Impact of Holocaust Theology
Explain the contribution to the development and
expression of Judaism of ONE significant person
OR school of thought
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Analyse the impact of this person OR school of
thought on Judaism
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Historical Context:
Patriarchs
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Abraham/Moses:
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The chosen people
The kingdom
The promised land
The covenant
Word of God as given to Moses
Beliefs:
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One God
Omniscient/Omnipotent/Omnibenevolent
Historical Context: Scripture/texts
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Sacred Scriptures/texts:
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Torah
Oral Torah (Talmud)
Tenak - Hebrew Scriptures containing 613 laws
Halakah – complete Jewish law
Midrash – stories about the stories
Prophetic vision – Tikkun Olam – heal the world
Mid 1800’s:
Enlightenment leads to variants
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Orthodox –
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Progressive/Reform Jews –
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the most liberal Jews; Jews who do not follow the Talmud
strictly but try to adapt historical forms to modern world
Conservative – reaction to Progressive/Reform
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remain faithful in all ways to the halakah
Jews who keep some of the requirements of the Mosaic law
but allow for adaptation of other requirements
Zionism –
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belief/philosophy that Jews need to create
“messiah/promised land” not wait
History as a Persecuted People
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Jews marginalised
Slavery/Exodus
Destruction of 1st and 2nd temples
Massacres/expulsion from Spain
Attacks by Catholic Church
Diaspora (The Diaspora = the collective group
of Jews; diaspora = condition of living outside
of promised land, spread out)
Anti-semitism
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New testament:
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Matthew 27:25 which spoke of some Jewish
leaders was used instead to apply to all Jews: "His
blood be on us and on our children...Ye are of your
father the devil."
“Protocols of the Elders of Zion” –
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grew from rumours of Jewish
conspiracy/poisonings, spread of plague
Hitler
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Nuremburg laws
Final Solution
Concentration camps
Ghettos
Work Camps
Pogroms
Shoah/Holocaust: 6,000,000 Jews murdered
Immediately Post-Holocaust
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Muselmänner - (Primo Levi) the living dead
UN decree –
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Jewish state, Holy land
Jews given land, fight to establish statehood
1948 state of Israel declared
Emotions = too raw to have any – no
thought/reflection
Many Jews disillusioned with faith
Varied Responses
“There is no God”
Reform - Richard Rubinstein: After Auschwitz
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Only honest response to the Holocaust is the rejection of
God, and the recognition that all existence is ultimately
meaninglessness.
No divine plan or purpose, no God that reveals His will to
mankind, and God does not care about the world.
Man must assert and create his own value in life.
His views were rejected by Jews of all religious
denominations, but his works were widely read in the
Jewish community in the 1970s.
Later views = one may believe that God may exist as
the basis for reality.
Varied Responses
“Free will”
Modern Orthodox – Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits:
Faith after the Holocaust
 man's free will depends on God's decision to
remain hidden.
 if God were to reveal himself in history and
hold back the hand of evil tyrants, man's free
will would be rendered non-existent.
 Holocaust (Shoah) is not God’s fault, but result
of man’s choice to choose evil over good
Varied Responses
“The Mystery of God”
Conservative – Theologian Neil Gillman:
 all arguments proposed by Jewish scholars fail
to answer the problem posed by the events of
the Nazi regime
 there can be no resolution of the religious
questions posed by the Shoah
 we should stop trying to explain what is
beyond comprehension
Varied Responses
“The Mystery of God”
Reform/Progressive - writer David Ariel: What
Do Jews Believe?
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there is simply no way that the Holocaust can be
explained
God’s will is unfathomable (God’s response to Job)
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we can empathize with Job’s suffering, but it is impossible
to understand God’s will
the mystery of how God could have permitted the
murder of millions of innocent victims remains
inexplicable
Jewish State - 1967
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Kibbutz: -collective community in Israel that
was traditionally based on agriculture ,
socialism, Zionism
Idealistic approach to Israel/ mission as God’s
chosen people
Six Day War – Israel fights to maintain
independence
In response to threats to Israel, Emil
Fackenheim’s 614th commandment
614th Commandment
“Thou shalt not grant Hitler posthumous
victories”
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Survive as Jews lest the Jewish people perish
Remember the martyrs of the Holocaust
Forbidden to deny or despair of God lest the
jewish people perish
Forbidden to despair of the world lest the Jewish
people perish
Focus becomes Jewish survival/protection in
face of enemies
Quotes of Emil Fackenheim
I myself for many years compared the Holocaust
to prior tragedies in Jewish history, [and]
avoided the fundamental differences, thus
reaching the comfortable conclusion that
Judaism and the Jewish faith are not called into
question in a unique, unprecedented way. Yet
there is a radical, fundamental, shattering
difference.
Quotes of Emil Fackenheim
Hence after Auschwitz, there is need for a new
Jewish theology, perhaps a new philosophy,
possibly both.
Realist that he was, Maimonides did not consider
the time ripe for Jewish sovereignty, Messianic
as it would have to be, in a Jewish state.
