Exodus and The Holocaust
Because we were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Eternal, our God, brought us forth from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.
Haggadah
“Where is God now?”
And I heard a voice within me answer him:
“Where is He? Here He is-He is hanging there on this gallows…”
Elie Wiesel
Night
The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent.
Ellie Wiesel
Night
“Es wird aerger werden!” (“Things will get worse, much worse, worse than you can imagine!”)
Nathan Birnbaum to the People of Holland
No one molds us again out of earth and clay, no one conjures our dust. No one. Praised be your name, No one.
Paul Celan
Psalm
and the hunt for the Jews continued as planned for almost a hundred thousand hours, which is twelve years, three months, and fifty days without end; and the Jewish people had no shield or savior.
No asylum, no escape.
Abba Kovner
Good night, wide world. Big, stinking world.
Not you, but I, slam the gate.
“Good Night, World”
Yankev Glatshteyn,
April, 1938
I. Introduction
This essay will not explore, or even begin to explore, the “how” or “why” of the Holocaust[1] and will not explore whether or not the Exodus was a real event or was a plot device used by the authors and editors of the Bible to move the people from Jacob to where they were at the time of the First Temple or to demonstrate monotheism, or the like. If the Exodus was not a real-life event, then there are obvious problems associated with trying to compare a real event (the Holocaust) with an imaginary event. However, even if the story of Exodus was partially or wholly fabricated, its importance and meaning are not changed. For the purposes of this essay, both events will simply be taken as having occurred[2]. In both cases, Exodus and the Holocaust, it seemed incumbent upon God to prevent the destruction of His “chosen” people. In the Exodus, God protected the people so they could become Jews; but in the Holocaust, God apparently did not protect the Jews when they were murdered simply because they were Jews. This essay will explore the apparent contradiction in God’s actions at the Exodus and at the Holocaust and offer some reasons why the same God could be present at both events yet apparently intervene in the Exodus to save the Jews but remain silent at the Holocaust while six million Jews were slaughtered.
II. Easy Arguments rejected
A. Different Gods
First, one obvious argument will be disposed of: that the god present at the Holocaust was different than the god present at Exodus. If there were two different gods, then the basic biblical assumption of God is One is wrong. Denying the singularity of God in this manner[3] denies the God of the Hebrew Bible which is inconsistent with the teachings of the Hebrew Bible. Assuming that God takes the form which is convenient for the particular event is a view of God which is no different than the pagan’s view of their gods. This is not the view of God espoused in the Hebrew Bible.
As discussed in the essay “Partners,” God and man both evolve and change as these two partners move through time and history together. The God who walked with Abraham may have changed when Jacob was about to enter Egypt. Was the same God present when Aaron’s sons were destroyed also present when Rabbi Joshua told God to stay out of the discussion (and got away with it)? Could the God who was present at the Exodus and the parting of the Red Sea have changed so much as to be a different God when the Nazis were slaughtering the Jews?
While God can change and adapt as new situations arise, it does not seem reasonable to believe that He would have evolved and changed so much as to be a different god at the Holocaust as opposed to the god at the Exodus. Simply because we get to a god that has changed through evolution does not mean we have arrived at a different god because that would deny God as taught by the Hebrew Bible. God can change quantitatively but not so much that it becomes a qualitative change.
B. God was a participant at Exodus but was absent at the Holocaust
If it is assumed that the same God was present at both events, the question again occurs: How could the same God be associated with both the Exodus from Egypt which delivered the Jewish nation from slavery to freedom and the Holocaust in which some six million Jews were murdered?
Of course an easy answer could be: God was an active participant in the Exodus; whereas, God was not present at the Holocaust, or God was not a participant in either event. It does not seem reasonable to assume that God would be present for one event but be absent from the other. Thus, for the purposes of this essay, the answer will be found elsewhere with the same God being present for both events. However, it is should be understood that any “answer” may be unsatisfactory since there probably can be no true “answer” when it comes to the Holocaust especially questions involving God and the Holocaust.
