Introducing the Dialogue

Editor's Introduction INTRODUCING THE DIALOGUE by James F. Moore James F. Moore is Associate Professor of Theology at Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Indiana. He is author of Sexuality and Marriage (Augsburg Publishing House, 1987) and Christian Theology After the Shoah: A Reinterpretation of the Passion Narratives! as well as numerous anicles onJewish Studies, on Christian theology and the Holocaust, and on teaching courses in Jewish Studies. He is on the editorial board of the Studies in the Shoah series of the University Press of America and is an educational consultant to the Philadelphia Center for the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights. 3 Those of us who live in the second generation after Auschwitz have for some time sensed that we are now faced with a transition stage in our thinking about the Shoah. The first generation, the generation of eyewitnesses, is still with us but in another decade or two will be gone. We also face the same dangers that all historical events and their memoryface, the loss of centrality and intensity of the event. Thus, with the gradual loss of the eyewitness account and with the natural tendency for new generations to lose Sight of the imponance of historical events, this generation, our generation, feels the heightened call to be a new generation of witnesses . We have heard the appeal that Elie Wiesel makes: We all stood at Sinai; we all shared the same vision there; we all heard the Anocbi. 'I am the Lord ...' If this is true, then we are also linked to Auschwitz. Those who were not there then can discover it now. How? 1 '(University Press of America, 1993), Studies in the Shoah Series, Zev Garber, cd., Volume 5. 4 SHOFAR Fall 1996 Vol. 15, No. 1 don't know. But I do know it is possible."' Of course, these words were written with specific intent to address a Jewish audience whose own communal memory could join Wiesel at least in the first part-"We all stood at Sinai"-even if some would be searching for the "How?" of the second part of Wiesel's appeal. We can only speculate about what Wiesel would say ifthe audience were not merely the contemporary Jewish community but the Jewish-Christian dialogue community instead. If we who are in dialogue hear Wiesel's appeal, what does it mean for us? Can we share standing at Sinai? Do we hear the same words or see the same vision? And even if we could answer confidently these questions, we must ask whether being linked to Auschwitz is connected to ~tanding together at Sinai. This is a more complex question than it first seems since we often debate whether the two are closer and, thus, more sinister in this relationship than we are willing to grant at first. What, then, do we say if this community of dialogue is also one in which all who talk with one another cannot share being at Auschwitz with Elie Wiesel? Again the question is complex and has met with stormy conversation over the years. There are those who listen to the second generation and their thoughts about Auschwitz with great cynicism. They are not so optimistic as Wiesel, who may not know how our generation can stand with the eyewitnesses but nevertheless believes that we can. Surely, Wiesel has briefly pinpointed a central feeling that we do share, that we struggle to discover, to stand with in our own way. And this struggle is partly our response to the need, that soon the ones who were at Auschwitz can no longer bear witness. But that is not all. We also struggle because this is now our work, shaped as we shape the story and attempt to preserve the memory. There is yet another powerful even if subtle word that springs from Wiesel's appeal. He has linked our standing at Sinai with our standing at Auschwitz. Even if Wiesel has not always thought the same thing or stood in the same place on this matter, he is consistent in this word. Theology, namely the passing on of our religious traditions for a new generation, is now done in this terribly frightful crucible, the unthinkable...