Ignaz Maybaum: A Reader (reviewe)

“The innocent who died in Auschwitz, not for the sake of their own sins but because of the sins of others, atone for evil; they are the sacrifice which is brought to the altar and which God acknowledges favourably. The six million, the dead of Auschwitz and of other places of horror, are Jews whom our modern civilization has to canonize as holy martyrs; they died as sacrificial lambs because of the sins inherent in western civili zation. Their death purged western civilization so that it can again become a place where men can live, do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God” (p. 168). This capsule of Ignaz Maybaum’s interpretation of the Shoah is representative not only of his views on “the third Churban” but also his entire theological position. Of course, his full range of thinking is too complex and nuanced to assume that a single quotation can capture all of what he had to say. Indeed, Nicholas de Lange is correct when he argues that Maybaum is often misinterpreted by those who seldom have read his original work.

DeLange has certainly given us enough of Maybaum’s rich contributions to warrant a reconsideration of the importance of this important post-Shoah Jewish theologian, teacher, and leader. In fact, it is very clear with the skillful grouping of essays that de Lange has organized that Maybaum is extraordinarily creative in his assessment of orthodoxy and liberal Jewish thought as well as his fascinating portrayal of the relationship between Muslims, Christians, and Jews. He certainly carries the intent of thinkers like Franz Rosenzweig a bit further with his sweeping views of the future of these three great religious traditions and their ongoing relationship. Even so, in the end his stance on the Shoah is so dominant in his overall view that it colors all of these other concerns. His understanding of the relationship between Muslims and Christians and Jews is surely finally marked by the heritage of Auschwitz. And his point of view on Auschwitz is quite clear. Those who died were martyrs on the altar of God. Maybaum surely strikes a theological pose that is so utterly contrary to other leading Jewish voices like Emil Fackenheim, Irving Greenberg, or even Elie Wiesel that his point of view must surely be recognized as a unique and important part of the post-Shoah Jewish debate over the impact of Auschwirz on Judaism. Like these other thinkers, Maybaum clearly sees religious people in our time to be post-Shoah people, and any effort to think in pre-Auschwitz terms in this age is not only naïve but is an affront to the ones who died.

But unlike Fackenheim, Maybaum does seem to find a saving voice from God at Auschwitz. In some very real and to me disturbing sense, God used these events for the “redemption of humankind. Thus, the dead can all be called martyrs (witnesses).” Aside from the fact that such a label utterly ignores the real views of many who died, Maybaum’s Jewish contemporaries are likely to be unsettled by any notion that God was using Auschwitz as a divine instrument, even in the way that Maybaum intends to argue. And surely Maybaum’s assessment does not take the kind of critique that Greenberg has raised for post-Shoah Judaism, for the implication in Maybaum’s view is that the world (and with that those who bought into assimilation in ways that served the worst ends of western secularization) was sinful and only such deaths could awake the world to the disaster they were creating. Are we so taken back so as to shout out the question asked by so many including Elie Wiesel, “Does it take six million deaths, a million and a half children?”

I am impressed with the remarkable life work of Ignaz Maybaum that includes reflections on Judaism, religions, and the world, so fascinating and filled with potential. Indeed, his thought is more complex than is often implied by interpreters. But...