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Reverberations: The Shoah in Retrospect
From: Columbia University
| By:
David Weiss Halivni |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
 Since the end of World War II, theologians have struggled to understand how the Holocaust--in Hebrew, "Shoah"--could have happened. However, the temptation to search for a theological explanation for the Holocaust should be avoided at all costs, according to David Weiss Halivni (far right), a Talmudic scholar, chair of the religion department at Columbia University, and survivor of the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Gross-Rosen. In the following excerpt from his memoirs, Halivni explains how he reconciles his experience as a survivor with an unwavering faith in God and the Jewish tradition. |
 hen the sound of the closing of the door, after the first child was shoved into the crematorium, reached heaven, Michael, the most beneficent of angels, could not contain himself and angrily approached God. Michael asked, "Do You now pour out Your wrath upon children? In the past, children were indirectly caught up in the slaughter. This time they are the chief target of destruction. Have pity on the little ones, O Lord." God, piqued by Michael's insolence, shouted back at him, "I am the Lord of the Universe. If you are displeased with the way I conduct the world, I will return it to void and null." Hearing these words, Michael knew that there was to be no reversal. He had heard these words once before in connection with the Ten Martyrs. He knew their effect. He went back to his place, ashen and dejected, but could not resist looking back sheepishly at God and saw a huge tear rolling down His face, destined for the legendary cup which collects tears and which, when full, will bring the redemption of the world. Alas, to Michael's horror, instead of entering the cup the tear hit its rim, most of it spilling on the ground--and the fire of the crematorium continued to burn.
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It must have been with tongue in cheek that the great second-century sage of the land of Israel, Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai, speaking on a different matter, said, "Four things the Holy One, blessed be He, detests, and I don't like them either" (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Niddah 16b). I would like to say the same, in all seriousness, in connection with the Shoah. There are four things that the Holy One, blessed be He, detests (at least this is my hope), and I reject them as well. These four things are, first, theological justifications of the Holocaust, which must be rejected out of hand; second, even raising the theological question of why there was a Holocaust, implying that an answer might be found; third, the notion that survival was possible only at the expense of others and that, therefore, every survivor must have a sense of guilt; and fourth, the idea that all survivors of the Holocaust necessarily share certain sociological and psychological characteristics. (In this last instance, unlike the first three, I merely disagree. I would not go so far as to say that I detest those who search for commonalities.) |
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Of the four things I have named, let me speak first of the one that I reject with derision: the attempt to make theological excuses for the Holocaust. I consider it obscene to assume that the Shoah took place (especially since it came from Germany) as a divine response to the spread of the German culture of Haskatah, or secularism, among the Jews. First of all, these apologies are historically absurd: Germany had the most secular Jews, and yet more Jews of other nationalities were exterminated. But, more important, these rationalizations are theologically offensive. The phrase "For our sins, we were exiled ..." has a legitimate place in our tradition and liturgy; but dispersion, even with its attendant sufferings, is one thing, and vast annihilation of man, woman, and child is another. To say to people whom we know, "because of our sins" we were sent to Auschwitz--this must be rejected out of hand. There are certain times in history when justification almost smacks of participation. A justification, by definition, means: it should have happened, it's justice, it is the fitting course of events. People who make such statements suggest, in effect, that had it not happened, they would have worked to bring it about. Even aside from the historical absurdity, sensitive human beings must consider this abominable. |
An event without explanation
I would go even further: not only is justification itself abominable; even raising the theological question of why there was a Holocaust--implying that there exists a satisfying answer--is objectionable. One should be encouraged to describe the enormity of the crime, its details and its comprehensiveness. One can also explain how it was possible, in the midst of the "bright light" of European culture, to commit such unspeakable atrocities. But one ought not, indeed one should not dare, to explain why it took place, why it happened as it did. For by merely asking the question "Why was there a Holocaust?"--implying that there is an answer, a just answer--one increases the suffering of the victims. Whatever the suggested answer might be--aside from the tautological statement that the perpetrators were wicked and that God "hid His face" and allowed things to occur--it will inevitably relieve the murderers, at least partially, of their guilt and place it upon the shoulders of the victims. |
