Newsgroup: it.cultura.ebraica
Titolo: [EJ] Holocaust, Jewish Faith after the -: Four Approaches

Sollecitato da una persona che conosco nella vita reale, ho cominciato
a leggere la voce dell'Encyclopaedia Judaica "Holocaust, Jewish Faith
after the -: Four Approaches - La Fede Ebraica dopo l'Olocausto:
quattro approcci", che ho trovato tanto "coraggiosa" che ho pensato: è
meglio che, prima di riassumerla, la riporti in questo newsgroup in
originale, altrimenti mi prendete per matto :-)))
E poi ... magari qualcuno se la stampa prima dello Shabbat per poterla
leggere con calma.
Gutes Shabbes/Shabbat Shalom.
(cit)
HOLOCAUST, JEWISH FAITH AFTER THE: FOUR APPROACHES
Introduction
An essential dimension of the manifold experiences of the Jewish
people through history has been that of personal and communal
suffering. Martyrdom "for God's name" (kiddush ha-Shem) and martyrdom
because of God's name are all too familiar features of Israel's
enduring struggle to remain true to its faith, its destiny, and its
God. As a consequence of their faith, Jews of every generation have
been living witnesses to man's passionate inhumanity and to the
inescapable presentness of evil. Against this background and as an
integral part of this sombre tradition there naturally emerged many
thoughtful reflections and responses with which the Jew of old
consoled himself, coped with the world's evil, interpreted the
hostility and irrationality of his non-Jewish neighbors and, above
all, vindicated the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Through these
responses the Jew gave expression to his deepest commitments and, even
more importantly, made it possible for Jews and Judaism to survive by
making Jewish history and its inherent tragedy intelligible. All that
transpired was given shape and meaning within the accepted parameters
of the Jewish tradition.
In our own era the whole of past Jewish tradition and the faith
responses it evoked has been called into question. Two happenings—the
Nazi Holocaust and the re-emergence of the State of Israel—have
radically altered all that has gone before. These two events have
provoked many to ask whether the traditional Jewish reactions to
tragedy and evil are still viable options or whether the "faith" of
past generations must, at least, be called into judgment. What were
once accepted as "authentic" postures for the "man of faith" in the
face of calamity are no longer obviously valid; now these postures
need to be defended against vigorous charges that they are
insensitive, inauthentic and fail to face facts. More generally still,
there is a widespread recognition by almost all parties to the
discussion that to live as if unaffected by the cataclysmic and
revolutionary import of contemporary Jewish history as worked out in
the death camps of Europe and in Zion is to be insensitive not only to
the rhythm of history and to history's martyrs and saints but also,
above all, to the God of Israel, who is primarily known and identified
in and through that common historical environment in which God and man
meet and which defines both His reality for us and our reality for
Him.
Everything seems to have been altered by the Holocaust and the
inestimable horror that it symbolizes to the survivors—and every Jew
in the concreteness of his own life knows himself to be a "survivor."
Yet the inescapable irony of contemporary Jewish existence is that we,
the "survivors" of the Holocaust, the heirs of Treblinka and
Auschwitz, are also the heirs of the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto and
the actual builders of Zion. We are what we are because we have
inherited and been formed by these seemingly irreconcilable realia of
our unique contemporary experience; they space and inform the very
essence of our history and of our consciousness both personal and
communal. To understand ourselves requires ineluctably that we come to
some understanding of these events and our relation to them, however
fragmentary, limited or personal this understanding may be.
Those who would enquire what it means to be a Jew today must ask not
only, or even primarily, vague and unformed questions about Jewish
identity and the relation of Judaism and modernity and Judaism and
secularity, but must rather articulate the much more precise and
focused question through which all the other dimensions of our
post-Holocaust identity are refracted and defined: "What does it mean
to be a Jew after Auschwitz?" Auschwitz has become an inescapable
datum for all Jewish accounts of the meaning and nature of covenantal
relation and God's relation to man. Likewise, all substantial answers
also need to be open and responsive to the subtleties of the
dialectical alternation of the contemporary Jewish situation: that is,
they must also give due weight to the "miracle" which is the State of
Israel. They must thoughtfully and sensitively enquire whether God is
speaking to the "survivors" through her, and if so, how. This means
that while awed by the very reality of her existence they must
interrogate the State's philosophical, theological, and some would
even add "messianic," implications.1 Alternatively, dialectically,
they must also consider in all seriousness the stark, frightening
possibility that despite the human and even religious meaning of the
return and rebuilding of Israel, any attempt at theodicy in the face
of the full horror of the Hurban (the Holocaust) is impermissible;
even more, it is blasphemy!
Immediately after the full depravity of the Holocaust was exposed its
tragic immensity, not surprisingly, left Jewish thinkers numb.
Moreover, what energies they and world Jewry could marshal were more
urgently needed to help the survivors, and in particular to create a
refuge in the State of Israel; the cry of the living demanded
precedence over the sacred duty of remembering the dead. Jewish
existence, not explanation, was the prerequisite obligation. It was
just as well, for the horror and immediacy of it all had been too
great to understand, too unbelievable to fashion into any coherent
form, too seemingly impossible to allow of any meaning. Still more,
who could speak with authority on Auschwitz? Of those who were there,
few remained who were able to speak, and then, even the survivors knew
not what to say. Of those who were not there, could they speak without
sacrilege and with justification; could they even understand the
issues involved? And yet, if not to explain but only to remember and
to make others remember, Jewish thinkers had to begin to talk about
Auschwitz. Once the conversation began it was clear it could not stop,
nor could the issues it forced into prominence be avoided, for what
was being called into question was nothing less than the three
historic coefficients of traditional Judaism: God, Torah and the
people of Israel.
Out of the still nascent and still uncertain conversation on the
Holocaust several general responses, with their various combinations
and configurations have emerged. They can be enumerated as follows:
(1)	the Holocaust is like all other tragedies and merely raises again
the question of theodicy and "the problem of evil," but it does not
significantly alter the problem or contribute anything new to it.
(2)	The classical Jewish theological doctrine of mi-penei hata 'einu,
("because of our sins we were punished") which was evolved in the face
of earlier national calamities can also be applied to the Holocaust.
According to this account, Israel was sinful and Auschwitz is her just
retribution.
(3)	The Holocaust is the ultimate in vicarious atonement. Israel is
the "suffering servant" of Isaiah (ch. 53ff.)—she suffers and atones
for the sins of others. Some die so that others might be cleansed and
live.
(4)	The Holocaust is a modern Akedah (sacrifice of Isaac)—it is a test
of our faith.
(5)	The Holocaust is an instance of the temporary "Eclipse of
God"—there are times when God is inexplicably absent from history or
unaccountably chooses to turn His face away.
(6)	The Holocaust is proof that "God is dead"—if there were a God He
would surely have prevented Auschwitz; if He did not then He does not
exist.
(7)	The Holocaust is the maximization of human evil, the price mankind
has to pay for human freedom. The Nazis were men, not gods; Auschwitz
reflects ignominiously on man; it does not touch God's existence or
perfection.
(8)	The Holocaust is revelation: it issues a call for Jewish
affirmation. From Auschwitz comes the command: Jews survive!
(9)	The Holocaust is an inscrutable mystery; like all of God's ways it
transcends human understanding and demands faith and silence.
These nine responses, though the most common, are not exhaustive, and
there are yet other ways of accounting for the tragedy and of fitting
the pieces together. Moreover, these responses are usually used in
various inter-related and inter-dependent combinations and explanatory
accounts by those who try to grapple with the philosophical and
theological issues raised by the Holocaust. These complex explanatory
models, seeing the need for several responses together, are a
recognition of the fact that no single response seems adequate for the
variety of challenges and questions raised by the multi-faceted and
dimensionally complex concern to which we give the name—the Holocaust.
Furthermore, one can safely say that no one method of dealing with the
issues, nor any specific response—no matter how perspicuous and
authentic—has become "normative". Many and very different responses
have been evoked on these several themes, and many more will no doubt
follow in due course. Out of the ongoing debate however, four thinkers
have emerged as of particular importance. Each has his own unique
perspective, arguments and aims, and each uses an interesting and
provocative configuration of the above outlined responses. All deserve
close and special attention as they illuminate and focus the issues in
particularly valuable ways. The four are Richard Rubenstein, Emil
Fackenheim, Ignaz Maybaum and Eliezer Berkovits.
Richard Rubenstein
Richard Rubenstein has been a man of our times. Coming to the Hebrew
Union College Reform seminary in 1942 and sharing its optimistic
vision of man and its liberal ideal of human progress, he has been
converted by the Holocaust into holding a Jewish "Death of God"
theology. His sensitivity to the reality of evil witnessed by the
death camps has forced him to call into question the very foundations
of Judaism. "The one preeminent measure of the adequacy of all
contemporary Jewish theology," Rubenstein writes, "is the seriousness
with which it deals with this supreme problem (the Holocaust) of
Jewish history."2 No one has taken the problem more seriously and no
Jewish theologian has drawn more radical conclusions from it.
