The Impact of the Holocaust on Jewish Theology

Chapter 5. Between Holocaust and Redemption Silence, Cognition, and Eclipse

Chapter 5 Between Holocaust and Redemption Silence, Cognition, and Eclipse Gershon Greenberg My subject is the history of Jewish thought that existed during and through the years of the Holocaust in ultra-Orthodox circles. I will not be dealing with a central concept of Jewish thought, such as exile or chosenness , systematically, and will be covering material only from 1938 to 1947. In particular, I will focus on the issue of messianism within ultra-Orthodoxy , especially as it was concerned with the area between the historical Holocaust of the present and the metahistorical redemption of the future. My hypothesis is that this area “between” differed according to the spatial and temporal relationship of the particular religious thinker to the catastrophe . In terms of concentric circles, one could describe this difference as follows: at the center, within the catastrophe, there was silence; around it there was knowledge; after the catastrophe there was an eclipse. Some thinkers invoked silence about the passage from Holocaust to redemption, others provided exegesis, and still others were blocked by the catastrophe from detecting any passage whatsoever. Each group can be described more specifically: 1. From within the war zone, there was certainty that redemption would occur, but a withdrawal into silence when it came to describing how the calamity would lead to it—whether historically (i.e., empirically and bound by time and space) and metahistorically (i.e., beyond time and space, of mythic proportions) or historically alone. In place of probing the passage, i.e., exploring in depth the content of the path from present (historical ) Holocaust to future redemption, the thinkers called for pious action—which filled the silence while prayer bridged present history with future, metahistorical redemption. 110 2. In Palestine and America, wartime religious thinkers did probe the passage, bringing it to the level of cognition. Whether due to an experience of revelation that enabled an apprehension of the universe sub specie aeternitatis; or because of God’s compassionate presence; or because of the ability of a particular Tsadik (charismatic Hasidic leader) to perceive the common point to existential and ontological experience, the passage to redemption was detectable—metahistorically, historically, and individually . Other wartime thinkers in Palestine and America believed they understood the passage from historical catastrophe to metahistorical redemption , either in terms of Da’at Torah (Torah knowledge) or in terms of restoring the land of Israel. 3. Religious thinkers whose writing began after the war recoiled from the attempt to describe the passage, or even to be consciously silent about it, because the darkness of the catastrophe eclipsed the light of future redemption. The Core of Silence Shlomo Zalman Ehrenreich of Simleul-Silvaniei, Transylvania Ehrenreich led and consoled his congregation through siege, through ghettoization (May 1944), and finally into Auschwitz (June 1944), where he was killed. His sermons (the last one, prepared for Shabbat Hagadol, 1 April 1944, was never delivered) drew from the sources of rabbinic and Hasidic traditions. Speaking in historical terms, he was certain—and he declared this after his encounter with mutilated victims from Oradea passing through his little city—that God was using the nations to force Jews to retreat from their assimilation and (both secular and religious) Zionism (citing Ephraim MiSuldikov, Degel Mahaneh Ephraim). He predicted that once the assault was over, God would destroy the attackers—thereby eliciting recognition (i.e., sanctification) of His name in the world, a nation’s smallest amount of goodness (e.g., Pharaoh’s honoring Joseph) qualifying it to be sanctified by its destruction (citing Levi Yitshak of Berdichev, Kedushat Levi). He also was certain that the nations could act out their pathological hatred of Israel only when God allowed them to. God was doing so now. His fury over modern assimilation and Zionism was of such intensity that once He transferred His indignation to them, the nations were at liberty to hurt the Jews indiscriminately (Metsudat David to Isaiah 10:5). Between Holocaust and Redemption 111 But Ehrenreich could go no further. While deliberating the notion that the pious were included among the Oradea victims because “together with the thorn [the sinners] the cabbage [the pious] is smitten” [B.T. Baba Kama 92a ], he broke off to declare, One need not reflect about whether or not this is the judgment of the Holy One Blessed be He. When the Blessed Name will help us and will redeem us, then we will...