C. Conclusion
As discussed in the essay “God’s Ground Rules,” there are certain basic rules which bind both God and man and both must abide by these rules. Therefore, the god present at each event was bound by the same basic ground rules[4] in both events. In particular, God, at both events, is bound by the ground rule preventing God from interfering with man’s exercise of his free will except when another, more important, objective will be violated or prevented if God does not interfere. Had the god present at the Holocaust been different from the god present at the Exodus that god would still have been bound by the basic rule of non-intervention in man’s exercise of his free will with regard to preventing or stopping the horror of the Holocaust. Since God did not prevent or stop the horror, it will be assumed that the god present at the Holocaust was abiding by this basic rule, which the god of Exodus also abided by. Therefore, from the standpoint of the Ground Rules, it does not matter whether there was one or more gods, the result is the same. Thus, for the purposes of this essay, it will be assumed that there is only one God and it will be assumed that the same God was present at the Exodus as was present at the Holocaust.
III. Possible answers
A. Backdrop
Before proposing and exploring answers to the question raised in this essay, it might be useful to review the Ground Rules as they apply to the Exodus and Holocaust situations. The two rules of interest are:
Various consequences for any particular action will cover a range of probabilities; and
Man will have the free will to choose among various options.
B. Ultimate objective
God will also take a universal view of events[5].
Taking the universal view, we must step back and view human affairs in the manner that God might consider them, that is, adopt a universal view of events. This will place any event in the context of what occurred before the event and what occurred after the event. That is, do not view an event, even one so catastrophic as the Holocaust, out of context. God would adopt an overview of any event.
In one aspect of the universal view, the overall view concerns allowing men to exercise their free will, in another aspect, the overall view concerns God honoring His part of the Covenant regarding a homeland, and in another aspect, the universal view concerns saving the entire experiment.
(1) Allowing Jews to exercise their free will
Consider the rule that in order for free will to be free, God cannot interfere with events and change the consequences which would naturally flow from the choices man makes during the exercise of his free will, otherwise, free will is a fraud as it is not “free.” To avoid chaos and allow men to learn and progress, even God, Himself, cannot change these rules and is bound by them. Furthermore, with regard to allowing men to exercise their free will, God will desire that man be placed in a situation where he can exercise his free will whereby men can learn from their mistakes and their successes.
Viewing both events, the Exodus and the Holocaust, in the context of events occurring before and after the event reveals a commonality between them. Prior to the event, Jews were slaves: in Exodus, they were classic slaves in Egypt, and in the Holocaust, they were slaves to antisemitism in Europe and not free to practice their religion or even choose how they live their lives in many of the European countries and were always vulnerable to hate and the consequences of hate[6]; whereas, after the event, the Jews were granted a homeland in which they were free to practice their religion and live their lives as they desired free from the chains of hate. That is, prior to the event, Jews were not able to exercise their free will and after the event they were able to exercise their free will[7].
(2) God was honoring the Covenant
After the Holocaust, the modern State of Israel was granted to the Jews where they were free to be Jews, therefore in addition to placing His chosen people in a position to exercise their free will, God was honoring His part of the covenant with respect to the homeland where His chosen people are free. Thus, God was acting to achieve a result that He could see even though the people involved might see the event differently. Thus, while God’s actions at the two events might appear different, the results were the same: freedom for His chosen people.
(3) Saving the overall experiment of the entire nation
Consider the seminal event of the Exodus: The parting of the Red (Reed) Sea to permit the Hebrew Nation to pass and the collapse of the Reed Sea to drown the Egyptians. This appears to be a direct intervention by God into the events of the Exodus and hence a direct intervention in the exercise of man’s free will. Another possible reason for God to directly intervene to save the Hebrew nation from a holocaust at the hands of the Egyptians, yet not intervene to save six million Jews from a Holocaust at the hands of the Germans might be found in considering God’s view of the overall experiment He began in Genesis.
As will be understood from these essays, especially the essay “God’s Ground Rules,” an objective that is more important than the ground rule preventing God from interfering with man’s free will is almost always saving the entire experiment. The “experiment” was begun and defined in Genesis, and the human of interest to that experiment was the Jewish nation since that was God’s chosen nation. Thus, viewed through the lens of the entire experiment being contained in the Jewish nation, God’s actions described in the Bible with regard to interfering with man’s free will can be explained as actions that while they interfere with somebody’s free will are required to save the Jewish nation.
In the case of Exodus, the entire Hebrew Nation was living in Egypt and was being assimilated into Egyptian life…to the point of annihilation of the Jewish Nation; whereas, in the Holocaust, many Jews lived in countries that would not be conquered by the Nazis. Thus, the case of the Exodus is similar to the situations involving the Patriarchs and the Matriarchs of Genesis. In the case of the instances of God’s intervention detailed in Genesis and Exodus, God had to intervene on behalf of the Jews (God’s chosen people and hence the core of the God/Man/Land experiment) because they were the first and at that time the only members of the Jewish Nation. If the first and only members of the Nation are destroyed or allowed to perish, the Nation will die before it even begins – it will be stillborn. Thus, in the cases of the Patriarchs and the Matriarchs as well as in Exodus, God was required to intervene to save the entire nation and hence to save the entire experiment.