The theological problem raised by the Nazi extermination of Jews can
be simply described: if God is the God of History and Israel is His
chosen people, what responsibility does God bear for Auschwitz? Did
God use the Nazis, as He used Assyria of old, as "the rod of His
anger?" (Isaiah 10:5) If He did not, how could such a thing happen in
the face of the living God? It is the ancient "Problem of evil" to
which men of faith have responded with countless theodicies; now it is
raised with maximum vigor, clarity, and urgency. In Germany, in August
1961, Rubenstein was confronted by a well-meaning Protestant clergyman
Dean Heinrich Grueber with the affirmation that God had indeed used
the Nazis as the instrument of His will.3 This affirmation shocked
Rubenstein; it was, he tells us, "a theological point of no return."4
The consequences seemed clear and Rubenstein felt compelled to reject
the presence of God at Auschwitz rather than believe that Hitler was
God's instrument: "If I believed in God as the omnipotent author of
the historical drama and Israel as His Chosen People, I had to accept
Dean Grueber's conclusion that it was God's will that Hitler committed
six million Jews to slaughter. I could not possibly believe in such a
God nor could I believe in Israel as the chosen people of God after
Auschwitz."5
Rubenstein was thus driven to the same conclusion as that of the
talmudic heretic Elisha ben Avuyah, "Let din ve-let dayyan" (There is
neither Judgment nor Judge).6
In Rubenstein's view the only honest response to the death camps is
the rejection of God, "God is dead," and the open recognition of the
meaninglessness of existence. Our life is neither planned nor
purposeful, there is no Divine Will nor does the world reflect Divine
concern. The world is indifferent to men. Man must now reject his
illusions, and along with his fellow men, recognize the existential
truth that life is not intrinsically valuable, that the human
condition reflects no transcendental purpose; history reveals no
providence. The theological account of Auschwitz which sees it as
retribution, which re-echoes one side of the ancient theology of
Judaism that Israel's suffering is "because of our sins" is to
blaspheme against both God and man. What crime could Israel have
committed, what sin could have been so great as to justify such
retribution? What God could have meted out such justice on His chosen
ones? All such "rationalizations" of Auschwitz pale before its
enormity, and for Rubenstein, the only response that is worthy is the
rejection of the entire Jewish theological framework: there is no God
and no covenant with Israel.
Man must turn away from illusions and face his actual existential
situation. Drawing heavily upon the atheistic existentialists,
Rubenstein interprets this to mean that in the face of the world's
nihilism man must assert value; in response to history's
meaninglessness men must create and project meaning; against the
objective fact that human life has no purpose, man must subjectively,
yet meaningfully, act as if there were purpose. All that men have are
themselves and each other: Auschwitz has taught that life itself is
the great value, there is no need to see it as valuable only because
of its reflection of transcendental values or metahistorical meanings.
What worth there will be, will be of one's own creation. This radical
thesis is not new, but it is new in a Jewish theological context.7
Had Rubenstein merely asserted the denial of God, his would not be a
Jewish theology. What makes it "Jewish" are the implications he draws
from his radical negation with respect to the people of Israel. It
might be expected that the denial of God's covenantal relation with
Israel would entail the end of Judaism and so the end of the Jewish
people. From the perspective of traditional Jewish theology this would
certainly be the case. Rubenstein, however, again inverts our ordinary
perception and argues that with the "death of God," the existence of
"people-hood," of the community of Israel, is all the more important.
Now that there is nowhere else to turn for meaning, men need each
other all the more to create meaning: "it is precisely because human
existence is tragic, ultimately hopeless, and without meaning that we
treasure our religious community."8 Though Judaism has to be
"demythologized," i.e., it has  to recognize the renunciation of the
normative historic claims to a unique "chosen status,"9 at the same
time it paradoxically gains heightened importance in the process. Now
that "God is dead" religious community is all the more important!
It is precisely the ultimate hopelessness and gratuity of our human
situation which calls forth our strongest need for religious
community. If all we have is one another, then assuredly we need one
another more than ever.10
The Jew after Auschwitz, despite his recognition of the now
transcended "mythic" structure of historic Jewish experience, is still
a Jew and as such carries within him the "shared vicissitudes of
history, culture and psychological perspective,"11 that define a Jew.
Jews, like all men, are rooted in concrete life-situations. For the
Jew, Rubenstein argues, only Jewish experience can be authentic. It is
in the traditional forms of life that we best express all our
aspiration and ideals, and participate in a "community of shared
predicament and ultimate concern".12
In many of his writings Rubenstein has carried on a re-examination of
classical Jewish values from the perspective of their suitability for
the modern, post-Holocaust Jew. Primarily through the use of
psychoanalytic categories13 he has tried to re-interpret the meaning
of classical aspects of Judaism while advocating their retention. He
has been especially concerned to make out a case for the retention of
religious ritual and symbolism. Though these forms of religious life
have lost their traditional justification, they can and do have
profound psychological implications and are to be retained on
psychological grounds. Thus, bar mitzvah is valuable as a rite de
passage, a ritual in which the community formally recognizes the new
sexual maturity of the boy and confirms publicly his new masculine
role.14 This is psychologically valuable for both the boy and society.
Again the synagogue retains a central role in Jewish life, if only as
a psychological clinic. Rubenstein has extended this psychoanalytic
interpretation of Judaism to the rabbinic material in his The
Religious Imagination (1968),15 and to Paul, whom he sees as one of
the "greatest Jewish theologians", in his My Brother Paul (1972).
Coupled to this psychoanalytic interpretation is a mystical paganism16
in which the Jew is urged to forgo history and return to the cosmic
rhythms of natural existence.17 The modern Jew is exhorted to
recognize the priorities of nature. So, for example, he must come to
understand that the real meaning of messianism is "the proclamation of
the end of history and the return to nature and nature's cyclical
repetitiveness".18 The future and final redemption is not to be the
conquest of nature by history as traditionally conceived in the Jewish
tradition, but rather the conquest of history by nature and the return
of all things to their natural origins. Man has to rediscover the
sanctity of his natural life and reject forever the delusions of
overcoming it; he must submit and enjoy his body and his nature—not
try to transform or transcend them. Rubenstein sees the renewal of
Zion, and the rebuilding of the land with its return to the soil by
the Jew, as a harbinger of this return to nature on the part of the
Jew who has been removed from the soil (symbolic of nature) by
theology and necessity for almost two thousand years. The return to
the earth points toward the final escape of the Jew from the
negativity of history to the vitality and promise of self-liberation
through nature.
Rubenstein's account is intended as an interpretation not only of what
has been, but of what ought to be. It is put forward as a program for
Jewish renewal and spiritual re-integration. Among the aims of this
program is the eradication of those elements which create the
explosive mix which produces a Holocaust. One of the most significant
lessons, to be drawn from the "demythologization" of Jewish history,
and its rejection of history in favor of nature, is its overcoming of
the root-cause of anti-Semitism. Rubenstein argues that anti-Semitism
is a product of the mythic structures of Jewish and Christian
theology. The contributing Jewish myth is its claim to be a "chosen
people." This created a "specialness" about Jews which has been
disastrous. The contributing Christian myth was predicated on its
acceptance of the antecedent Jewish one—the Church accepted the
"chosenness of Israel" and was therefore able to see it only in
theological terms; paradoxically it saw Israel as providing "both the
incarnate Deity and His murderers."19 The most potent of all Christian
myths—the Crucifixion—is indissolubly linked to the deicidal activity
of the "chosen people"—the Jews. Wherever the Christian story is
retold, a powerful anti-Semitic seed is planted. In order, therefore,
once and for all to put an end to anti-Semitism, it is necessary for
the Jew to renounce his mythic self-image as a "chosen people" so that
his relation to his Christian neighbor may be normalized and the
Christian will be able to see him in the same light as he sees other
men. This process needs to be paralleled in Christianity; it too has
to correspondingly "demythologize" its image of the Jew. Yet to do
this is to rupture historic incarnational theology and its claims for
Jesus as the promised Christ coming out of the body of historic
Israel. This is to ask a great deal of Christianity, but, Rubenstein
argues, unless it occurs there will be future tragedy.
An integral part of this mythic relation between Judaism and
Christianity, Rubenstein claims, is an urge toward vicarious atonement
and the role of the sacrificial victim. This element arises, in
Freudian fashion, from man's deepest wish, which is to kill God.
Through deicide, men would be liberated from restraint and from the
commands of morality and virtue. The Crucifixion is the most powerful
human symbol of deicide. However, the nature of the tale allows the
Christian to deflect his own guilty desires of deicide onto the Jew
who is objectified as the "Christ-Killer." The Christian therefore can
find a "legitimate" outlet for his murderous instinctual desires by
deflecting his instincts against the Jew. Thus whether the Jew is
conceived in the mind of the Christian as Jesus or as Judas, his end
is the same: ritual slaughter as sacrificial victim.20
Rubenstein has given us a powerful image of what it means to draw the
extreme conclusion from Auschwitz: "God is dead." Yet his is not the
only nor the final word.
Emil Fackenheim
No philosopher or theologian has written as extensively or as
feelingly about the Holocaust as has Emil Fackenheim. Having
experienced life in a camp,21 Fackenheim, seemingly out of a sense of
compulsion, has tried to grapple with the overwhelming events of the
death camps in order to draw some meaning from them for post-Holocaust
Jewry. In a series of essays, and especially and most clearly in his
God's Presence in History (1970), Fackenheim has tried to find a way
to avoid both the absolute faith of the pious who do not see any
special problem in the Holocaust and those like Rubenstein who argue
that the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn from Auschwitz is the
"Death of God" and the ultimate absurdity of history.22 If the former
alternative blasphemes against Hitler's victims, the latter blasphemes
against the God of the victims. Both victims and God have to be held
together in dialectical tension after Auschwitz; neither can be
devalued without resulting distortion and loss of truth.
To keep God and Israel together is the demand of Jewish theology; it
is still an imperative after the Holocaust; the problem is how it is
to be effected. If Rubenstein's solution of Jewish communal existence
without the God of historic Judaism is no answer, what then is the
answer? Fackenheim's reply is both subtle and difficult. He is adamant
in his refusal to allow any theological explanation of the Holocaust.
In no sense, he argues, can any particular theodicy be propounded in
which God's goodness can be vindicated and Auschwitz seen as part of a
rational cosmic pattern whose interpretation can be understood by man.
In this sense the Holocaust is devoid of explanation and meaning.
Thus, like Rubenstein, he totally rejects any account which interprets
Auschwitz in terms of mi-penei hata'einu—"because of our sins." The
various attempts to explain the horrible events in terms of vicarious
suffering or martyrdom achieve no more lasting result. For Fackenheim
the enormity of the tragedy transcends all the classical explanations
of suffering and evil. In his staunch rejection of explanations
Fackenheim resembles Rubenstein, and like him he realizes that which
is called into question is nothing less than the God of history
Himself.
