. In his first vision, he was shown that “the sun set, and a honor of great darkness fill upon him… And behold –there was a smoking furnace and a torch of fire which passed between the cut up pieces” which represents the decimation of the people of Israel. If the people do not keep to there task, they will go through enormous suffering. This was always understood to be just a metaphor, but unfortunately the smoking oven and the torch of fire were the reality of the crematoria of Aushwitz.
This is also referred to in Deuteronomy 28 may come upon the people of Israel. After describing how Israel will be dispersed
amongst the nations, you will be scattered all over the world and will live in constant fear, the last, most difficult phrase is, if you reach a level where you will want to offer yourselves to your enemies as slaves and maid servants and they won’t buy you. This is a very cryptic phrase concerning the sufferings of the nation. But it is referred to elsewhere in the Bible. In the book of Esther, from the area of Iran, there arose the manifesto of Haman who wanted to destroy physically and spiritually every single Jew in the world. Here we have it expressed at the final solution to remove Israel from the history and from the map of the world. That was his attempt. And when Queen Esther pleaded with the Emperor to save her people, she said, for we have been sold, I and my people, not as slaves, but to be destroyed, to be slain, to be annihilated. In fact the three phrases used, leharog, lehashmid uleabed. This means physical death, spiritual death and to destroy the remnant. To make sure that all the Jews be burnt up, that was his manifesto. She said, even if we had been sold as slaves, I would have kept quiet. This is unfortunately the fulfilment of what it says in the Chumash already, in Deuteronomy, concerning the final curse. Demonstrated by the entrance to Auschwitz, arbeit macht frei, the Jews were led to their slaughter, to be entirely annihilated and burnt, under the deceitful camouflage that it was a slave camp. That is why some of them went, they didn’t oppose it too much. They thought, so we will be slaves. And the world thought so. But that was just a means to destroy us completely.
5. You alone did I know from among all the families of the earth; therefore I will hold you to account for all your iniquities. (Amos 3,2)
6. It happened in the ninth year of [Zedekiah’s] reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylonia, he and his enemy army came [to wage war] against, Jerusalem and encamped near it, and built a siege tower around it. The city came under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. On the ninth [day] of the [fourth] month the famine in the city became critical; there was no food for the people of the land. (Kings II 25,1-4)
7. Son of man, write for yourself the name of this day – this very day; the King of Babylon has reached Jerusalem on this very day. (Ezekiel 24,2)
8. Then they will confess their sin and the sin of their forefathers, for the treachery with which they betrayed Me and also for having behaved toward Me with casualness. (Leviticus 26, 40)
9. So it happened: The sun set, and it was very dark. Behold –there was a smoky furnace and a torch of fire which passed between these pieces (Genesis, 15, 17)
10. For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to be executed. Had we been sold as slaves and maidservants, I would have kept quiet, for the adversary is not worthy of the king’s damage. (Esther 7, 4)
11. Hashem will return you to Egypt in ships, on the road which I said to you, “You shall never again see it!” And there you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as slaves and maidservants – but there will be no buyer. (Deuteronomy 28, 68)
Where was G-d in the Holocaust?
King David said, even though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil as You are with me. He is, here, declaring in the name of the people of Israel, that we believe that wherever we walk in the world G-d is with us. Therefore we fear no evil. He explains, Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. On the whole, the Jewish nation have expressed its belief in G-d and believed in its future despite the fact that we had to walk though the seven departments of hell in this world. Begeh tzalmaves, in the valley of death. But we know G-d is with us, we are certain of that as a nation. We will survive. The phrase of those who were able to say it in the holocaust, Wir Leben Die Uberleben, we live beyond our enemies. Yet Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. The staff is a crutch, used for support. The rod is the rod of chastisement. We know that, as is expressed all the way through the Bible, that G-d is always with us. He can hide himself, as He did at Auschwitz, but He is still there, behind the hiding. And we know that all the suffering comes from the nations in order to purify us. However difficult it is to understand this. And just as we know the Jewish people is punished more because G-d has known us, the greater the saint, the more strict G-d is with him. To bring him to a higher level of saintliness. That is why suffering comes more upon the saint than upon the sinner. And we know that ultimately, You, G-d, prepare a table before me in view of my tormentors. You will give us salvation. And indeed, G-d did save the majority of the Jewish people, who, on the whole, are dedicating themselves to reaffirming their Judaism. It is true that we as Jews have become, to some extent, have gone astray in wanting to follow the lower ways of life of the gentiles. Therefore many of us, unfortunately, have gone in the wrong direction. But the majority of Jews have strengthened their attachment to G-d. During the holocaust many who knew now they were going to be pushed into the gas chambers they said to anyone they found outside who was not being pushed in, one thing – say Kaddish for me. What is the Kaddish? Kaddish means sanctification. In our prayer for mourners there is no reference to death. There is hardly a reference to consolation. The theme is, it is the task of the people of Israel to sanctify the name of G-d. To sanctify his name by dedicating our lives to the service of G-d of righteousness. And never to give it up. Despite all the tests we have to pass, the saying of the Kaddish has to be fulfilled through dedicating one’s life with actions to the sanctification of the name of G-d. Now we are faced with the phenomena, in our time, which is demonstrated by Cain. G-d says to him, the blood of your brother is calling from the earth. When the terrible destruction came upon Jerusalem and the Temple, the prophet Jeremiah said, with what shall I bear witness for you? To what can I compare you, O daughter of Jerusalem?