There are events in history, such as Revelation to the believer, that exist without explanation; they just exist. They have no "because." The Holocaust should be treated as such an event--an event without explanation. The repetition of the question "Why was there a Revelation?" causes pain to no one, though who can find an answer? The repetition of the question "Why was there a Holocaust," although no more answerable, causes pain to the victims. The question justifies their suffering. The very question reduces the innocence of the victims and the culpability of the murderers. The question should remain unasked. |
Let us pursue every detail, every lead, every avenue that describes the horror and the tragedy--explicit information about how and where and who the victims were, how the evil was performed, how the crime was executed, how the atrocity came to fruition. The logistics of how it was possible to deceive such a large number of people and force them to their death, how it was possible to slaughter millions of people, should be explained. Everything that is knowable about the actual facts of the destruction should be researched and brought to public attention. All the cruelty, the indescribable torture and suffering, should become public knowledge. |
But when it comes to explanations, we should be careful, lest we justify what happened. Sometimes the line between explanation and justification is very thin. Any logical explanation will accuse the victim, create a burden of guilt, and add to the victim's suffering. The very suffering is that we don't know why we suffered, we can't explain it, we can't conceivably say that God wanted children to be gassed. We can't attribute that to God; nor can we attribute it to sin, even though we believe that everything comes from God. |
The Bible tells us that when Moses asked God, "I pray Thee, if I have found grace in Thy sight, show me now Thy ways, that I may know Thee, to the end that I may find grace in Thy sight," God obliged him and said, "My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest." But when Moses asked God, "Show me, I pray Thee, Thy glory"--that is, God's honor, His being, His secrets--God rejected him, saying, "Thou canst not see My face, for man shall not see Me and live" (Exodus 33:13, 14, 18, 20). One can know God's ways but not God's reasons. So it is incumbent upon us to know every nuance of the suffering; but in the end, it must remain suspended in mystery. There is no explanation. |
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I appeal to philosophers, psychologists, and theologians to resist their tendency to find the root cause, to seek the rationale for the Holocaust. It is a unique event. They should not exercise their inclination to make it a link in a chain, part of a causal relationship. I am making this plea against raising the question of why there was a Holocaust even though, or because, I am, in principle, against literary censorship. I am opposed to any kind of suppression of historical study. No aspect of history should be declared off limits to research. Perhaps because I am so insistent on absolute freedom of inquiry in all areas of intellectual endeavor, I plead for an exception in the case of the Holocaust. The Shoah is unique in human history. It ought to remain so in scholarship as well. The tragedy, the enormity, the systematization, the ideology, and above all the helplessness that accompanied the Holocaust make the Shoah unprecedented: there was nothing a Jew could do in the face of the Shoah, unlike other persecutions, to mitigate the death sentence. To be born a Jew meant to be born to be killed. Scholars ought to discipline themselves by refraining from asking a question that, by its very nature, tends to diminish the uniqueness of the event, the culpability of the perpetrators, and to increase the despair of the survivors. |
Rejecting guilt
The third notion I reject is the idea that every survivor must have a sense of moral guilt. The assumption is that the only way you could survive was by resorting to some act which was not quite ethical, or which was somehow not in line with the standards you ought to follow; and if you accept this assumption, then you must have survived at the expense of someone else. "Lo mineh veto miktzato!"--this is not so in whole or in part! I can say categorically that I do not feel guilty for having survived. I am grateful to Almighty God that I survived, and I do not feel that my survival impacted adversely on the life of anyone else. There was one instance in which I was given cigarettes to distribute and some of them did not reach their destination, but other than this I can think of nothing I did that caused anyone else any suffering. There were people, of course, who survived by all kinds of moral compromises, but I daresay most survivors of concentration camps have no reason at all to feel such guilt. |