Yet dispite the implications, despite the absolute failure of
theodicy, despite the seeming absurdity, Fackenheim calls on men to
believe. Rubenstein becomes an atheist because he cannot and will not
accept God as in any sense the author of Auschwitz; Fackenheim, in
opposition insists that this is what we must do. It is the presence of
God in contemporary Jewish history, even at Auschwitz, that Fackenheim
would have us find. Fackenheim insists that we do not and cannot
understand what God was doing at Auschwitz, or why He allowed
Auschwitz, but we must and do insist that He was there. For
Fackenheim, unlike Rubenstein, the Holocaust does not prove that "God
is dead." Boldly he claims that from Auschwitz as from Sinai23 God
addresses Israel.
How does this voice address Israel and what does it say? In order to
fully understand Fackenheim's views on this one has to turn away from
his direct writings on the Holocaust and come to an understanding of
his theological position in general. In his own biographical odyssey
he has moved slowly but perceptibly from a liberal to a neo-orthodox24
understanding of Judaism. Involved in and affected by the Nazi
onslaught Fackenheim, like most of his generation, felt the need to
re-appraise the nature and status of Judaism. In this re-appraisal the
generally held liberal position with its dogmatic belief in the
perfectability of man and the translation of the  commanding God of
the Bible into a moral Ideal was seen to be untrue to Judaism's
deepest insights and superficial25 in its analysis of the human
situation.26
Judaism is not Deism or moral Idealism; it has its foundation and its
continuance in the meeting with the Living God of the Bible, who is
continually present in history. For Fackenheim Judaism can be
understood only as the dynamic response to the present address of the
Divine. Fackenheim's espousal of this existential supernaturalism,
with its central emphasis on the reality of God and His incursion into
history which calls man to deeds is deeply indebted to the influence
of Buber and Rosenzweig. It was they who had "sought nothing less than
a modern presence of the ancient God."27 In working out the
implications of this rediscovered supernaturalism Fackenheim has been
especially influenced by Buber's dialogical philosophy of "I and
Thou." Fackenheim accepts, in its general specifications, the Buberian
doctrine of the I-Thou28 encounter as the proper model for Jewish
openness to the reality of the living God. Thus he does not begin with
any proof for the existence of God but rather with the presumption
that God exists. God cannot be proven, but He can (and must) be met.29
Only from within the circle of faith can one "hear" the Divine and
respond. Like Buber, Fackenheim insists that God reveals Himself in
history through personal encounters with Jews and Israel. Revelation
understood as the encounter of God and man happens everywhere and at
all times. Yet the experience cannot be verified by any objective
criteria, it cannot show itself decisively to those who would not
"hear" the voice. The I-Thou encounter has its own rhythm, and any
attempt to force it into improper (I-It to use Buber's terminology)
categories destroys its character and silences its message.30 The
Fackenheim who hears a "commanding voice from Auschwitz" is the
Fackenheim who stands within the covenantal affirmation.31
Buber applies his concept of revelation to Israel's history and sees
God's address in the overwhelming events of Israel's life.32 Building
upon Buber's view, Fackenheim develops his own account of Jewish
history. For him Jewish history is a series of overwhelming events,
but not all the events are of the same character. The most powerful
events, such as those connected with the Exodus from Egypt and the
giving of the Torah at Sinai, actually created the religious identity
of the Jewish people. These creative extra-ordinary historical
happenings Fackenheim calls "root experiences."33 "Root experiences"
are historical events of such a formative character that they continue
to influence all future "presents" of the people and they are of such
a power that these past events legislate to every future era.34 In
addition, "root experiences" are public, historical events. They
belong to the history of the people and continue to claim the
allegiance of the people. Thus, for example, the miracle at the Red
Sea is an historical event which is reenacted at every Passover seder
and whose power affects each subsequent generation and continually
reveals the saving activity of God to each age. Lastly, and most
importantly, "root experiences" provide the accessibility of Divine
Presence in the here and now;35 past events are lived through as
"present reality" and thus the Jew is "assured that the saving God of
the past saves still".36
Not all the great events in Israel's history however met these
criteria. There is a second category of events whose function is
different. Fackenheim calls these events "epochmaking events".37 These
are events which, unlike "root experiences," are not formative, they
do not create the essentials of Jewish faith, but rather they are
historical experiences which challenge the "root experiences" through
new situations, which test the resiliency and generality of "root
experiences" to answer to new and unprecedented historical conditions
and realities. For example, the destruction of the First and Second
Temples severely tested whether or not the commanding and saving
Presence of God could be maintained. The Sages of the talmudic era,
who lived through the destruction of the second Temple and the
Prophets who lived through the first, were able to respond to these
crisis situations with both realism and faith in the "root
experiences" of Israel. Jeremiah sees Nebuchadnezzar as the instrument
of God's purpose (Jer. 43:10) and the talmudic sages saw the Second
Destruction and subsequent Exile as nothing less than God's own exile
with His people, thus allowing for the dispersion and yet holding fast
to God's presence in all history at all times and places. And such a
God, present in all history, would redeem Israel in the future as He
had in the past.38 This faith was severely tested by experience, but a
way—admittedly fragmentary and contradictory39—was found to hold both
together. In other times and other places the "root experiences" have
again and again been tested, indeed the history of Israel in diaspora
from one culture to another, from one era to another, is a series of
"epochmaking events" which try again and again the foundations of
Jewish faith in the God of History. Yet, through it all, the midrashic
framework has held fast: God and History are not divorced; Israel and
God are not torn asunder. Each trial brings new strength and new
affirmation of the saving and commanding God first revealed at the Red
Sea and Sinai. But what of Auschwitz? Can it too be assimilated to the
traditional pattern of midrashic response? Is Auschwitz another
testing, another epochal event; or more drastically, is it perhaps a
"root experience" which is formative for Jewish faith, but in an
ultimately negative and destructive sense.
Fackenheim argues that Auschwitz is an "epochmaking event" in Jewish
history, that it calls into question the historical presence of God in
a uniquely powerful way. And yet he argues that the Jew must still
affirm the continued existence of God in Jewish history—even at
Auschwitz—and he must re-affirm the present reality of the people's
"root experience" of a commanding God (of Sinai), now commanding
Israel from within the Holocaust itself. This radical reply to the
unprecedented crisis of faith is Fackenheim's response to Auschwitz.
The Jew cannot, dare not, must not, reject God. Auschwitz is
revelation! In the gas-chambers and crematoria we must, we do,
experience God. Fackenheim dares to make a religious affirmation of
what drives others to atheism or silence. Like Job, he gives
expression to a great faith: "Though he slay me, yet shall I trust in
Him" (Job 13:15).
The commanding Word that Fackenheim hears from Auschwitz is: "Jews are
forbidden to hand Hitler posthumous victories"40; Jews are under a
sacred obligation to survive; after Auschwitz Jewish existence is
itself a holy act; Jews are under a sacred obligation to remember the
martyrs; Jews are, as Jews, forbidden to despair of redemptions, or to
become cynical about the world and man, for to submit to cynicism is
to abdicate responsibility for the world and to deliver the world into
the hands of the forces of Auschwitz. And above all, Jews are
"forbidden to despair of the God of Israel, lest Judaism perish."41
Hitler's demonic passion was to eradicate Jews and Judaism from
history; for the Jew to despair of the God of Israel as a result of
Hitler's monstrous actions would be, ironically, to do Hitler's work
and to aid in the accomplishments of his goal. The voice that speaks
from Auschwitz above all demands that Hitler win no post-humous
victories, that no Jew do what Hitler could not do. The Jewish will
for survival is natural enough, but Fackenheim invests it with
transcendental significance. Precisely because others would eradicate
Jews from the earth, Jews are commanded to resist annihilation.
Paradoxically, Hitler makes Judaism after Auschwitz a necessity. To
say "no" to Hitler is to say the "yes" to the commanding voice of the
God of Sinai; to say "no" to the God of Sinai is to say the "yes" to
Hitler.
From Fackenheim's perspective, every Jew who has remained a Jew since
1945 has responded affirmatively to the commanding voice of Auschwitz.
But the God of biblical faith is not only a commanding God; he is also
a saving God. The crossing of the Red Sea is as much a part of Jewish
history as is the revelation at Sinai: both are "root experiences."
Fackenheim is sensitive to this. He has made much of the commanding
voice of Auschwitz, but where is the saving God of the Exodus? Without
the crossing of the Red Sea there can be no Sinai. Fackenheim knows
this. He also knows that to talk of a saving God, no matter how
softly, no matter how tentatively, after the Holocaust is
problematical when God did not work His salvation there and then. Even
whisper about salvation after Auschwitz is already to speak as a man
of faith, not as a seeker, and even then one can only whisper. The
continued existence of the people of Israel however, and most
specifically the establishment and maintainance of the State of
Israel, forces and encourages Fackenheim to risk speaking of hope and
the possibility of redemption. Auschwitz and the State of Israel are
inseparably tied together; what the former seems to deny the latter,
at least tentatively, affirms. For Fackenheim, the State of Israel is
living testimony to God's continued saving presence in history, and
through it the modern Jew witnesses a re-affirmation of the "root
experience" of salvation essential to the survival of Jewish faith.42
Ignaz Maybaum
Ignaz Maybaum, a distinguished Reform rabbi of German origin, long
resident in England, seeks the meaning of the Holocaust from within
the traditional Jewish responses to suffering. For him, unlike
Rubenstein or Fackenheim, Auschwitz is not a unique event in Jewish
history, but a reappearance of a classic and sanctified event. A
disciple of Franz Rosenzweig, Maybaum affirms the dynamic relation of
God and Israel. He believes in the reality of the transcendent God of
the Bible and the movement of this God into covenantal relation with
Israel. Israel is unique among the nations, and its history bears
witness to its uniqueness. Its historical experience bears witness to
its God and His purpose and reveals a pattern into which the Holocaust
fits.
