A central pillar of Jewish belief is that nothing happens in a vacuum.
History has meaning, oppression has meaning, suffering has meaning.
We are a people whose essence is meaning. It's the lifeblood of who we are and what we stand for as a nation. Beneath the suffering and pain of the Holocaust lie the seeds of understanding our unique mission as Jews even today. This is not to suggest that any one explanation will ever fully help us to come to terms with the persecution and murder of millions of innocent people. Still, it does mean that we must try to contend with the Holocaust on a number of levels.