Here allow me to insert a parenthetical appeal on behalf of those few who survived the concentration camps themselves. I often feel uncomfortable, to the point of being annoyed, when people claim to be survivors who actually escaped the camps. Not that I begrudge them their claims. Obviously, if they make such claims they have a need for them, and God knows, by all normal standards, they suffered appallingly. Still, I want to specify that those who survived the camps themselves--Majdanek, Treblinka, Auschwitz--one can count them; these people survived on totally different terms from those who went to a foreign consulate in '38 to struggle for a visa. Even if the visa was first rejected, or they almost missed it, or perhaps if they had come one hour, one minute, one second later, they would not have escaped and would have been sent to the camps--theirs was a totally different experience. |
I often say that anyone whose lungs absorbed, on the ramp, on the station platform of Auschwitz, the smoke effusing from the chimneys of the crematoria--those who looked, or could not look, in Mengele's face, when right and left meant death and life--these are different people who have known a different kind of abandonment. That's not knocking on the door and begging, "Give me a visa." There is a different story for those who walked those ramps. Marching down that short road from the train to the crematoria cannot be duplicated by any other experience, whether the victims were aware or not aware. In fact, I remember one man from Sighet who had somehow saved a bottle of schnapps, and when he arrived at the ramp he drank it and became intoxicated on the spot. He had the presence of mind to know what was about to happen, and he saved his bottle for this eventuality. Similarly, those older women who took their daughters' children with them in the selection so that at least one person would have the chance to survive--these people showed enormous personal orientation, and with this orientation comes the enormity of the abandonment. |
So, in a sensitive understanding, we must make this distinction. Let the others write books, movies, plays, whatever helps. Hitler's evil hand reached Jews, and other people, in all kinds of ways, throughout the world. Other peoples tell similar stories--refugees tell them--and our age, unfortunately, is full of such stories; but survivors of the camps themselves are different people who have experienced a different transformation. I think that this, for the record, should be made clear. |
The sensitive survivor
Finally, coming to the fourth of my objections, my rejection diminishes, and I stand to be corrected by those who have a keener eye and are better trained in the social sciences. Nevertheless, I have not noticed any special characteristic unique to the survivors, and this despite the unique experience. Second to my work in Talmud, I follow the literature of Holocaust survivors closely, and I have not discovered anything of a predictable nature so that one might say: He or she is a survivor, therefore such and such will be the case. Of course, most survivors were anxious to rebuild their families, to regain the recognition in society that they lost. There are not many academicians among the survivors. There are some--more than one might suspect--but still relatively few. Probably this is because those who survived were constrained, as I was, to start their secular studies anew, from the elementary level and in a new language. Still, I do not see a common stripe that one might say arises from being a survivor. |
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However, having said that, I still believe that a sensitive survivor--and particularly one who has the opportunity or the leisure to pursue intellectual activity--must work, should work, under the influence of mutually contradictory forces. A sensitive survivor must recognize that there was a collapse of norms. Everything we held dear, everything we thought must be, and everything we thought must be pursued turned to nought. The Shoah signifies that whatever one considered the pattern of life one should choose--the ideal standard--collapsed. And if you are sensitive, in the face of this collapse you must reexamine what you stood for. You can put it as a test: If not for the Shoah, what would you be doing? If the answer is, "The same," then know that this is wrong. If you were teaching literature, for example, that literature failed, betrayed you. Something must be changed. Something must be different, intellectually--cannot be the same, should not be the same. So somebody who studied Talmud before and studies Talmud after has this problem. Something must be different. |
I remember, after I came to the United States, Moshe Meisels Amishai, the Hebrew philosopher, asked me, speaking in Yiddish, "Were you religious before the war?" and I said, "Yes, of course I was, I was a chasid." "Are you religious now?" he asked. I said, "Yes." And he said, "I understand those who were religious before and became irreligious after, and those who were irreligious before and became religious after. I can't understand those who were religious before and remain religious after. Nothing happened? Something must have changed." |
On the other hand, the person who has survived, and has been wounded so deeply, needs that support, that holding-on-to, which only tradition can provide. "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him" (Job 13:15). You cannot imagine, even if you follow the literature, the sadism of which the Germans and their cohorts were capable. I keep on reading the literature, and now and then I still come across something that shocks even me. That mankind could sink so low and inflict this kind of violence upon children: one must react to this spiritually. And at the same time, one must seek spiritual solace. |
