From: shimoff@umbc4.umbc.edu (Eliot Shimoff)
Subject: Re: The Holocaust (was Please!  I need your help etc.)
Organization: Univ. of MD, Baltimore County
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 13:14:11 GMT

In article <199210131411.AA25829@das.wang.com> MASH@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL (Michael Shimshoni) writes:
>In: <1992Oct6.183402.29893@umbc3.umbc.edu>
>shimoff@umbc4.umbc.edu (Eliot Shimoff) is appalled:
>
>>In article <1992Oct6.131051.23312@wam.umd.edu> aap@wam.umd.edu (Alberto Adolfo
>>>In article <1992Oct6.123111.23779@cbnewsl.cb.att.com> saal@cbnewsl.cb.att.com

Sam:
>>>>Even if completely
>>>>man-made, G-d helps those who help themselves.... (to borrow a
>>>>phrase).
>>>>--

AAP:
>>>It did not work for at least 6 million Jews.
>>>Or, may be, they did not help themselves?
>>>


Me (Eliot):
>>It is only a few hours before Yom Kippur, a day in which all Jews
>>stand together before G-d, as individuals and as members of the
>>Jewish community, and I stare at your comment.

Michael:
>Although it  is now after  Yom Kippur, I, a  Jew, have stopped  a long
>time ago to "stand .. before God".   I cannot speak for Alberto, but I
>know that I  am not the only  Jew for whom God  has become irrelevant,
>especially after the Shoah.
>

Me:
>>                                                I do not know how
>>to start a reply, yet I cannot let your statement remain unanswered.

Michael:
>I also feel, that Eliot's statement has to be answered.

Me:
>>Your statement is appallingly insensitive, and wilfully ignorant.
>>It is inexcusably cruel, and reflects shocking poor taste.

Michael:
>In what  way? Sam brought this  tired cliche that God  helps those who
>help themselves,  and in just  one line  Alberto could show,  from the
>greatest tragedy of our century, and  the greatest ever that came upon
>the Jews, that this is simple, to  put it very mildly, not so.  In the
>sciences we call it a Gegenbeispiel (counterexample).
>

Me:
>>                                                            To reduce
>>the Holocaust to a quick one-liner suggests your lack of understanding
>>of what the Holocaust means -- to Jews and to the entire world, as a
>>theological issue, as a philosophical challenge, as a personal tragedy
>>(for many of us), and as a calamity for the Jewish people at large.

The Holocaust shattered the belief of many Jews; it strengthened
the belief of many others.  It left no Jew untouched.

My objection to AAP's statement was not that his beliefs may (or may
not) have been shattered by the Holocaust, but by his trivializing
the Holocaust to a quick one-line response.  Note the difference
between your response and his.  Your response suggests you felt
(and continue to feel) the pain.  His response was "Gotcha!"


>Eliot is not alone  in thinking that what it means to  him it also has
>to mean to "Jews  and to the entire world".  Well it  does not, not to
>everyone, not perhaps  to many.  This "calamity for  the Jewish people
>at large" was so enormous that some  of us just could not continue the
>way they  went before.  I  would not be  surprised if Eliot,  and many
>others have  used this Yom  Kippur the  same Mahsor (prayer  book) his
>parents and grandparents  have used before.  Not one  word got changed
>by this calamity.  I know that Eliot  and all of you know the facts of
>the Holocaust,  what I  do not  comprehend is  how (counting  only the
>Jews) after 6000000 dead, of them 1000000 children of them uncountable
>babes torn from their parents and  thrown alive into the flames of the
>furnaces, they  can still  repeat Adonai Adonai  El Rahum  veHanun etc
>(Adonai, Adonai a merciful and  compassionate God, my own translation)
>as they did before 1939.

My Yom Kippur prayers -- as well as Tisha B'Av kinot, and Seder
ritual -- have always included references to the 6,000,000 Jews
murdered in the Holocaust.  And I cannot imagine a Jew whose
prayers and thoughts have not been changed by the Holocaust.

As you know, I disagree with your conclusions about what the Holocaust
implies about G-d and our beliefs in G-d.  But your response is
reasoned, informed, and compassionate, not a one-liner.  And that
makes all the difference.




-- 
Eliot Shimoff                  |    n   n   n
   shimoff@umbc3.umbc.edu      |   X + Y = Z .  Easy to prove no solutions
Ashamnu, bagadnu, gazalnu ...  |   for n greater than 2.  Darn.  Can't fit
Better luck next year!         |   it into this little .sig file.  Oh well.