Furthermore, in the Holocaust situation, human help, in the form of the Allies, was on the way to save the Jews from the Nazis (at least by defeating Germany if not to directly save the Jews), and action by God would interfere with this exercise of man’s free will (both the Nazi exercise of free will and the rescuer exercise of free will). On the other hand, no help was on the way to save the Jews from the Egyptians in the Exodus. Had the Egyptian army overtaken the fleeing Hebrew nation, one of two things would have happened: (1) the Hebrew nation would have been taken captive and returned to slavery in Egypt, in which case, the nation would have been annihilated via assimilation; or (2) the Egyptian army would have destroyed the fleeing Hebrew nation, again annihilating the entire Hebrew nation. In either case, the entire Hebrew nation would have been annihilated before it even had a chance to begin. Therefore, it seems that God actually had no choice, He was forced to act in order to save the entire Hebrew nation from total annihilation. He either had to allow total destruction of the Hebrew nation or cause the destruction of the Egyptian army, which could be replaced and replenished as other Egyptians remained in Egypt. God acted to save the nation of His chosen people. In fact, this same argument could be applied to the entire Exodus episode, including the plagues: since the entire nation was in one location and subject to Egypt’s control, God had to take proactive steps in order to save the entire Hebrew nation from destruction, either by assimilation or by outright slaughter. God despaired at having to destroy life (Egyptians), but He had no choice[8]. On the other hand, it is very improbable that the Nazis could have annihilated the entire Jewish nation because the Jews were dispersed and many Jews lived in nations and locations that were unreachable by the Nazis, such as in the United States; therefore, God did not have to step in and save an entire nation – a remnant (see, e.g., Isaiah 10:20-23, inter alia) would survive. In Exodus, God would step in since the result of His non-intervention would place the entire experiment with His chosen people in jeopardy, but not so due to the Diaspora of the Jews in WW II[9]. In Exodus, God had no choice but to interfere with the free will of the Egyptian army and He did so; but in the Holocaust, God could refrain from interfering with the free will of the Nazis, and He did so[10].
C. God did intervene in the Holocaust
In spite of the just-discussed conclusion, another approach might reach a conclusion that God did, in fact, intervene in the Holocaust. It might be observed that the Nazis were stopped before they achieved their ultimate goal of destroying the entire Jewish nation. The Nazis were very close to developing an Atomic Bomb which, most likely would have given them a weapon with which they would defeat the Allies. However, the allies developed this ultimate weapon before the Nazis and were able to finally defeat the Nazis after incredibly hard fighting. The win might be attributable to God being on the side of the Allies. The defeat of the Nazis by the Allies could be considered God’s intervention[11]. Merely because God did not intervene soon enough to suit us, does not, per se, mean that God did not intervene in time to save the entire nation. Nor does it mean that God did not intervene at all. Perhaps God was allowing humans the opportunity to correct and learn from the transgression before he actively intervened. In fact, this appears to be exactly what happened after WW II, Jews learned from the mistakes made before, during and after the war. Hence, the mantra “Never again.”
D. God made a mistake
Yet another explanation for the different actions by God is that perhaps God felt that he made a mistake by acting to save the Jews in Exodus. His actions killed many Egyptians. Perhaps, God was still learning when to act and when to remain inactive at the time of the Exodus. God regretted killing the Egyptians. Perhaps, God learned a lesson, remember, one theory presented in other essays is that God is learning right along with His human partners. Maybe God then applied the lesson learned at Exodus to the Holocaust situation. As shown in the essay on the Nephilim, God can make mistakes. In the flood story, God actually admitted making a mistake in creating man; therefore, it may not be unreasonable to assume that God can make a mistake.
