On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 14:06:11 -0400 (EDT) Michael Pollak
<mpollak at panix.com> writes:
>
> On Thu, 24 Aug 2006, Jim Farmelant wrote:
>
> > Well the notion that the Holocaust was divine punishment is not
> peculiar to
> > the Neturei Karta but is in fact pretty much the standard view of
> the subject
> > within Orthodox Judaism.
>
> This simply isn't true, Jim. Orthodox Judaism, like all other forms
> of
> Judaism, views the holocaust as the epitome of evil.
I don't think you appreciate the contortions of logic that are required by a theodicy which presupposes God to be a being who is at once omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. The religious believer might regard the Holocaust as being the epitome of evil but at the same time, his theological presuppositions also require him to believe that its occurrence was part of some divine plan, whose ultimate consequences must be good, even if we can't perceive how that could be possible. For such believers, God must have had some special reason for having permitted the Holocaust to occur, even if we cannot fully understand what that reason might be. Any other position, it seems to me, would be inconsistent with the believer's theological assumptions.
>Conceived as
> such, it's
> become, for both better and for worse, a touchstone of modern Jewish
>
> identity. And as such, it's pretty much impossible for Jews of any
> stripe to
> attribute to God. God can be lots of things, but he can't be evil.
Yes but for the believers that I have mentioned including Orthodox Jews, God is ultimately responsible for everything that happens in the universe, including evil. Since, is by definition good, this means that events including even the Holocaust that would seem to be the epitomy of evil, must be a part of a divine plan which is ultimately good. Also keep in mind that Orthodox Jews and other conservative religious believers believe in an afterlife where the injustices suffered in this world can be compensated for, so among the Orthodox Jews, there is the notion that the souls of those killed in the Holocaust, as martyrs who died for the "sanctication of the Name" are enjoying a special bliss as compensation.
> By
> definition. If you believe in him.
>
> > Lord Immanuel Jakobovitz, who was then the Chief Orthodox Rabbi of
> Great
> > Britain and the Commonwealth, asserted that the Holocaust was
> divine
> > punishment for the apostasy of the German Jews who founded
> assimilationist
> > Reform Judaism. "This idol of individual assimilation," he wrote,
> "exploded
> > in the very country in which it was invented, to be eventually
> melted down
> > and incinerated in the crematoria of Auschwitz."
> >
> > Likewise the revered Chabad leader Rabbi Menachem Mendel
> Schneerson in his
> > 1980 book, Faith and Science (Emunah v' Madah), argued that, in
> permitting
> > the Holocaust, God had cut off the gangrenous arm of the Jewish
> people. On
> > this basis, he concluded that the Holocaust was a good thing
>
> Afaict, both of these cites are spurious. Afaict, Schneerson wrote
> over 70
> books, but none with that title. And Jakobovitz's argument that
> assimilation didn't protect German Jews from getting singled out and
> killed
> (a point that by itself is rather impossible to gainsay) has zero to
> do with
> interpreting the holocaust as divine retribution. The first sentence
> of that
> paragraph has nothing to do with the second. It's purely putting
> words in
> his mouth. By Gruenberg, from whom I assume you got this, directly
> or
> indirectly.
You are correct that I got those citations from him. As to their veracity, or lack thereof, I found an interesting discussion concerning the one attributed to Schneerson at: http://tinyurl.com/lk8qx
And the book itself certain does exist. It's listed in the Library of Congress card catalog as follows: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LC Control Number: 79951185 Type of Material: Book (Print, Microform, Electronic, etc.) Brief Description: Schneerson, Menachem M., 1902- [from old catalog]
Emunah u-mada?.
5737 [1977]
21, 148 p., [1] leaf of plates : port. ; 23 cm.
CALL NUMBER: BM538.S3 S36
Copy 1 -- Request in: Jefferson or Adams Bldg General or Area Studies Reading Rms
-- Status: Not Charged -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In short, this is an atheist's old wive's tale. There may be a few
> whackos
> in the world who have views like this because there is almost no
> view so
> whacko that someone doesn't believe it. (My dear Tante Ina, for
> example, a
> holocaust refugee who believes in reincarnation and used to
> regularly
> communicate with my dead uncle and omi, explains the holocuast using
> her
> unique theory of collective karma. She thinks in a former life the
> Jews
> must have been the crusaders.) But to call this the "standard view"
> is about
> as a wrong as wrong can be. It's about the equivalent of saying the
> standard
> view among atheists is that the weak should be allowed to die off.
>
> Your arguments in general are very careful and I'm sure this creeped
> in in all
> good faith -- you should excuse the term :o)
>
> Michael
>
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