The pattern of Jewish history is one in which Israel's role is to be a
nation among other nations and in which it is non-Jews who are the
prime movers of events. Israel's destiny is not isolated from its
historical interdependence with the nations of the world, and its
covenantal purpose is only revealed in and through this intercourse.
From its very beginnings in the Exodus-Sinai events, Israel's history
is played out in relation to other peoples, first Egypt, then later
Assyria, Babylonia, Rome, the empires of Christendom, and Islam.
Therefore the categories of Jewish history have to be categories
intelligible to non-Jews. Fackenheim introduces two categories to
explain the structure of Jewish historic experience, "root
experiences" and "epochmaking events," in the latter of which he
places such events as the destruction of the First and Second Temples.
Maybaum, conscious of Israel's relation to the gentiles, goes one step
further in his analysis of Jewish history. He subdivides what
Fackenheim calls "epochmaking events" into two classes, that of hurban
and that of gezerah. Hurban (= "destruction") are events, like the
destruction of the First and Second Temples, which "make an end to an
old era and create a new era".43 Gezerah (plural Gezerot, evil decree)
are those events, such as the expulsion from Spain in 1492 and the
Chmielnicki massacres in 17th century Poland, which, although
cataclysmic, do not usher in a new era. According to this
classification, Maybaum sees the Holocaust as a hurban, i.e., an event
which signals the end of one era and the beginning of another in
Jewish and world history. Moreover a gezerah can be averted. As has
been said for generations on the Day of Atonement: Teshuvah u-Tefillah
u-Zedakah ma'avirin et ro'a ha-gezerah ("penitence, prayer, and
charity avert the evil decree"). A hurban, however, cannot be averted;
its meaning goes beyond the parameters of Israel's own history,
effects world history, and most importantly, is an intervention of God
in history which is irreversible.
Maybaum goes further still in explicating the meaning of
hurban,—hurban implies progress.44 There is positive value in
destruction; Auschwitz as hurban has world historical significance in
man's striving for advancement. In Jewish history the term hurban has
been applied twice previously, the first time to the destruction of
Solomon's Temple (586 B.C.E) and then again to the destruction of the
Second Temple (70 C.E.). In each case Maybaum sees the advancement of
humanity as a result of the catastrophe. The first destruction created
the Jewish diaspora, and through the diaspora Judaism went out among
the other nations to spread God's word and do God's work: this was
progress. The destruction of the Second Temple saw the establishment
of the synagogue, and in the synagogue the world saw a form of
religious piety in which no sacrifices were performed, no blood was
shed, and religious life was "elevated" to a higher spiritual level
than hitherto. The Holocaust is the third hurban, and like the earlier
two Maybaum sees it as helping in human advancement: it is the medium
of spiritual development.
To understand Maybaum's view one added feature of his perspective,
although already mentioned, needs to be brought more sharply into
focus. The historical inter-relation of Israel among the nations, in
which the prime movers of the historical order are the non-Jews,
requires that Judaism conform to non-Jewish motifs in order to make
its presence felt as God's agent among the gentiles. With a profound
insight into the relative world-views of Judaism and Christianity,
Maybaum argues that for Judaism the central motif is the Akedah (the
sacrifice of Isaac, [Gen. 22]), whereas for Christianity the central
motif is the enormously powerful image of the Crucifixion. The Akedah
is a sacrifice which never happened. Isaac can grow to maturity,
marry, have children, die normally. According to Maybaum there is no
heroic tragedy in the Akedah, its message is: there can be progress
without martyrdom and without death. Alternatively, the Crucifixion is
a sacrifice that did happen. Jesus' life is foreshortened, he cannot
marry, have children, die normally. Here is the stuff of heroic
tragedy, its message is: martyrdom is required that others may live,
vicarious death is needed so that the world may go forward. "The cross
contradicts the Akedah: Isaac is sacrificed."45 As Maybaum understands
it, the message of the Crucifixion is: "somebody had to die that
others may live."46 With the Crucifixion as its model of Divine
activity in history, the Christian world is unable to grasp the higher
religious meaning of the Akedah. Tragic as this may be, for Judaism to
speak to Christians it must speak in a language they understand—the
language of the Cross. Thus the modern Jew collectively, as the single
Jew of two millenia ago, must mount the Cross (undergo persecution,
suffering and death) in order to arouse the conscience of the gentile
world.
So powerful is the hold on western consciousness of the image of the
Crucifixion that progress can be made only when framed in terms
assimilable to this pattern. The third hurban (the Holocaust), like
the earlier two, is a divine event which is meant to bring about
humanity's advancement. It is framed in the shape of Auschwitz, an
overwhelming reliving by the entire Jewish people of the Crucifixion
of one Jew in order that it may be able to address the deepest
sensitivities of modern Christian civilization: "In Auschwitz Jews
suffered vicarious atonement for the sins of mankind."47 Pushing this
interpretation of Jewish history to the utmost, Maybaum writes:
The Golgotha of modern mankind is Auschwitz. The cross, the Roman
gallows, was replaced by the gas chamber. The gentiles, it seems, must
first be terrified by the blood of the sacrificed scapegoat to have
the mercy of God revealed to them and become converted, become
baptized gentiles, become Christians.48
Crucially important to Maybaum's entire schemata is his contention
that hurban means both destruction and progress. What progress then
comes through Auschwitz? Have we not since Nazism seen the Congo,
Biafra, and Vietnam? Has the State of Israel not been involved in four
wars? Maybaum's conception of progress very much reflects his
perspective as a Reform Jew. He is aware that Hitler's defeat was not
the defeat of all evil, but he does see the destruction of Nazism as
the final destruction of the remnants of the medieval period in human
history. Though the medieval priod seems to have been long transcended
as an historical epoch. Maybaum sees Nazism as the final manifestation
of the medieval world view and the cataclysmic event of the
Holocaust—hurban—as the means whereby the world moved with finality
from medievalism to modernity. This movement from past to present is
symbolized in the destruction of Eastern European Jewry, for it was
they who still lived according to the pattern of medieval Jewry, i.e.,
centered in ghettoes, cut off from their neighbors, focusing all
activity within a strict halakhic framework. Their destruction in the
Holocaust represents the passing of the medieval historic time which
generated this pattern of Jewish existence. As a Reform Jew, who still
shares the optimistic vision of classical Reform, and its unflattering
opinion of traditional Jewish observance, Maybaum is able to interpret
the end of the "shtetl" and the destruction of Eastern European Jewry,
even if through the means of a Hitler, as progress. After Auschwitz
world Jewry lives almost exclusively in modern western cultures,
America, Israel, Western Europe, and Russia, and this, according to
Maybaum, is progress. In these cultures the Jew is free from the
halakhah,49 and free to engage the possibilities open to him through
Enlightenment and political emancipation. Repeating the humanistic
version of messianism espoused by classical Reform, with its belief in
progress and humanity's perfectibility, Maybaum invests the
post-Holocaust era with at least the veneer of messianic redemption:
"The Jewish people is, here and now, mankind at its goal. We have
arrived. We are the first fruits of God's harvest."50 One cannot but
hear in Maybaum's enthusiasm for the post-Holocaust era an echo of the
hope that 19th century Reform Jews expressed as the original promise
of emancipation—despite what separates him from them.
In the Christian world the transcendence of medievalism is manifested
in the new ecumenicism of the Catholic Church, most clearly expressed
in the spirit of Vatican II which recognized, at least in small
measure, the spiritual legitimacy of other religious traditions, and
removed from its liturgy and teaching such "medieval" elements as the
perfidiis Judaeis ("perfidious Jew") phrase from its Easter rite. As
the playwright Hochhuth, in his play The Deputy, noted: "The S.S. were
the Dominicans of the technical age," and the Fuehrer-principle was a
Nazi version of papal infallibility; indeed the entire tragedy of the
Holocaust was the medieval Inquisition repeated in modern dress. All
these are elements of a best forgotten Middle Ages. After Auschwitz,
both Jew and Christian can go beyond the historic postures of their
medieval period through progressive reform more suitable to a
post-Holocaust future. Auschwitz makes possible the transcendence of
the medieval church and the medieval ghetto.
Maybaum, like Rubenstein and Fackenheim, is sensitive to the essential
issue of God's presence in history as raised by the Holocaust. Like
Fackenheim, Maybaum is a man of faith, but more than Fackenheim and
more than almost all other Jewish thinkers, he is willing to draw the
conclusion that others will not draw: Hitler is God's agent. Maybaum
follows the logic of his commitment to God's presence in History
further and more radically than do the others. Outrageous as this
entailment appears, to credit God with being the all-powerful God of
history seems logically to require seeing God as the agent behind
Auschwitz, who works His will through Auschwitz. Though others, who
would find God in history, even at Auschwitz, recoil from this final
attribution, Maybaum does not. As the prophet Jeremiah saw
Nebuchadnezzar, the destroyer of Jerusalem, as the "servant of God" so
Maybaum consciously parallels Jeremiah's phrase and gives expression
to the awful paradox: "Hitler, My servant!"51 Maybaum does not shy
away from the full meaning of this expression: "Hitler was an
instrument....God used this instrument to cleanse, to purify, to
punish a sinful world; the six million Jews, they died an innocent
death; they died because of the sins of others."52
Maybaum is a man of great faith, only so can he affirm what he has
affirmed. Calling upon Isaiah's image of "the remnant which will
return;"53 the she'ar yashuv, Maybaum affirms that though one-third of
world Jewry was destroyed in the death camps, two-thirds survived and
this salvation is a miracle no less great than that at the Red Sea; it
too is redemption. Maybaum here sees the picture in a more traditional
way and calls us to do the same. Look at the salvation of the
majority, not the death of a large and sacred minority. See in, and
through, the Nazi Holocaust the saving face of God and none other.
Eliezer Berkovits
Eliezer Berkovits has been a keen student of contemporary Jewish
philosophy and has made an especial contribution to the creative
discussion of the nature and purpose of the halakhah in modern
Orthodox Judaism. In his work entitled Faith After the Holocaust
(1973) he gives a more traditional response to the Holocaust than any
of the other thinkers so far discussed and points out and highlights
important elements that need to be considered in any response to
Auschwitz.