E. The Torah was not yet set at Exodus and was set at the Holocaust
Yet another explanation could be that once the Torah was set, no further miracles were needed because man had access to sufficient knowledge to fully exercise his free will and action from God after that would be interference. Since the Torah had not yet been set when the Jews initially fled Egypt, a miracle (parting the Red Sea) was in order, but it had been set by the time the Holocaust occurred. Once the Torah was set, and the entire experiment was not in danger, miracles could become far less frequent as man could rely on himself and be responsible for his own actions and could think himself out of problems. This knowledge was not available to the Hebrews fleeing the Egyptians at the Reed Sea. This knowledge was not provided to the Hebrews until the Torah was given to the Hebrew Nation. God’s actions in the instances occurring before the Torah often took the form of what we would term “miracles.” Once man had access to the wisdom and knowledge of the Torah, Man could rely upon himself and gain wisdom through making mistakes and suffering consequences, undiluted by an action by God, or un-interfered with by an action of God. God had not yet entered into a covenant with the Jewish people and had not yet given them the Torah when the miracle of the parting of the Reed Sea occurred, so the Jewish people did not yet have access to their own wisdom and had to rely on God; however, during the Holocaust, the Jewish people, and, indeed, all people, had the Torah and thus were responsible for their own actions and God could not interfere.
F. The parting of the Reed Sea was an event that was within the realm of probability
Again, if one looks to the ground rules yet another answer might be uncovered. The answer can be found in the rule: various consequences for any particular action will cover a range of probabilities. As discussed in another essay, any event will have some possibility of occurring, albeit extremely low. The example given was a tsunami in Japan being caused by the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in South America (a play on the Lorenz “Butterfly Effect”). The chances of this happening are infinitesimally small – but finite nonetheless. The chances of the waters of the Reed Sea sue sponte parting are infinitesimally small, but again, finite[12]. In fact, the chances of this happening are so small that its occurring would be considered a miracle. Such an occurrence is so unique that it could form the basis of an entire religion…in fact, it did. Isn’t the occurrence of an event which has an infinitesimally small probability of occurring the very definition of a “miracle” even though it must be permitted by the laws of probability?
However, it must be stressed, that absent an overriding necessity, God could not have caused this miracle event if He is to abide by the ground rules of allowing man to exercise his free will which requires that God not interfere in events. The ground rule that applies in this case is the law of probability. In the absence of an overriding necessity, God cannot interfere in a manner that would change the law of probability. In the case of a naturally occurring event, even though the probabilities of such an event are incredibly low[13], it might be suggested that by not permitting the waters of the Reed Sea to part would have required God to interfere in the events of man by interfering with an event that probability permits, albeit an infinitesimally small chance.
G. Practical answer
Yet another possible answer might be found in looking at the Exodus event from a practical standpoint. It should also be remembered that the Egyptians were behind the Hebrews and thus came to the shore of the Reed Sea after the Hebrews. Since the Israelites took a detour, the Egyptians may even have reached the shore of the sea from a different direction which made passage through the water more difficult and at a deeper location than the Israelite passage. The Egyptians may have seen the Hebrews pass through the sea and not grasped the magnitude of the event and thus believed that they could pass through the passage. Alternatively, the Egyptians may have seen the Hebrews on the other side when the Egyptians arrived at the shore of the Reed Sea and thought that the sea was shallow enough for them to pass through. Perhaps due to the lateness of their arrival, the mud on the sea bottom had become so soft that their chariot wheels became stuck in the mud so that when the water began to return, they were trapped. Perhaps the Israelites did not have chariots and thus the mud would not have had the same effect on them. In any case, the Egyptian’s decision to enter the sea was in error[14].
This view could explain God’s apparent intervention during Exodus without requiring God to actively intervene whereby it might be concluded that God did not actively intervene in either the Exodus or the Holocaust.
H. Did the Holocaust force us to revise our view of God?
As discussed in several essays, the Bible can be read as presenting stories relevant to a theocentric view of history. As used in this work, a theocentric view of history has man and God in a partnership which has defined partnership duties for each entity. These duties have been carefully defined over generations of trial and error. As discussed above, it appears that man’s duties are defined as exercising positive dominion over all the entities created in Genesis; and God’s duties with respect to our universe have included protecting His overall experiment, and specifically the human portion of the experiment, from total destruction from a force which is beyond man’s capabilities to resist. Specifically, it is one of man’s duties to protect the other entities from destruction and to defend himself to the limits of his abilities. However, in the case of a force which man cannot resist, God may have to intervene.
As discussed, many of the Bible’s stories in which God intercedes into man’s affairs can be rationalized when it is understood that God’s partner was being threatened with total destruction by a force greater than he could handle on his own; thus, God’s intercession was required to prevent total destruction of God’s partner.
