The Holocaust: The Reason Why?

No Answers, Many Questions: The Insights of Elie Wiesel
Jonathan Gorsky commenced his talk by saying that he could not provide answers, but he could provide us with questions and share some of the insights in the writings of Elie Wiesel and other wonderful people who have reflected on these issues. Elie Wiesel experienced the Holocaust at first hand as a young man towards the latter part of the war. His experience was horrific and is described in his book "Night", and he has wrestled with that experience and all of its dilemmas throughout his life.

An Overwhelming Sense Of Truth
In 1986, when he had been awarded the Nobel prize, he said this "The only lesson I have learnt from my experience is twofold - First that there are no plausible answers to what we have endured and secondly, that just as despair can be given to me only by another human being, so hope too can be given to me only by another human being". Peace is a very special gift. It is a gift to each other, and so he quotes the famous Hebrew phrase ani ma’amin - I believe - "I believe we must have hope for one another, also because of one another. And ani ma’amin - I believe that because of our children and theirs we should be worthy of that hope, of that redemption, and of some measure of peace".

So there one finds Elie Wiesel, having reflected since his experience in war coming, 40 years later in 1986, and telling us not to search for theological answers because the answers are inadequate or gravely deficient. If one were to find a satisfactory reason for the Holocaust, would that make any difference? Would it make it any better? Could we then say that now all is done, and we can forget what has happened and turn away from it? Of course not. Elie Wiesel is a person with an overwhelming sense of truth, who would not seek answers merely in order to find religious reassurance. Answers which are facile and unsatisfactory are simply unworthy of the matter that is being addressed.

Job for the 20th Century
Some have seen Elie Wiesel as the Jobian figure after the Holocaust. The person who will not accept the good offices of theologians in solving his problems. Job was convinced that his sufferings had not come upon him because of his sins, or for that matter any other reasons proposed by the theologically acute of his day. If he were to accept the answers of his so-called comforters and friends he would be sacrificing what he knew to be the truth. Job holds his ground until almost the end of the book and that great divine speech.

Freed of all inhibitions Job went as far as arguing with God. Then comes the last speech when God says effectively "Who are you to understand what are the ways of God?" But God does not answer Job as to why what was happening was happening. God said nothing that Job could interpret as an answer or an explanation or a justification of his ordeals. Job withdrew his questions and cancelled his complaints. So in a sense we now have Job as a broken and defeated man. Elie Wiesel points out that Job appeared to be more human in his passionate rebellion when he was cursed and grief-stricken, than after he rebuilt his lavish residences under the sign of his newly found faith.

Effects on Faith
So Elie Wiesel’s position is that he refuses to accept answers to a situation where he finds that there are none; where the answers are created perhaps to meet the very real needs of people who were shaken to their foundations. We should realise, of course, that not everyone can adopt Elie Wiesel’s stance, and that his approach for many people is very difficult. There are those who find what appears to them to be plausible theological explanations, and they accept them with a sigh of relief, because now they can believe in God again, and their foundations are not threatened. Elie Wiesel had the courage to wrestle with God, but says ani ma’amin - I believe. He does not abandon his faith as some, very understandably, did. We can no longer except faith just as it is - we must pass through a period of anguish and then a period of respite, in order that in the end we may find or regain the faith of our teachers. Because without faith we could not survive, without faith our world would be empty.

In Relationship With People
In the 1970s Elie Wiesel wrote a cantata, again entitled ani ma’amin - I believe. In it he speaks of the experience of the traditional Passover celebrations and says that he recites the Haggadah (a Passover narrative) but doesn't accept that the promises are literally fulfilled (God does not come to slay the slaughterer, next year in Jerusalem will not be granted etc) but nevertheless ani ma’amin - I believe. He says that it is in his relationship with people, his experience of life, his experience of being with others - that is where he once again begins to find God - not in answers provided for him by theologians, philosophers or whoever.

Uniqueness of the Holocaust
Jonathan said that, contrary to the views of the late Lord Jacobovitz, he does not accept that the Holocaust can be seen as a part of the many tragedies of Jewish history. In spite of the many terrible events of the past, the exile and all that the Jews suffered so many times, the Holocaust was something very different. In support of his views he quoted from the documentation of a Rabbi in the Warsaw ghetto who subsequently died in Treblinka in 1943. In this document the Rabbi shows that what was happening to himself and his people was completely unparalleled.

Lack Of Answers Results In General Incomprehension
Jonathan Gorsky cited some examples which illustrate peoples’ incomprehension of the events of the Holocaust; they cannot find words that are adequate to express their thoughts, and a silence results:

• Claude Lanzman spent 12 years of his life making the film "SHOAH"; which lasts 10 or 11 hours. He knew that the Jews used the biblical expression "Shoah" to describe the Holocaust, and he used it too because he did not know what it meant, and that was his experience even at the end of 12 years of trying to understand!
• Saul Friedlander – a Holocaust survivor – says that despite so many books on the subject, an opaqueness remains at the very core of the historical understanding and interpretation of what had happened. We do not understand.
• Lord Jacobovitz was fearful that the Jewish community would be dominated by and orientated to the Holocaust. He was trying to find a way in which we can live in the presence of the Holocaust and yet not be overwhelmed by it.
• Rabbi Emanuel Berkovitz, the great Orthodox Jewish scholar, was incensed when Richard Rubenstein, who had grown up in the US and had not experienced the Holocaust, wrote that faith was untenable after the Holocaust.

When we come to grave political threats the focus on those who will suffer, rather than how quickly we can make war, would begin to build the New World. Building the New World seems to be the one response that gives us some prospect of living in the shadow of what has happened and overcoming the darkness, which many of those who went through it still feel and still experience. It is only then that we can find hope; not in trying to generate answers which will enable us to turn away in the manner of Job at the end of his book.

Questions
The question time session indicated that the audience found Jonathan’s talk both interesting and thought-provoking. Some members differed with his assertion that there are no answers, while a couple offered their own answers (which in turn were disputed by others in the audience!) One person suggested that there is an alternative explanation of the underlying theme of the Book of Job, and others commented on the loss of faith issue resulting from the Holocaust. So the combination of Jonathan’s talk and the lively debate it engendered gave much “food for thought”.

- Bernard Tiley