Berkovits begins his discussion by calling attention to the history of
Christian anti-Semitism, which cannot be forgotten or undervalued in
any account of Nazi anti-Semitism. This is perhaps the most difficult
issue to face after the Holocaust. Berkovits, however, does not run
away from this issue or deflect it; he faces it and requires others to
face it if both Jew and Christian want to understand the past and make
sure that it does not repeat itself in the future.
Having made clear the historic anti-Semite background to Auschwitz,
Berkovits, a learned rabbinic scholar, explores, as did Fackenheim in
his God's Presence in History, the various traditional historic
responses to suffering in the Jewish tradition. Martyrdom is not new
in Judaism and Berkovits explores the tradition to see what, if
anything, can be taken from it that would be applicable to a
contemporary response to the death camps. The first response and the
most important in historical terms is that known as kiddush
ha-Shem—death for "the sanctification of the Divine Name," i.e., death
which honors rather than dishonors God and bears witness to His truth.
In religious circles this has always been the most frequently given
answer to Jewish martyrdom: martyrdom is the ultimate act of
resignation and trust in God; it is a testing and a response of
faithfulness; it is the climactic act of religious heroism. During the
Holocaust there were many who were unable to face the horror of their
existence and their end with faith, yet there were many others who,
like Rabbi Akiva of old, went to their death in joy that they could
give their life for God. One example:54 the Ostrovzer Rebbe, Rabbi
Yehezkiel ha-Levi Hastuk, went out to meet his Nazi executioners
wearing his tallit and kittel, and before he was shot he announced:
"For some time now I have anticipated this zekhut (special merit) (of
kiddush ha-Shem). I am prepared".55 Berkovits knows that such acts do
not prove anything conclusive about the ultimate questions relevantly
raised about Auschwitz, but he asks that in all discussions of
Auschwitz this data too be considered. Berkovits pointedly asks the
valid question: if Nazi barbarism speaks for the absence of God, what
is to be said about the piety, moral grandeur, and saintliness of many
of the victims?
Berkovits' account proceeds from this point as if he, at least, is
satisfied that there is more to the issue of "Faith after the
Holocaust" than a Richard Rubenstein is aware of. What is required
above all else, he argues, is to provide an adequate Jewish
self-understanding of its history and religion so that the events of
contemporary history can be properly appraised. Only against such a
background can one even begin to argue about the theological relevance
of the Holocaust. Critical of many other recent attempts to deal with
the "data" of Auschwitz, Berkovits argues that these other attempts
"suffer from one serious shortcoming: they deal with the Holocaust in
isolation, as if there had been nothing else in Jewish history but
this Holocaust."56 This theme re-appears throughout Berkovits'
treatment, not only as critique but as grounds for positive
affirmation.
On the basis of this, Berkovits makes the important declaration, which
in one sense at least puts him close to Maybaum, that in the framework
of world Jewish history Auschwitz is unique in the magnitude of its
horror but not in the problem it presents to religious faith. "From
the point of view of the problem, we have had innumerable
Auschwitz's."57 With this declaration Berkovits states the basic
presupposition of his entire response to the Holocaust. For in
declaring that it is not unique as a problem for faith, he radically
dissociates himself from both Fackenheim and Rubenstein, who rest
their entire positions on the Holocaust's uniqueness and its forcing
Judaism into new and unprecedented responses. If Auschwitz is only the
repetition of an ancient pattern, then the entire nature of the
problem of response to Auschwitz takes on a different dimension. The
theological problem, as Berkovits sees it, is the same whether one Jew
is slaughtered or six million. Each raises the question: How could God
let it happen? How does this square with God's providential presence
and moral perfection?
If, then, the problem is not unique, what have other generations of
Jews, after previous Holocausts, made of Jewish martyrdom? Berkovits
rejects outright, as do all the other major Jewish thinkers who deal
with the Holocaust, the simplistic response that the death camps are
mi-penei hata'einu ("because of our sins"). He acknowledges that the
Holocaust was "an injustice absolute."58 Moreover, with great honesty
he adds, "It was an injustice countenanced by God."59 Yet, Berkovits'
concern is to make room for Auschwitz in the Divine scheme despite the
fact that it is an unmitigated moral outrage. He calls attention to a
more significant and sophisticated response to evil already stated in
the Bible, the notion of hester panim ("The Hiding Face of God").
Hester panim is the view that at times God, mysteriously and
inexplicably, and without any obvious human cause such as sin, turns
His face from man.60 In response to their martyrdoms previous
generations have had those who answered the "problem of evil" with
unbelief. Judaism as a whole, however, has rejected the skeptical
response and formulated the doctrine of hester panim in order to hold
on to God's presence despite His hiddenness. In some mysterious way,
God's hiddenness and God's redemptiveness are both seen as necessary
features of His unfathomable being.
Moreover, Berkovits argues that God's hiddenness is required for man
to be a moral creature. God's hiddenness creates the possibility for
human action. God allows man freedom by "absenting" Himself from
history. Thus man can exercise his moral will, he can become good or
evil. For good and evil to be real possibilities, God has to respect
man's decisions and be bound by them. God has to abstain from reacting
to human moral evil if human action is to possess value. Moral
humanity requires freedom, and freedom is always open to abuse.
Berkovits here re-asserts the classic view of the necessity of "free
will" to morality. God is long suffering with an evil humanity, yet
this results in suffering to some while God waits for the sinner. Thus
"while He shows forbearance with the wicked, he must turn a deaf ear
to the anguished cries of the violated."61 The paradoxical implication
of this situation is this: humanity is impossible if God is strictly
just; if God is loving beyond the requirements of strict justice there
must be human suffering and evil. For Berkovits this is the correct
way to view the problem of theodicy in order to be able to continue to
believe despite Auschwitz.
God must absent Himself for man to be, but God must also be present in
order that ultimately meaninglessness does not gain final victory.
Thus God's presence in history must be sensed as hiddenness, and His
hiddenness must be understood as the sign of His presence. God reveals
His power in history by curbing His power so that man too might be
powerful. The only enduring witness to God's ultimate power over
history is the history and fate of the Jewish people. In its history,
Berkovits declares, one sees both attributes of God. The continued
existence of Israel despite its long history of suffering is the
greatest single proof that God is present in history despite His
hiddenness.62 Israel is the witness to God's presence in history.
Nazism, in its satanic power, understood this fact of Jewish history
and its slaughter of Jews was an attempt to slaughter the God of
history. The Nazis understood, even as Israel sometimes fails to
understand, that God's presence in history is necessarily linked to
the fate of the Jewish people. The nature of Jewish existence stands
as prophetic testimony against the moral degeneracy of men and
nations; it is a mocking proclamation in the face of all human
idolatry, and it witnesses to the final judgment and redemption of
history by a moral God.
Berkovits forces his readers to consider whether the Holocaust is a
sign of the "death of God" or whether it is a sign of God's too great
mercy and long suffering with sinners.
Berkovits' argument requires that we take another studied look at
Jewish history and see Auschwitz in, and as part of, the long context
of Jewish historical experience. The Jew is forbidden to treat
Auschwitz as if it were all he knew of God's relation to Israel.
Auschwitz is not the only, or even the ultimate Jewish experience.63
The Jew who today witnesses the absence of God is the descendant of
those who at Sinai and the Red Sea directly encountered the Divine.
More important still, the Jew who today talks of Auschwitz also knows
the joy of a rebuilt Zion and an "ingathering of the exiles" in its
ancient homeland. Jewish survival after Auschwitz proclaims that
Auschwitz is not absolute. Though this does not answer the agonizing
questions of theodicy, it gives hope that they will be answered in
God's future redemptive acts.
The final element in Berkovits' analysis of contemporary Jewish faith
after the Holocaust is his passionate Zionism. Of all the thinkers
discussed Berkovits is the one most committed to Zionism and draws
most heavily on the theological implications of the rebirth of the
State of Israel. Fackenheim and Maybaum certainly value it and indeed,
Fackenheim has become increasingly ardent in his attitude towards
Zionism, yet it is Berkovits above all others who gives it a
theological significance and pride of place in the renewal of the
possibility of Jewish faith after Auschwitz. The rebirth of the State
of Israel is contemporary revelation; it is the voice of God speaking
forth from history. The events of 1967 especially have an "inescapable
revelation quality."64 The return to the land must be understood in
both historical and eschatological terms. "The return is the
counterpart in history to the resolution in faith that this world is
to be established as the Kingdom of God."65 The return to Zion is the
ultimate vindication of God's presence in history and His providential
governance of man and the world. If at Auschwitz and all previous
Auschwitz's we have witnessed "The Hiding Face of God," in the rebirth
of the State of Israel and its success "we have seen a smile on the
face of God. It is enough."66
Conclusion
Each of the four responses to the Holocaust which we have considered
has seen the relevant events from a different perspective, with
different presuppositions and faith commitments. Among the many
lessons our four thinkers teach us, though not necessarily by
intention, two especially call for a concluding comment. The first is
that there is no simple set of "facts" which can be easily seized upon
and manipulated in order to get a result which is both meaningful and
possesses integrity. The "facts" are in large part determined by the
presuppositions and methodology one uses; different pre-conceptions
and different beginnings produce very different conclusions. Thus, our
first thinker philosophizes from a psychoanalytic and anthropological
center against which and from which everything must be judged; he
therefore finds transcendental as compared to anthropological and
psychological value wanting. The second begins with an existentialist
supernaturalism and so finds existential and supernatural elements
even at Auschwitz. The third holds a deep faith in progress and the
values of modern liberalism and thus finds God acting in history, even
in Holocaust history, to realize these personally prized ends. The
fourth thinker begins with traditional halakhic and metaphysical
commitments and thus finds the data more susceptible and amenable to a
conservative approach in which God is, at least partially, vindicated.