This is best exemplified by God’s actions in destroying the Egyptian army. As discussed in this essay, this proactive action by God was discussed above in relation to interfering with the free will of the Egyptian army. Here, it will be more closely examined through a lens of God interceding to save His partner. As discussed above, had the Egyptian army caught the fleeing slaves, they surely would have been destroyed, either immediately by being slain or through assimilation into Egyptian society had they been captured and returned to Egypt. The fleeing slaves were the entire Hebrew nation – and as defined for this work, the Hebrew nation is an allegory for all of the humans who wish to be partners with God, and hence the entirety of humanity as far as the Hebrew Bible is concerned. In either case, the entire nation, God’s partner was in danger of being totally destroyed by a force beyond its capability to resist. Therefore, God carried out His duty and took the proactive step of preventing this total destruction[15].
As discussed in the essay on the Tower of Babel, there is protection for the nation (God’s partners) when it is dispersed. When the entire nation is in one geographic location, as it was in Egypt during the Exodus story, the entire nation is at risk of being destroyed[16]. However, if the nation is dispersed over a large and wide geographic area, then the likelihood of the entire nation being destroyed is greatly reduced. The chance of total annihilation is further reduced if some of the members of the nation are living in nations that are safe and strong – such as the United States. As discussed above in this essay, this is the situation which existed during the Holocaust. The Jewish nation was dispersed throughout the world, and some members of that nation were in safe places, such as in the United States. Therefore, the Nazi menace during the Holocaust was not likely to destroy the entire nation because the nation was dispersed and at least some remnant of the nation would survive the Holocaust. Therefore, God’s partnership duties did not require Him to take proactive action. And He did not.
Now, to the question of interest to this portion of the essay. In modern civilization, Gods partners are all scattered far and wide throughout the entire world. Therefore, there is very little likelihood of all of these partners being eliminated by a force beyond their power to resist. Certainly, it is possible for a great number of the partners to be lost due to such a force, but not all. Under just about any scenario, at least a remnant will remain. Therefore, given the situation in the modern world where it is not likely that God’s partner will be totally destroyed by such a force, God’s duty to protect His partner may be obsolete. As such, as blasphemous as it seems, one might ask, do we, God’s partners still need God?
Of course, the answer to this question is extremely personal and is best, perhaps only, answered by each person. Each person may envision God as having many duties other than protecting his partner from destruction by a force beyond that partner’s ability to resist. Also, God may have many duties of which we are not aware. Also, does the diminishing of God’s duties in this manner have any effect on the place the Torah has in our lives? On the moral code associated with the Torah, the Talmud? All of the generations of teachings which are based on Torah? On the entire Jewish religion? Is God big enough in our view to remain as important to us as before, even if we can protect ourselves without His proactive intervention? Furthermore, there are many forces in this world which intend to destroy man, but have not yet either manifested themselves to us or are not yet strong enough to be sufficiently lethal to require God’s intervention, so maybe we do not need this part of God’s duties at the moment, but that certainly does not mean we will never need them; and, if we reject God based on this one issue alone, will He be there if we do need Him? All of this is answerable only by each person on an individual basis.
However, if human dispersal is sufficient protection against total annihilation of God’s partner thereby rendering this partnership duty obsolete, and the Holocaust demonstrated this, then perhaps God was diminished by reduction in His duties under the partnership. If this is the case, then the Holocaust damaged far, far more than the destruction it wrought on the humanity living during the World War II era.
I. God’s silence as a test of man’s faith
Yet another possible answer might be found in the concept that sometimes God’s silence is intended as a test of man’s faith in God. Like God’s silence during the three days journey to Mt. Moriah by Abraham and Isaac, like God’s silence while the Jews were slaves in Egypt, God was testing whether Jews would remain faithful to Him during a severe test even though men could not hear any definitive word from God. Furthermore, in the essay on Job, God’s silence as to whether He admitted making a mistake, or whether He went through the process of Teshuvah, is a test of our faith that God recognized that He made a mistake and will not repeat it. Certainly, God’s silence during the Holocaust could be viewed as an ultimate test of Jewish faith in Him whereby He could be present but was testing Jewish faith during the Holocaust.