…Your ruin is as vast as the sea, who can heal you? What is the meaning of vast as the sea? If there is a shipwreck and the ship with all its passengers sinks to the depths of the ocean and there is no remnant of it, that can be seen. You just see the calm sea after the storm, to some extent this is what we experience today. There can be terrible things happening, in the nature of a murder, who wants to rub out all trace of what he did. So not enough, the Nazis burnt up the bodies of the Jewish people, there was also an attempt, to cause to disappear entirely every memory of the holocaust. As Job says, Job comes from the Hebrew word which means an enemy, oyev, that terrible suffering comes upon mankind, mankind and the people of Israel are fraught with terrible suffering, so he calls out, O earth, do not conceal my blood! Let there not be a place in the earth for my screams! That they can remain above the earth. So we have not only that Palestinians deny the Jewish past that we have here in Israel and a rewriting of history to erase the history of Israel in the past and the land of Israel, but today, there is an actual attempt to deny the Holocaust existed. For in the expression which is said already in the Book of Psalms, Against your people they plot deviously… They say, “Come let us cut them off from nationhood, so Israel’s name will not be remembered any longer! For they take counsel together, they a strike a covenant against You. G-d, : The tents of Edom, that is Western anti-semitism, and Ishmaelites, that is Moslem fanatical anti-semitism. But what is the response of our nation? Our response is I shall not die! I shall live and relate the deeds of G-d. It is true, as a nation, G-d has chastened me exceedingly, but He did not give me over to death. This concept has an individual meaning and a national meaning. Individual, the Jewish people, believe that this life is a training ground to prepare ourselves for a higher spiritual life after death. It is an obstacle race. It is obstacles that bring a real challenge in life. We are faced with constant challenges to bring ourselves to a higher level of dedication to G-d and loving-kindness to man. That is as an individual. This is also represented by the nations within the history of mankind on this earth. We as a nation are an eternal nation. We know that exile and the suffering are a preparation for the time which will come when many people, the nations around, will go and say ‘The time has come, for us to recognize the inner significance of this people of G-d, and of the place which G-d has chosen for the teaching to go out, not just from individuals or the people but from the full spiritual power of the people of Israel who have built up, despite being destroyed several times, the essential wisdom of mankind, and the central connection with G-d for mankind, go up to the Mountain of G-d, and He will teach us of His ways and we will walk in His paths’. For from Zion will the teaching of life, Torah come forth, and the word of G-d from Jerusalem. And then, He will judge among the nations, which will beat their swords in plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation will not lift sword against nation and they will no longer learn warfare and strife. Therefore on this day, we as a nation mourn the beginning of the siege against Jerusalem, and we hope that the sanctification of G-d in life and in death through which the people of Israel have gone, will bring the nations of the world to recognize the holiness of G-d and his teachings.
קדיש
12. Though I walk in the valley overshadowed by death, I will fear no evil for You are with me. Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in view of my tormentors. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. (Psalms 23, 4-5)
13. With what shall I bear witness for you? To what can I compare you, O daughter of Jerusalem? To what can I liken you that I may comfort you, O maiden daughter of Zion? –Your ruin is as vast as the sea, who can heal you? (Lamentations 2, 13)
14.O earth, do not conceal my blood! Let there not be a place for my screams!(Job 16,18)
15. Against your people they plot deviously, they take counsel against those sheltered by you. They said “Come let us cut them off from nationhood, so Israel’s name will not be remembered any longer! For they take counsel together unanimously, they a strike a covenant against You: The tents of Edom and Ishmaelites; Moab and Hagrites.
(Psalms 83, 4-7)
16. I shall not die! But I shall live and relate the deeds of G-d. G-d has chastened me exceedingly, but He did not give me over to death. (Psalms 118, 17-18)
17. Many peoples will go and say ‘Come, let us go up to the Mountain of Hashem, to the Temple of the G-d of Jacob, and He will teach us of His ways and we will walk in His paths’. For from Zion will the Torah come forth, and the word of Hashem from Jerusalem. He will judge among the nations, and will settle the arguments of many peoples. They shall beat their swords in plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation will not lift sword against nation and they will no longer study warfare.
(Isaiah 2, 3-4)
