Six Millions...

Guest Speaker Rabbi Kaplan

The Talmud teaches that we must bless God for evil, even as we bless Him for good. When a faithful Jew hears good tidings, he blesses God Who is "good and does good." And when he hears bad news, of death or destruction, he also praises God: "Blessed are You, O Lord, the True Judge."

So we are left with questions, questions that we ask God. We see an innocent child run down by a drunken driver, a young life snuffed out before it really began, and we ask, why? We see a carefree teenager cut down in the flower of his youth, suddenly and without warning, and we ask, why? We see a young mother suddenly stricken with cancer, and we see her young children orphaned, and we ask, why? We see senseless death and suffering throughout the world, and again we ask, why? The answers are difficult to find.

Are such questions even permitted? (Bold Italic by P.S.) A generation or two ago, it seemed more difficult.

If we dared ask, the old rabbi would give us a good frask - a wallop on the head, and a brusk "Mir tahr nisht freggen - we are not allowed to ask." But today, we are not afraid to ask, and our children ask as well. Indeed, we feel a very strong need for an answer. Today, we are exposed to more than our own suffering. Nor is our experience limited to the suffering in our family and neighborhood. Today, we constantly see the suffering of everyone, all over the world. As Marshal McLuhan has pointed out, television has made the entire planet part of our own environment.

To some degree, we too experience the suffering of all humanity. And as we feel the hunger in their starving bellies, or suffer the fires burning their flesh, we look to God and we ask, constantly, why?

Our times, and our day, demand an answer to these questions. We, who are so aware of the suffering of the world, must have answers, for if we have no answers, we find ourselves in great spiritual danger. For no matter how strong our faith, no matter how profound our belief, there is always the risk that doubt will arise, and that our faith will be shattered in one devastating blow.

A dramatic example of this danger is given by Rudolph Vrba in his book, I Cannot Forgive, in which he describes his experience in the Auschwitz death camp. He tells of an event he experienced with a friend, Moses Sonenschein, the deeply religious son of a Polish rabbi.

The author and Moses Sonenschein are driving to their work detail. On the way, they come across a large number of women prisoners who had recently been brought to the camp. The women are standing in the freezing cold, wearing only flimsy gowns which offer no protection at all against the harsh winter. When the author remarks to Moses that many of these girls will probably freeze to death, Moses simply murmurs, "It is the will of God."

Suddenly, the author realizes what is happening. This is a typhus inspection, and any girl who so much as coughs or sneezes will automatically be sent to the gas chambers. Again, he mentions this fact to Moses Sonenschein, and again Moses only murmurs, "It is the will of God." On the way to their work detail, the two pass a huge smoldering pit in the forest, a pit large enough to hold a row of houses. They look into the pit and see small bones, the bones of children. Again, Moses Sonenschein whispers, "It is the will of God."

The two men go to their work detail, dreading the return trip, dreading to discover the fate of the young prisoners. But finally it is time to return. They find thousands of girls packed in trucks, like cattle to be taken to the slaughterhouse. Suddenly the girls realize their destination:

From the throats of the thousands about to die came a banshee wail that rose shriller and shriller and became louder and louder and went on and on and on, a piercing protest that only death could stop. And then came the panic that was inevitable. The trucks started to move. A woman flung herself over the side. Then another ... then another. The S.S. moved in with their sticks and whips to beat back those who were trying to follow. Those who had jumped were being beaten too, and were trying to clamber back. They fell beneath the quickening wheels, while this funeral for the living dead went faster and faster, until we could see it no more. Moses Sonenschein murmured: "There is no God."

Then his voice rose to a shout: "There is no God! And if there is, I curse Him - curse Him, curse Him!"

***

The death of the Six Million caused many people to question God. Many raised their eyes, or their fists, to heaven and asked God, "Why did You take the Six Million? Why did you require them?" But God can answer, "Have you not read the words of my prophet Isaiah? Have you not read about the suffering servant, who was shot through for our evil, who was tortured for our sins"? Can't you understand that the Six Million underwent living hell and death for the sins of mankind?"

The great Jewish commentators write that when the prophet says that the Jewish people would die and suffer for the sins of mankind, he was not speaking of vicarious atonement, in the Christian sense. Rather, the brutal murder of the Six Million would enable all the world to see what was wrong with a corrupt old world. It would expose the ultimate consequence of an immature mankind exerting its power.

Thousands of years in the future, Jews will look back at two major periods of their history: the generation of the Exodus from Egypt, and the generation of the Six Million and the restoration of the Jewish State. And they will see our generation as one of the most eventful of human history.

The first step was the restoration of the Land of Israel to the people of Israel. There is absolutely no question that this was a direct result of the Six Million!

And if we look a bit deeper, we see that the civil rights movement was also a direct result of the Six Million.

The miracle of Passover and the Exodus, the birth of the Jewish people, was the first moral awakening of mankind, the first experience of freedom. But it came with a price - that of 2,000 years of suffering and slavery - paid by the Jewish people. The miracle of the Messianic era, the maturation of humanity, also comes with a price, again paid by the Jewish people: The Six Million. But if this is what is required to make mankind grow up, then the price, costly as it was, may well be the greatest bargain that the human race has ever had.

Quotation from Faces and Facets by Rabbi Kaplan, Moznaim Publishing Corp., 1993.

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