Opposite forces bear upon the survivor. On the one hand, one must find fault with what happened, for if there is no fault, there is an indirect affirmation. If you continue doing now what you would have done before, then you are saying that nothing was wrong--and you do not relate to what happened. Not criticizing the past is being like those who justify, those whom I mentioned at the start of this chapter--the ones who know why. Knowing why is a statement of approval. On the other hand, if you acknowledge the wrong, then you run the risk of cutting off the branch upon which you rest. A sensitive theologian must work with both sides, for if you take away the tradition, too, you take away the branch upon which you were raised and nurtured, and then you really are uprooted without any basis, without any roots. |
Therefore the struggle this person has is the struggle to do both: to find a way of criticizing tradition, but of holding steadfastly to it. Criticizing affirms that something went wrong--badly wrong, deeply wrong. Yet there must be something to come home to. A person must find comfort and consolation in tradition. However, something in that tradition must be different, or else we say implicitly that nothing happened. |
Personally, I found this balance in the critical study of Jewish texts, in a combination of criticism and belief in the divine origin of the text. My studies often question the veracity of the text as we find it, and at the same time they aim to increase the dignity of this text by restoring earlier readings. There are many instances in which the Gemara (teaching) rejects the opinion of a sage, concluding with such interjections as kashya (it remains difficult), or tiyuvta (it is refuted), or in which the Gemara designates the statement of a particular sage as beduta (invented without sound basis), or beruta (outside, not on the mark). By picking out these passages and interpreting them in a manner that reveals the original context and meaning of the sage's words, Talmud criticism can be said to restore the dignity of our sages of blessed memory. It restores the dignity of the text, which in turn bestows dignity upon its authors; but it does so at the expense of questioning traditional reliability. |
I undertake critical studies of the Talmud, and at the same time the Talmud is my bastion which I can always come home to and find solace in. This contradiction is not unlike the one that began to bother me in childhood and still troubles me. Once I wrote: "How is one to explain the blatant contradiction between counting and upholding every word, every letter of the text, and at the same time boldly announcing, 'Chasora mechasra vehacha ketani'--'There is a lacuna in the text, and it should be read differently'?" The Rabbis had to lend divine power to the text to lend power to their defiance of it. A lacuna in a human text is of no religious significance. A lacuna in a divine text? That already smacks of heresy. The Rabbis of the Talmud tampered with the biblical text, frequently offered interpretations that ran counter to the integrity of it, and openly said: There is a lacuna in the Mishnah. When God once wanted to intervene in a Rabbinic dispute, the Rabbis boldly rejected His intervention, saying: The Torah is not in heaven; it now belongs to man and not to God. Man exercises, as it were, leverage over Him. Man controls His Torah. |
Gaining hegemony over a text, but at the same time insisting that it is a divine text, represents another arena in which this contradiction is expressed: that tradition failed, and yet there is a need for right and wrong to be continuous. This contradiction is fought out in the interplay between God saying, "Nitzchuni banai"--my sons have done me proud in their defiance--and God being stern elsewhere and saying, "You cannot do this." |
Different people--sensitive survivors--will have to find equivalents in their own fields, in their creative endeavors. We must somehow find room for acknowledging that something went awfully wrong--that nobody extended help, not even God Himself. It is said of the Berditchever that he once interpreted the verse "Lo ta'asun keyn ladoshem elokecha," "Do not do thus with the Lord your God" (Deuteronomy 12:4), as referring to God Himself. He pointed out that keyn also means "right": "Keyn benot Zelophehad dovrot": "The daughters of Zelophehad are right" (Numbers 27:7). So the Berditchever said, "Lo ta'asun keyn ladoshem elokecha"--don't justify Him, don't make Him right. |
Nonetheless, as religious Jews, we have to know that without God there is no humanity. Life makes sense only if we are hooked on to something higher, something transcendent. It's like a trolley car, if you've ever been in a trolley car: you may think the conductor is in charge, but the power comes from above. "Walk humbly with the Lord thy God" (Micah 6:8)--like a child holding hands. You must hold hands, and walk. But this does not mean that you always have to say, particularly in remembrance of the Holocaust, "What You did was right." It was terribly wrong. |
Excerpts from preface page and "Reverberations: in Retrospect" from The Book and the Sword, by David Halivni. Copyright © 1996 by David Weiss Halivni. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. All rights reserved. |
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