Secondly, and as a necessary corollary, it must be noted that each of
the responses considered, and others which have been suggested, all
represent, at best, fragmentary accounts, partial descriptions, and
limited and imperfect solutions to the major and most pressing
questions raised by Auschwitz. Given the nature of the Holocaust this
is not surprising. Each response, even optimally, can be seen to be
only partial and fragmentary in the face of the reality, quality and
magnitude of evil—evil absolute and unimaginable—in our time.
In conclusion, therefore, while we cannot point to any definitive, or
even agreed, results either with regard to a starting point or to
conclusions, it should not be thought that the investigation of
"Responses to the Holocaust" is devoid of importance and value. To
begin with, our review has brought the major elements crucial to any
and all thinking about the Holocaust into sharp focus. Secondly, we
have been given valuable instruction as to how one can begin to go
about giving shape to these elements—though it must be recognized that
any new, more definitive account of the Holocaust will have to go
beyond the positions studied above. Third, and of no small importance,
the now familiar variety found in what is to be counted as "data" and
"evidence" and the pluralism of the responses has the virtue of both
guiding and warning future thinkers that the Holocaust—whatever its
precise parameters are and whatever its meaning is seen to be—will not
yield to any conceptual oversimplification. Auschwitz raises the most
fundamental, and at the same time, some of the most difficult
intellectual, phenomenological and existential issues with which
reflective men have to deal.
What are now needed are fresh studies, more enquirers and further
original approaches. In the meanwhile, we acknowledge the contribution
that has already been made.
Notes
1. See Israel, State of: Theological Implications.
2. After Auschwitz (1966), "The Making of a Rabbi," p. 223.
3. This came in an interview with a German theologian, Heinrich
Grueber, Dean of the Evangelican Church of East and West Berlin, in
August 1961. The whole incident is recorded in After Auschwitz, "The
Dean and the Chosen People," 47–58.
4. After Auschwitz, 46.
5. After Auschwitz, 46.
6. Hagigah 14b ff.
7. The older, more famous religious existentialism of Rosenzweig and
Buber, for example, fiercely protested against the denial of value and
the need to create it. See, for example, Buber's sharp criticism of
Sartre in The Eclipse of God (1953).
8. After Auschwitz, 68.
9. Rubenstein uses the term "demythologize" regularly to describe the
process whereby Jews recognize the "death of God" and their new,
post-Holocaust situation. The term "demythologize" Rubenstein borrows
from the contemporary German Christian theologian and N.T. scholar,
Rudolph Bultmann. For more on what this process implies see Bultmann's
Jesus and Mythology (1958).
10. After Auschwitz, 119.
11. After Auschwitz, 119.
12. After Auschwitz, 119.
13. For more on Rubenstein's use of psychoanalytic categories to
re-interpret Judaism and especially Jewish rituals and symbols see his
After Auschwitz, The Religious Imagination, and My Brother Paul. See
also "Psychoanalysis and the Origins of Judaism" in the
Reconstructionist, December 2, 1962.
14. After Auschwitz, 223 ff., for Rubenstein's entire discussion on
bar mitzvah.
15. The Religious Imagination, Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill (1968).
16. After Auschwitz, "The symbols of Judaism and the Death of God",
240. See especially on this natural paganism Rubenstein's essay,
"Atonement and Sacrifice in Contemporary Jewish Liturgy" in After
Auschwitz, 93–111.
17. After Auschwitz, "The Rebuilding of Israel in Contemporary
Theology," especially 135 ff.
18. After Auschwitz, ibid., 135.
19. After Auschwitz, "Religion and the Origins of the Death Camp", 9.
20. This is a summary of Rubenstein's views in After Auschwitz,
"Person and Myth in the Judeo-Christian Encounter", 73–74.
21. He spent a short time in a concentration camp in 1938–39. He has
written about this experience with great power in his paper delivered
to the Sixth World Congress of Jewish Studies and published in
itsProceedings, Jerusalem, 1974.
22. Fackenheim scathingly replied to Rubenstein in God's Presence in
History with the following remark. "What assures him [Rubenstein] of
his own capacities to deal with the trauma—or stills his fear that
some other mechanism may cause him to utter words which should never
have been spoken ["God is dead"]? We need not go beyond his jarring
expression "the facts are in." Will all the facts ever be in? And
what, in this case, are the facts apart from the interpretation? The
statistics?" (72).
23. God's Presence in History, 31.
24. The term neo-orthodox is used here to mean a position analogous to
Franz Rosenzweig's. This position argues for divine revelation and
seeks to find meaning in the Torah so it can become the basis of
Jewish life. For a statement of Fackenheim's debt to Rosenzweig (and
Buber) see "These Twenty Years" in Quest for Past and Future (1968),
3–26. For Rosenzweig's and Buber's views, in detail, see 184–96 of
this work.
25. For more on this see Quest for Past and Future, 5 ff.
26. For Fackenheim's views see, for example, the various essays
relating to the theology of Liberal Judaism in Fackenheim's
collection, Quest for Past and Future.
27. Quest for Past and Future, 5.
28. For details of Buber's I-Thou philosophy and his view of I-Thou
encounter as 'revelation' see the section on Buber in Jewish
Philosophers 1975.
29. Perhaps the clearest statement of Fackenheim's views on this are
found in his essay entitled "Elijah and the Empiricists" which
originally appeared in The Religious Situation ed. Donald Cutler, 1969
and which was reprinted in a new collection entitled Encounters
Between Judaism and Philosophy, 1973. For some critical comments see
the review of this collection by S. Katz in the Journal of Jewish
Social Studies, Spring 1974.
30. The Buberian account and its usage by Fackenheim is not without
serious philosophical and theological difficulties which may
ultimately undermine it. Fackenheim, however, is aware of many of the
problems himself and has written an important essay on Buber's
doctrine of revelation, see "Buber's Doctrine of Revelation" in The
Philosophy of Martin Buber, ed. Schilpp & Friedman, 1967.
31. See Quest for Past and Future, 10.
32. See especially Buber's analysis of the Biblical events surrounding
the Exodus-Sinai episode in his book Moses, 1946.
33. God's Presence in History, "The Structure of Jewish Experience", 8
ff.
34. Ibid., 9.
35. Ibid., 11.
36. God's Presence in History, 11. Fackenheim here calls attention to
how this past event becomes present reality by reminding us of the
statement in the Passover Haggadah: "It was not one only who rose
against us to annihilate us, but in every generation there are those
who rise against us to annihilate us. But the Holy One, blessed be He,
saves us from their hand."
37. God's Presence in History, 16 ff.
38. Fackenheim's detailed account of this Rabbinic reaction to the
destruction of the 2nd Temple is to be found in God's Presence in
History, 25–31.
39. God's Presence in History, 20.
40. Presence of God in History, 84, repeated from Fackenheim's earlier
essay, "Jewish Faith and the Holocaust," in: Commentary 1967.
41. Ibid., 84. Fackenheim spells out the implication of these
"commandments" in some detail. Ibid. 82–92.
42. Brief critiques of Fackenheim's view can be found in the last
section of M. Meyer's article on Fackenheim entitled "Judaism After
Auschwitz" in Commentary, vol. 53, No. 6, June 1972; and in "The
Questions and Answers after Auschwitz" by Seymour Cain in Judaism,
vol. 20, No. 3, Summer 1971.
43. I. Maybaum, The Face of God After Auschwitz (1965), 32.
44. Ibid., 32.
45. The Face of God After Auschwitz, 29.
46. Ibid., 31.
47. The Face of God After Auschwitz, 35.
48. Ibid., 36.
49. See The Face of God After Auschwitz, 62–63 for a more detailed
view of this.
50. Ibid., 63.
51. Face of God After Auschwitz, 67.
52. Ibid., 67.
53. Ibid., 59 ff. for Maybaum's discussion of "The Remnant"; see also
87 ff.
54. This incident is not recorded by Berkovits who gives other equally
moving incidents.
55. This incident is recorded in Menashe Unger, Sefer Kedoshim (1967),
36.
56. Faith After the Holocaust, 88.
57. Ibid., 90.
58. Ibid., 89.
59. Ibid., 89.
60. Berkovits discusses this in detail, Ibid., 94 ff. See also Psalm
44 which Berkovits cites.
61. Faith After the Holocaust, 106.
62. See Ibid., 109 ff. for Berkovits' views on "Israel in history."
63. See Berkovits' discussion Ibid., 134 ff.
64. Ibid., 145. See the whole last chapter, "In Zion Again," 144–169,
for full details of how Berkovits views the State of Israel and its
relation to a modern Jewish theology. One is forced to note that
Berkovits' book was published in 1973, though having been written over
several years. It was published however before the Yom Kippur War of
October 1973.
65. Ibid., 152.
66. 	Ibid., 156. See the whole of his discussion on 156 ff.
[Steven T. Katz]
Year Book 1975 Feature
(:cit)
Ciao.

 
Cari ragazzi,
non posso purtroppo tradurvi l'intero articolo dell'Encyclopaedia
Judaica che ho postato, e mi devo limitare a riassumerne i
punti salienti.
Gli eventi fondamentali del 20° Secolo EV per un Ebreo sono stati il
Khurbn/Shoah/Olocausto e la fondazione dello Stato
d'Israele, e l'estrema negatività e positività di questi eventi non
può lasciare la teologia ebraica (il termine "teologia"
va però usato con cautela quando si tratta di Ebraismo) indifferente,
perché D%o è il Signore della Storia, e gli Ebrei non
possono non chiedersi perché D%o abbia voluto un evento o lo abbia
permesso.