Quotes of Emil Fackenheim
(Jews who visit Jerusalem today) would see Jews from
Western countries as well as Muslim and Arab
countries -- Jews from as far away as India and
China. They would be filled with a profound
astonishment, as if to say "The city that sat solitary
yesterday, that was ruins even if holy ruins -- how full
of people it is now!" ... the deepest Jewish response to
[taunts about the destruction of Jerusalem] is Jewish
Jerusalem rebuilt. It is today the most profound
expression of the Jewish faith that the long but not
incurable disease of Jew-hatred will one day come to
an end.
Implications of 614th
Christian faiths - doctrines normally advocate
conversion of nonbelievers, but many have a deep
respect for Fackenheim's concept:
 After Auschwitz the Christian churches no longer
wish to convert the Jews. While they may not be sure
of the theological grounds that dispense them from
this mission, the churches have become aware that
asking the Jews to become Christians is a spiritual
way of blotting them out of existence and thus only
reinforces the effects of the Holocaust.
Implications of 614th
Holocaust remembrance
 The concept encounters broad acceptance in
connection with Holocaust remembrance. In
the late twentieth century, efforts to document
the memories of remaining Holocaust
survivors echoed the notion that preserving
these facts for future generations was a way to
keep Hitler and his ideas in the grave.
Criticisms of Fackenheim’s 614th
Rabbi Toba Spitzer:
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Holocaust is compared to the Exodus/Passover
...of a people born in slavery, freed by their God,
and taken on a transformational journey. It is the
story of the steps taken towards becoming a
community bound by a holy covenant, where social
relationships are defined by the Godly principles of
tzedek and chesed, justice and love
Criticisms of Fackenheim’s 614th
Rabbi Marc Gellman:
 I am Jewish because my mother is Jewish, and,
more importantly, because I believe Judaism is
loving, just, joyous, hopeful and true. I am not
Jewish, and I did not teach my children or my
students to be Jewish, just to spite Hitler.
Criticisms of Fackenheim’s 614th
Rabbi Harold M. Schulweiss:
 We abuse the Holocaust when it becomes a cudgel against
others who have their claims of suffering. The Shoah must not
be misused in the contest of one-downsmanship with other
victims of brutality....The Shoah has become our instant raison
d'etre, the short-cut answer to the penetrating questions of our
children: 'Why should I not marry out of the faith? Why should
I join a synagogue? Why should I support Israel? Why should
I be Jewish?' We have relied on a singular imperative: 'Thou
shalt not give Hitler a posthumous victory.' That answer will
not work. To live in spite, to say 'no' to Hitler is a far cry from
living 'yes' to Judaism.
Criticisms of 614th
Daniel Shoag on Zionism in The Harvard Israel
Review
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Fackenheim fails to locate a religious or divine
source for his moral imperative. For Fackenheim,
self-defense, and its manifestation in Zionism, are not
religious values but rather things that precede
religious value or stand outside of it. Thus
Fackenheim locates the significance of the Jewish
State in the Holocaust rather than in traditional
Judaism.
Newer generations of Jews and
614th
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few survivors of the Holocaust - many Jews feel their
memories and opinions deserve respect
idea that people must not further Hitler's goals has
become a meaningful part of public discussion about
Judaism, Zionism, and anti-Semitism
many who discuss it sympathetically do not embrace
it wholeheartedly
some in the newer generations only know Holocaust
as history - they feel the commandment to “grant
Hitler no posthumous victories” denies positive
interpretations of the subjects what the Holocaust
means for Jews
Today
Eliezer Schweid: Is There A Religious Meaning
To The Idea Of The Chosen People After The
Shoah? (1999)
 Israel and normalisation
 focus on the individual/economic achievement
does not allow for a sense of the universal
message that Judaism is about.
Eliezer Schweid: Modern Orthodox
“On the basis of their loyalty to their humanistic,
monotheistic, and moral Jewish purpose, these
movements must spark a renaissance for Jewish
humanism, bringing the Jewish people back to the
ideal of moral elevation as its purpose and destiny. In
practical terms, this means reviving the norm of
communality based on the principles of charity and
justice; a balance between rights and duties; and
responsibility for our fellows and for the collective.”
Eliezer Schweid
“My conclusion is that unless the Jewish people
is restored to its real self as a people engaged
in the realization of a redeeming principle for
itself and for humanity, it will become a
stranger to itself, will bring itself to the brink
of another catastrophe, as it has already done
several times during its long history.”
Eliezer Schweid
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“but the idea of a chosen people may
become meaningful again, and indeed
redeeming, if interpreted in terms of the
ancient prophetic covenant that obligated
the Jewish people to the ethics of
responsibility to build a different society
and a different statehood based on freedom
and justice.”
Where to?
Moral imperative for Israel
Eliezer Schweid :
 The morality of the covenant is the only way to reunite the
Jewish people, to ground it in its sources and historical
memory
 The commandment to “mend the world” should be interpreted
in the terms of the covenant.
 Israel must strive to realize the eternal prophetic values of
Judaism and redeem the Jewish people spiritually as well as
materially, and contribute to the redemption of humanity.
 Israel must become a society and a state that will become the
spiritual centre for the Jewish people and the source of a
universal message to humanity.
Resources
Eliezer Schweid
 http://www.doingzionism.org/resources/expan
d_author.asp?id=77
 http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp440.htm
Other:
 http://www.azure.org.il/authors.php?id=211
 https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/modern_judaism/
summary/v017/17.3er_schweid.html