Download Also "Theologie nach Auschwitz" ("Theology after Auschwitz"

RESPONSES TO HOLOCAUST
Also "Theologie nach Auschwitz" ("Theology after Auschwitz"
Silence broken by RICHARD RUBENSTEIN, After Auschwitz. (1966: Indianapolis,
Bobbs-Merrill).
Here are summarizes of some attempts to make sense of the Holocaust, or Shoa,
indicating where appropriate the thinker most associated with the ideas described.
Making sense of the fact of suffering while believing in God’s goodness is the field of
THEODICY.

The Holocaust is an instance of the temporary "Eclipse of God". There are times
when God is inexplicably absent from history. This draws on Jewish Kabalah
thought.

Rabbinic Judaism teaches mi-penei hataeinu, "because of our sins we were
punished". In Biblical times, when the Jewish people experienced calamity, the
prophets preached that suffering results from disobeying God's law, and
prosperity, peace and health follow from and are rewards for obeying God's law.
Some people in the Orthodox community argue that the Jewish people in Europe
were deeply sinful – Reform Judaism watered down Jewish laws, other Jews had
completely abandoned Jewish practices. In this view, the Holocaust is a just
retribution from God.

"God is dead". If there were a God, God would surely have prevented the
Holocaust. Since God did not prevent it, God has for some reason turned away
from the world, and left us to ourselves forever. God is therefore no longer
relevant to humanity. This goes beyond the “eclipse” view to a complete
withdrawal of God from human history, not a temporary absence.
RUBENSTEIN.

Terrible events such as the Holocaust are the price we have to pay for having free
will. In this view, God will not and cannot interfere with history otherwise our
free will would effectively cease to exist. The Holocaust only reflects badly on
humanity, not God. ELIEZER BERKOVITS. This may seem to question the
biblical narrative itself, which constantly refers to God’s action in history. Or,
does God allow us more free will as history progresses and we assume greater
responsibility to act justly?

Can the Holocaust be understood, to some degree, as a revelation from God? The
event challenges Jews to ensure their own survival. EMIL FACKENHEIM.
Some add that the 614th commandment is not to give Hitler a posthumous victory
– that is, by neglecting Jewish life, failing to raise children as practicing Jews or
by marrying out of the community. This can be linked with the creation of the
State of Israel and working to support the state’s survival as a safe haven for all
Jews

Some suggest that Israel’s creation was itself a response to the Holocaust, a divine
gift. Certainly, countries that supported UN Resolution 181 (the basis for the
creation of Israel) saw a Jewish homeland as compensation. They also saw this as
recompense for the degree to which the anti-Semitism that culminated in the
Holocaust exists in their own histories.

The Israeli Declaration of Independence suggests a link between the holocaust
and the creation of a Jewish State: “The catastrophe which recently befell the
Jewish people - the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe - was another clear
demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by reestablishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the
homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a
fully privileged member of the comity of nations.” The Holocaust was the
necessary prelude to Israel’s birth, since history teaches that calamity is followed
by blessing, for example, slavery by the Exodus, Saul’s disastrous reign by
David’s righteous one, the exile by the return.

The Holocaust is a mystery beyond human comprehension. God has reason for
what God does, but our finite human understanding can not start to understand the
purpose of divine action. MENACHEM MENDEL SCHNEERSON (Hasidic).
Rejects “punishment” theory. The destruction of six million Jews in such a
horrific way surpassed the cruelty of all earlier acts of retribution such as the
destruction of the Temple. This could not possibly be interpreted as punishment
for sins.

The Jewish people become in fact the "suffering servant" of Isaiah 53. The Jewish
people collectively suffer for the sins of the world. IGNAZ MAYBAUM
(Reform.) Some reject this as too influenced by Christian ideas (for Christians,
Jesus was the suffering servant) about substitutiory atonement and sacrifice.

God does exist, but God is not omnipotent. This view is similar to Process
theology. All of the above arguments assume that God is omnipotent and,
consequently, could have interfered to stop the Holocaust. What if this is not so?
In this view, the Holocaust only reflects badly on humanity, not on God. This is a
view promoted by many liberal theologians, including Rabbi HAROLD
KUSHNER, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People. (1981. New
York: Schocken Books.)

God or any other supernatural deity does not exist. Others suggest that the more
relevant question is not where was God in the gas chambers? but where was
humanity? This was the haunting question asked by Nobel Peace Prize winner,
Elie Wiesel when he said that the question to ask about the holocaust was not
"where was God?" but "where was man in all this, and Culture, how did it reach
this nadir?" (Wiesel, Elie. 1978. A Jew today. New York: Random House. ISBN
9780394420547. page 12.)
Resources
Cohn-Sherbok, Dan. 2002. Holocaust theology: a reader. New York: New York
University Press.
Cohn-Sherbok, Dan. 1999. Understanding the Holocaust: an introduction. Issues in
contemporary religion. London: Cassell.
Acknowledgement
These notes also draw on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_theology