L'autore della voce dell'EJ, Steven T. Katz, ha tentato di riassumere
il dibattito in nove posizioni-tipo (le più frequenti,
non le uniche o le migliori):
1. L'Olocausto è una tragedia come un'altra, e come tutte le altre non
fa che sollevare i problemi dal Male e della Teodicea
(giustizia divina); non c'è bisogno di innovazioni teologiche;
2. _Mi-penei hata'einu - Per i nostri peccati siamo stati puniti_ è un
leitmotiv frequente nella teologia ebraica, e vale
anche per l'Olocausto: Israele peccò e ad Auschwitz espiò;
3. Anche il motivo dell'"espiazione vicaria" è frequente nella
teologia ebraica; Israele è stato il "servo sofferente" del
Secondo Isaia (Isaia 53-segg.), ed ha espiato i peccati altrui;
4. L'Olocausto è una moderna versione dell'_Aqedat Yitzchaq - Legatura
di Isacco_: il suo scopo era mettere alla prova la
nostra fede;
5. L'Olocausto è un esempio del Nascondimento di D%o - talvolta D%o
inspiegabilmente si assenta dalla storia o volge lo
sguardo altrove;
6. D%o è morto è l'Olocausto lo dimostra: un D%o esistente e vivente
avrebbe di certo impedito Auschwitz;
7. L'Olocausto è l'acme del male umano, il prezzo che l'umanità paga
per la libertà morale; quel che fecero i Nazisti ad
Auschwitz spiega di quali bassezze l'uomo è capace, ma non dice nulla
di Dio.
8. L'Olocausto è una Rivelazione, e da Auschwitz viene il
comandamento: gli Ebrei debbono sopravvivere!
9. L'Olocausto è un mistero imperscrutabile; come tutte le vie del
Signore, trascende la comprensione umana ed esige fede e
silenzio.
Come ricorda l'autore, non sono le uniche risposte possibili, e spesso
le idee di un autore corrispondono a più di una voce
dell'elenco. Dei molti autori ebrei che hanno trattato il problema,
Katz ha ritenuto particolarmente meritevoli di
trattazione quattro: Richard Rubenstein, Emil Fackenheim, Ignaz
Maybaum ed Eliezer Berkovits. Preciso che l'articolo di Katz
risale all'Annuario del 1975, ed è probabile che a 28 anni di distanza
tali autori non appaiano più tanto interessanti.
Richard Rubenstein
Richard Rubenstein si era iscritto nel 1942 allo Hebrew Union College,
un seminario riformato, ma l'ottimismo tipico della
Riforma virò negli anni '60 in una teologia della "morte di D%o".
Secondo Katz, Rubenstein ebbe a confrontarsi nel 1961 con
un "Diacono" protestante tedesco, Heinrich Grueber, che aveva concluso
che Hitler era stato "la verga della Sua ira" (Isaia
10:5), così come era accaduto agli Assiri. Grueber non era antisemita,
ma sconvolse comunque Rubenstein, il quale disse: "Se
io credessi in D%o come l'onnipotente autore del dramma storico, ed
Israele come il Suo Popolo Eletto, dovrei accettare la
conclusione del Diacono Grueber che fu volontà di D%o che Hitler
mandasse al massacro sei milioni di Ebrei. Proprio non
potrei credere in un simile D%o, né potrei credere in Israele come
Popolo Eletto da D%o dopo Auschwitz".
Il talmudista Elisha ben Avuyah aveva detto _Let din ve-let dayyan -
Non c'è Giudizio né Giudice_, e Rubenstein conclude che
"D%o è morto". Questa teologia non era una novità in campo cristiano,
ma fu Rubenstein ad importarla nell'Ebraismo.
L'esistenza per lui non ha senso né scopo, ed è vano cercare in
Auschwitz l'espiazione dei peccati d'Israele. L'esistenza è
significativa di per sé, non perché rappresenti valori trascendenti o
significati metastorici. Ciò che dà sapore ebraico alla
teologia di Rubenstein è la persistenza dell'accento sul Popolo
d'Israele.
Per lui, non essendoci D%o, non c'è più Patto; ma il Popolo d'Israele
continua ad esistere, e le strutture della religione
ebraica debbono essere riconvertite al servizio dell'identità ebraica.
"È proprio l'essere la situazione umana in ultima analisi disperata e
gratuita che ci fa richiedere con la più gran forza una
comunità religiosa. Se non abbiamo che il nostro prossimo, allora noi
certo abbiamo bisogno l'uno dell'altro più che mai".
Rubenstein ritiene che soltanto l'esperienza ebraica possa essere
autentica per un Ebreo, ed in molti suoi scritti egli
riesamina i classici valori ebraici per verificarne l'attitudine
all'Ebreo contemporaneo che vive dopo l'Olocausto. Egli fa
molto uso di categorie psicoanalitiche per reinterpretare i rituali
religiosi in riti di passaggio ed eventi sociali. Per lui
la sinagoga mantiene un ruolo centrale nella vita ebraica, anche se
più che altro come gruppo di terapia e sostegno.
Rubenstein accoppia all'interpretazione psicanalitica un paganesimo
mistico, in cui l'Ebreo deve scordare la storia e tornare
ai ritmi cosmici dell'esistenza naturale.
[Ora penso che capirete perché ho voluto postare l'intera voce in
originale: la proposta sembra assurda perfino al
sottoscritto, ed ho voluto che vi accertaste che non ho frainteso -
Liang]
Questa dottrina guida per esempio l'interpretazione del Messianismo di
Rubinstein: per lui l'Era messianica sarà
caratterizzata dalla fine della Storia e dalla rinunzia dell'uomo
all'ambizione di dominare o trascendere la Natura. Anche
gli ideali sionistici, che invocavano la rigenerazione del Popolo
Ebraico attraverso il lavoro della Terra d'Israele, vengono
visti come prodromi del ritorno degli Ebrei dalla Storia alla Natura.
Rubinstein non attacca solo l'affezione che gli Ebrei hanno per la
Storia; egli attacca anche la dottrina dell'Elezione
d'Israele, che secondo lui è una delle componenti basilari
dell'antisemitismo - l'altro è la teologia cristiana.
Infatti egli sostiene che l'"Elezione d'Israele" rende impossibile ai
Cristiani guardare agli Ebrei in maniera obbiettiva; e
ritiene inoltre impossibile per i Cristiani separare la Crocifissione
dal D_icidio. Rinunziare all'"Elezione"
significherebbe, secondo Rubinstein, consentire ai Cristiani di vedere
gli Ebrei come vedono qualsiasi altro popolo.
Inoltre, Rubinstein ritiene che l'intreccio delle mitologie ebraica e
cristiana candidi Israele al ruolo di capro espiatorio:
rammentando il Freud di "Totem e Tabù", egli pensa che il più profondo
desiderio umano sia "uccidere" D%o. La Crocifissione
consente sia questo che di proiettarne la colpa su altri, col
risultato che non si può evitare che i Cristiani oscillino
nella loro concezione degli Ebrei tra i poli del macellatore rituale o
della vittima sacrificale.
Emil Fackenheim.
Fackenheim è un sopravvissuto, ed è passato dall'Ebraismo Riformato a
quello Ortodosso. Egli rifiuta sia la tesi che gli
Ebrei avessero espiato i loro propri peccati, sia quella per cui
espiati sono stati i peccati altrui. Ma anziché proclamare
la morte di D%o vuol dimostrare che D%o ad Auschwitz c'era, e da lì
come dal Sinai si è rivolto ad Israele.
Fackenheim si ispira a Buber e Rosenzweig, per cui D%o si manifesta
nella Storia, e la Rivelazione è un dialogo tra D%o e
l'Uomo. Non si può provare l'esistenza di D%o, ma Lo si può
incontrare. Solo dopo aver scelto di credere uno può "udire" il
Divino e rispondergli. Per Fackenheim D%o si rivela nella storia
incontrando personalmente gli Ebrei ed Israele. In ogni
momento e luogo avvengono questi incontri tra D%o e l'uomo - ma non ci
sono criteri obbiettivi per dimostrarlo, e certo non a
chi non crede.
L'incontro tra Io e Tu ha i suoi modi e tempi, e forzarli vuol dire
trasformarlo in un incontro ta Io ed Esso, che è muto.
Fackenheim ritiene di percepire la voce di D%o ad Auschwitz;
sviluppando concetti buberiani, Fackenheim distingue gli eventi
nella Storia d'Israele in "esperienze radicali" ed "esperienze
epocali".
Esperienze "radicali" sono quelle che non solo cambiano la storia, ma
mutano il carattere di ogni successivo "presente", come
la traversata del Mar Rosso, che viene riattualizzata ad ogni _Seder
Pesach_, in cui ogni Ebreo è nuovamente liberato
dall'Egitto, ed esperisce la perenne attività salvifica di D%o.
Altra esperienza radicale è il Dono della Torah; ma non tutte le
grandi esperienze sono radicali: la distruzione del Primo e
del Secondo Tempio è invece un evento "epocale". Tali eventi non
cambiano le caratteristiche fondamentali dell'Ebraismo, ma
lo temprano e preparano ad affrontare nuove sfide. I Profeti che hanno
attraversato la distruzione del Primo Tempio hanno
capito che Nabucodonosor era uno strumento divino contro l'Egitto
idolatra (Geremia 43:10), ed i Rabbini che attraversarono
la distruzione del Secondo Tempio capirono che D%o avrebbe seguito il
Suo Popolo nell'Esilio, e che il Popolo ebraico avrebbe
perciò portato la Divina Presenza ovunque.
Per Fackenheim anche Auschwitz è un "evento epocale", che pur non
cambiando i fondamenti della fede ebraica, le impone di
superare una grave crisi. Per lui l'Ebreo deve riuscire a sperimentare
D%o anche nei crematori e dire: "Anche se mi uccide,
io confido ancora in Lui" (Giobbe 13:15). Un evento epocale si
accompagna ad una Rivelazione (il Profetismo, il Rabbinismo,
nel caso della distruzione dei due Templi), e per Fackenheim essa è il
comandamento: "Gli Ebrei non debbono dare ad Hitler
una vittoria postuma".
Gli Ebrei debbono sopravvivere; la stessa esistenza ebraica è un atto
sacro; gli Ebrei debbono ricordare i martiri; agli
Ebrei è vietato disperare della redenzione o diventare cinici ed
morali. E soprattutto, agli Ebrei è proibito disperare del
D%o d'Israele, perché altrimenti perirebbe l'Ebraismo. Hitler voleva
sradicare gli Ebrei e l'Ebraismo dalla storia, e per gli
Ebrei disperare del D%o d'Israele vorrebbe dire fare il lavoro di
Hitler.