From the following words written on a Cologne, Germany basement wall by Jews hiding there, it appears that at least some passed this test:
I believe in the sun
even when it is not shining
I believe in love
even when it is not there
and I believe in God
even when he is silent
I believe through any trial
there is a way
but sometimes in this suffering
and hopeless despair
my heart cries for shelter
to know someone’s there
but a voice rises within me
saying “hold on, my child
I’ll give you strength
I’ll give you hope stay a little while”
May there someday be sunshine
may there someday be happiness
may there someday be love
may there someday be peace.
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IV. Prayers
There is also the question of why God did not answer so many personal prayers that were made during the Holocaust. As is discussed in the essay “Forgiveness”, a personal prayer, especially one such as would be made during the Holocaust, generally pleads with God to change an outcome that would otherwise be the natural consequences of man exercising his free will….even if that consequence is evil as far as the person making the prayer is concerned. As discussed in that essay, God cannot make such an interference. Not only would it defy the ground rules, it would harm another person (even it that other person is evil and the outcome is evil, the overall concept of non-interference must take precedent) and could result in chaos as people would not be able to make judgments and choices based on uniformity of probable consequences. If God interferes then the expected consequences are upset. The next person faced with a choice will not be able to count on his estimation of the probabilities because he will not know if God will interfere again. It is a total unknown that is inserted into the prediction equation.
V. Conclusions
From the above discussion, it may be
possible to visualize a situation in which God could be present at both the
Exodus and the Holocaust without denying or trivializing Exodus. But, just
because God could not interfere with man’s exercise of his free will in the
time we would have wished to change the horrible events that occurred during
the Holocaust or that He did intervene to destroy the Egyptians during the Red
Sea episode prior to their achieving their ultimate aim of destroying the
entire Jewish nation does not mean He was absent from the Holocaust and did not
truly wish to intervene. Nor does it mean God was “silent” as charged by Ellie
Wiesel in Night. God was present at
both events, but He wept at both events. In one event he wept because the rules
required Him to intervene and kill His children (the Egyptians) and in one
event the rules prevented Him from intervening to stop the killing of His
children (the Jews in the Holocaust). But God was required to, and did, follow
the rules. These events demonstrate that.
EXODUS AND THE HOLOCAUST
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
- The essay suggests that God did not interfere to stop the Nazis in the Holocaust because He could not interfere with men exercising their free will and there was no reason, such as saving the entire Jewish Nation that overrode this prohibition. However, it would seem that the mass murder of so much of the nation with the intent to eradicate the entire nation would be sufficiently close to destroying the entire nation that it would qualify. What do you think? Should God have moved the line in such an extraordinary circumstance?
- The United States was successful in extracting Albert Einstein from Nazi Germany before the Nazis murdered him. Do you wonder how many other geniuses were murdered because they were Jewish? What do you think would have happened to world progress, especially in science, if the Nazis had murdered Einstein? Extrapolate that to the unknowns who were murdered and ask what the world would have been like if the Jews had not been murdered.
- Do you think another Holocaust is possible? Do you think God would intervene or stay out of it again?
- If you could go back in time, what is the one thing that you would change that you think might have avoided the Holocaust?
- Do you think the Holocaust could have been avoided if the Jews would have been able to own firearms? Do you think the Nazis would have been so bold as to kick down the door of a home and barge in to arrest the people if the Nazis would have thought the people behind that door had guns and would fight to the death? It should be noted that the first thing the Nazis did was to make it illegal for any private citizen to own a firearm – why would they do this?
- The essay concludes with the statement: “God was present at both events, but He wept at both events.” Do you think God can weep? Or is that a characteristic invented by humans to humanize God? If it is invented, do you agree with it? What does the ability to weep show about God? If you believe that God can weep what other human characteristics might God have?
- Emil Ludwig Fackenheim (22 June 1916 – 18 September 2003) was a noted Jewish philosopher and Reform rabbi. Fackernheim created a concept and advocated what he believed to be the “614th commandment” or “614th mitzvah.” The “614th Commandment” can be interpreted as a moral imperative that Jews not use the facts of the Holocaust to give up on God, Judaism or – in the case of secular Jews as well – on the continuing survival of the Jewish people, thereby giving Hitler a “posthumous victory”. The meaning of this imperative has been the subject of serious dialogue both within and beyond the Jewish community. What do you think?
[1] “The Holocaust belongs to the type of enormous experience that reduces one to silence. Any utterance, any statement, any ‘answer’ is tiny, meaningless, and occasionally ridiculous. Even the greatest of answers seems petty.” Aharon Applefield, Holocaust survivor-writer. See also The Six Days of Desctruction by Elie Wiesel and Albert H. Friedlander, Paulist Press (New York/Mahwah, 1988).