Proprio perché altri vorrebbero sradicare gli Ebrei dalla Terra, agli
Ebrei è comandato di resistere all'annichilimento. Dire
"no" ad Hitler vuol dire dire "sì" alla voce ed ai comandamenti del
D%o del Sinai; dire "no" al D%o del Sinai vuol dire "sì"
ad Hitler. Per Fackenheim, ogni Ebreo che è rimasto tale dopo il 1945
ha assentito alla voce ed ai comandamenti di Auschwitz.
Ma il D%o biblico non è solo un D%o che comanda: è anche un D%o che
salva, e l'attraversamento del Mar Rosso è altrettanto
importante del Dono della Torah; non è facile parlare di un "D%o
Salvatore" dopo Auschwitz, ma Fackenheim pensa che la
fondazione dello Stato d'Israele dia la speranza della redenzione, e
che Auschwitz e Sion siano inseparabilmente legati. Per
Fackenheim lo Stato d'Israele è vivo testimone della continua presenza
salvifica di D%o nella storia, ed attraverso esso il
moderno Ebreo assiste alla riaffermazione dell'"esperienza radicale"
della salvezza, essenziale alla sopravvivenza della fede
ebraica.
Ignaz Maybaum
Ignaz Maybaum è un rabbino riformato nato in Germania ma che vive da
molto tempo in Inghilterra. Egli ritiene che Auschwitz
non sia un evento unico, ma la ripetizione di un evento "classico e
santificato", e si ispira a Rosenzweig nel definire la
relazione dinamica tra il D%o trascendente della Bibbia ed Israele.
Il Patto di D%o con Israele rende unica la storia di quest'ultimo:
esso è una nazione tra le nazioni, ma sono i non-Ebrei a
dirigere gli eventi. Il destino d'Israele s'intreccia con quello delle
Nazioni, e proprio questo intreccio palesa lo scopo
del Patto: fin dagli eventi d'Egitto e del Sinai, la storia degli
Ebrei dev'essere inquadrabile nelle categorie dei Gentili
per parlare a questi ultimi.
Se Fackenheim distingueva tra "eventi radicali" ed "eventi epocali",
Maybaum distingue questi ultimi in _churbanim_ e
_gezerot_.
Le _Gezerot - decreti (nefasti)_ sono familiari agli ebrei, in quanto
il Giorno dell'Espiazione si dice _Teshuvah uTefillah
uTzedaqah ma'avirin et ro'a ha-gezerah - Penitenza, Preghiera e
Beneficienza fanno passare oltre il decreto nefasto_, e
Maybaum considera _gezerot_ eventi catastrofici, come l'espulsione
degli Ebrei dalla Spagna nel 1492, od i massacri di
Chmielnicki nel 17° Secolo, che non schiudono l'ingresso ad una nuova
era.
I _Churbanim - devastazioni_ invece portano ad una nuova era, e
l'Olocausto [che guarda caso si dice in Yiddish _Khurbn_, ed
in Ebraico si può dire _Churban_ - Liang] è uno di questi. Ma, mentre
si possono evitare le _gezerot_, non si possono in
alcun modo evitare i _churbanim_, in quanto essi non coinvolgono solo
Israele, ma tutte le Nazioni.
Come Feckenheim, anche Maybaum cerca di trovare il positivo nei _
sheloshah churbanim - tre devastazioni [il paragone con i
_shalosh regalim - tre pellegrinaggi_ è mio, non di Maybaum - Liang]_
della storia ebraica:
- la distruzione del Primo Tempio creò la Diaspora, che spinse gli
Ebrei in tutto il Mondo, portando la Parola di D%o e
compiendo le opere di D%o;
- la distruzione del Secondo Tempio sostituì il Tempio ed i Sacrifici
con la Sinagoga e la Preghiera, un culto eticamente più
elevato;
[questo è il classico punto di vista riformato; ed infatti i Riformati
non pregano per la ricostruzione del Tempio - Liang]
- la Shoah ha mutato i rapporti tra Israele e le Nazioni, e qui ci
vuole una spiegazione più dettagliata.
Come ho già riferito, l'Ebraismo deve essere comprensibile dai Gentili
per poter parlare a questi ultimi; il motivo
fondamentale della storia ebraica è l'_Aqedat Yitzchaq - Legatura di
Isacco [Genesi 22]_, mentre per i Cristiani il motivo
fondamentale è la Crocefissione.
La Legatura è un sacrificio mancato, ed il suo messaggio è che si può
progredire senza martirio né morte; ma la Crocifissione
è un sacrificio riuscito :-( ed il suo messaggio è che il martirio è
indispensabile per la vita altrui, e l'espiazione
vicaria è indispensabile perché il mondo progredisca.
La Legatura di Isacco non ha molto significato per i Cristiani; perché
gli Ebrei riescano a parlar loro, essi debbono
imparare la Lingua della Croce. Il terzo _churban_ ha questo scopo:
consentire agli Ebrei, parlando questa lingua, di
smuovere la coscienza dei Gentili.
"Ad Auschwitz gli Ebrei hanno sofferto un'espiazione vicaria per i
peccati dell'umanità", dice Mayabum, il quale insiste:
"Il Golgota dell'umanità contemporanea è Auschwitz. La croce, patibolo
romano, fu sostituita dalla camera a gas. Semba che i
Gentili debbano essere prima terrorizzati dal sangue del capro
espiatorio perché si sveli a loro la Misericordia di D%o ed
essi divengano convertiti, Gentili battezzati, Cristiani".
Per Maybaum un _churban_ porta sia distruzione che progresso, ed il
progresso nel caso di Auschwitz è stato l'eliminazione
dei residui medievali nella storia umana. Residui medievali che lui
vedeva nell'esclusivismo e nell'antisemitismo cristiani,
e nel modo di vivere degli _shtetlekh_, in cui gli Ebrei si
autoescludevano dalla società circostante e si assoggettavano
rigorosamente alle prescrizioni halakhiche [ho il dubbio che questa
rappresentazione degli _shtetlekh_ sia caricaturale -
Liang].
Gli Ebrei che ora vivono nel mondo occidentale, godendo dei frutti
dell'Emancipazione, sono per Maybaum "l'umanità che ha
raggiunto il suo scopo. Siamo arrivati. Siamo i primi frutti del
raccolto di D%o".
Maybaum vede nell'Olocausto la modernizzazione dell'Inquisizione, e
citando Hochhuth dice: "Le SS erano i Domenicani dell'età
della tecnica" [non mi trova d'accordo questa similitudine - Liang],
ma apprezza molto l'evoluzione teologica cattolica dopo
il Vaticano 2°, che ritiene possa contribuire a foggiare un futuro
migliore - senza una Chiesa medievale ed un Ghetto
medievale.
Per Maybaum, Hitler era un agente di D%o, e per lui "Hitler fu uno
strumento ... D%o usò questo strumento per pulire,
purificare, per punire un mondo peccaminoso; i sei milioni di Ebrei
morirono innocentemente, a causa dei peccati di altri".
E per i superstiti, egli applica loro l'immagine del "Resto
d'Israele", salvato da un miracolo paragonabile a quello del Mar
Rosso.
Eliezer Berkovits
Eliezer Berkovits è un ortodosso, ed inizia la sua trattazione
rammentando le colpe dell'antisemitismo cristiano. Ma la parte più
importante è questa: egli rifiuta di considerare Auschwitz un evento
qualitativamente unico.
Per lui Auschwitz è un evento simile a tanti nella storia ebraica, in
cui D%o nascose il Suo volto, rifiutandosi di intervenire per fermare
la malvagità umana, per non coartare la libertà morale dell'uomo.
Sarebbe dal suo punto di vista erroneo isolare Auschwitz dal resto
della storia ebraica.
Berkovits rigetta anche la visione semplicistica per cui Israele fu
punito per i suoi peccati: la confutazione evidente per lui è stata il
comportamento di molti che hanno affrontato il martirio con gioia.
Vedi ad esempio il Rebbe di Ostrov, Rav Yechezqiel Ha-Levi Hastuk, che
andò incontro ai carnefici indossando _tallit_ e _kittel_ [la tunica
bianca che si indossa per lo Yom Kippur] dicendo: "È da qualche tempo
che pregusto lo _zekut - merito speciale_ (del martirio). Son pronto".
Se D%o deve "assentarsi" [contrarsi, direbbe un cabalista - Liang] per
dare spazio all'uomo, egli non può assentarsi del tutto, per non
concedere all'assenza di significato la vittoria finale. Per Berkovits
occorre riconoscere la presenza divina nella Storia nel Suo
nascondersi, e nel Suo nascondimento rinvenire la Sua presenza.
L'unica cosa che dà testimonianza piena, permanente ed efficace della
presenza di D%o nella Storia è il fato del Popolo ebraico.
I Nazisti lo avevano capito e tentarono di sterminare gli Ebrei per
massacrare il D%o della Storia; la natura dell'esistenza ebraica è
testimonianza profetica contro la degenerazione morale di uomini e
nazioni, una derisione di tutta l'idolatria umana e la testimonianza
del giudizio finale e della redenzione della Storia da un D%o dotato
di senso morale.
Berkovits rifiuta di esaminare Auschwitz separatamente dal resto della
storia ebraica - e per lui la dimostrazione che Auschwitz non è
l'esperienza ebraica più importante è data dalla fondazione dello
Stato d'Israele, la ricostruzione di Sion, la raccolta degli esuli. Il
Sionismo di Berkovits è più accentuato di quello di Fackenheim e
Maybaum, ed ha visto una sorta di rivelazione anche negli eventi del
1967.
Per lui, se ad Auschwitz ed in altre sventure si è visto il
nascondersi del volto di D%o, nella rinascita d'Israele si è visto un
sorriso sul volto di D%o.
Ciao.