[2] See the essay “The Hero Has Six Hundred Thousand Faces” where it is questioned as to how nearly one-third of the entire population of Egypt could leave virtually overnight without even a mention of such a nation-changing event.
[3] In the essay “God,” more than one God is suggested: YHWH who is the god of our universe and Ein Sof who is the god of the universe of universes. Ein Sof was characterized in that essay as being akin to infinity and totally beyond our comprehension or imagination. As such, Ein Sof is not a “God” in this sense because we cannot worship Him or have faith in Him or pledge our loyalty to Him. Therefore, the theorization of two “Gods,” YHWH and Ein Sof does not conflict with the belief in only one god because Ein Sof is not a “God” in that sense. Such dual godship does not conflict with the Biblical theme of one God nor does it conflict with the characterization made in this essay that there is only one god possible for the Jewish nation in our universe.
[4] For the Ground Rules, see the essay “God’s Ground Rules”
[5] “The Lord looks down from heaven; He sees all mankind. From His dwelling-place He gazes on all the inhabitants of the earth- He who fashions the hearts of them all, who discerns all their doings.” Psalm 33:13-14.
[6] Even when Jews were “free” they were not truly “free” because there was the constant threat that things would change, and they would be exterminated, expelled or herded into ghettos. It should be noted that things usually did “change”.
[7] Other “benefits” from the Holocaust are detailed in “DR and The Jews by Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman,( of Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 2013, hardback),page 328: “The Nazi precedent focused American attention on human rights, which facilitated Eleanor Roosevelt’s work in formulating the Universal Declaration on Human Rights that the United Nations General Assembly adopted in 1948. Reactions against the horrors of the death camps and crematoria also contributed to a decline of anti-Semitic attitudes and practices in the two decades following the war. …Discrimination against Jews in employment, education, and housing eased during this period. These indicators suggest that the Holocaust discredited open anti-Semitism in the United States, and that the significance of the Holocaust expanded over several decades.”
[8] In the book of Jonah, God states that He cares for all human beings, see Jonah 4:10-11.
[9] In this case, it might be said that the Diaspora actually saved the Jewish Nation. Instead of being a punishment, Diaspora might have been a blessing.
[10] Note, this is not a God of limited power (such as envisioned by Mordecai Kaplan and others) who encourages humanity to follow the ways of “good” but is not responsible for the pain and evil in the world. The formulation in this essay is a God who lays down absolute ground rules for Himself and for humanity, and then Himself abides by those ground rules for to violate those ground rules would be God denying His own omnipotence.
[11] However, there is an old saying that God is always on the side that has the most resources. In WWII, the allies clearly had the most resources. But a German atomic bomb would have been a game changer.
[12] There is some speculation that an earthquake occurred in the region of the Aegean Sea about the time of the Exodus. This same speculation connects the earth tremors associated with this event to a disturbance in the Sea of Reeds, which could be taken to be the parting of the waters. While these events seem to be wild speculation, this section is presenting a discussion of a situation where an event with an infinitesimally small probability occurs naturally. There is also speculation that the dynamics of wind setdown (a drop in water level in a shallow sea (it being noted that the Reed Sea is a shallow seat) due to wind stress for an extended period of time) can create conditions similar to those described in the Exodus narrative.
[13] According to the Relativity Theory, any event is probable, albeit a very low probability. That is, the physical embodiment of this essay could spontaneously disappear and re-appear in another country. The probability of such an event is incredibly small, but there is a probability. The same goes for the spontaneous parting of the waters of the Red Sea: possible, but only to an extremely small degree of possibility.
[14] In this, the action of the Egyptians at the Red Sea is identical to the action of the French at Agincourt where on St. Crispian’s Day a much stronger and larger French army rode heavily armored into a sea of mud and became stationary targets for the English Longbows of “we few, we happy few, we band of brothers” (Henry V, Act 4, Scene 3) and were defeated.
[15] Other examples of such proactive steps include God’s intercession to save the Patriarchs and the Matriarchs from destruction (see, for example, God’s intercession on behalf of Sarai in the harem of Pharaoh because Sarai was the first and loss of Sarai would doom the experiment before it even had a chance to begin; hence God had to intervene to protect His partner from total destruction by a force that was beyond the partner’s power to resist).
[16] Location at one single geographic location would not be unusual in Biblical Times when the world of humans was small and limited.