RABBI NEWBERGER: A QUESTION OF FAITH
"Schwer zu sein a yid" - It's hard to be a Jew. Folkloristic wisdom that expresses the multiconditional timeless state of Jewish being Schwer zu sein - tough to be . . . A state of testing - testing - testing, and yet more testing. Do we dare to ask this terrible question: Was the Holocaust a test? And if it were, do we, the living Jews, the survivors of the test, not have Ribono, Shel Olam Himself and say: O L-rd no more testing, for one more such tests and we will be no more.
Faith in the midst of such testing. Faith that can emerge out of such testing. Do we not
have the right, even the obligation, to say O L-rd how could You administer such a test? Do we not
have the right to join our voices to Avraham avinu, Abraham our father, and ask
"Will not the judge of all the earth do justice?"
Is this justice? This Auschwitz? This Treblinka? Is the korban, the sacrifice, the Holocaust of the
chosen people, justice? And if it is not. . . .then how is Hashem the shofet the judge, of all the earth?
And how, O L-rd, can we believe?
There are no happy answer, my beloved people, There is no happy ending O chosen and selected. There is no "and they lived happily ever after" Even now, 60 years and more and counting, the pain, the rage, the doubt, the loss are still too real The wound is open and running. It does take a monumental will, an act of defiant faith, Job's faith–"though You L-rd G-d slay me, not break me. Because If because we, need You and cannot live, do not want to live, without You. If the Holocaust is the denial of life, well pity us, for we want to live. If the Holocaust is a world without meaning, then pity us, because we want a world of meaning and purpose. If the Holocaust is a world without human love and warmth and compassion, then pity us, because we must have love and warmth and compassion
Why, Why, Why did it happen? It is an answer, the answer yet to be written. But to be a Jew, to be a Jew in thought and name and deed after the Holocaust, is to live for that answer and to somehow, and more than somehow, know that it will come.
No one, no people has been more tested O children of Abraham, And Abraham knew when to cry defiantly at G-d "will not the judge of all the earth do justice?" and when to silently assent to G-d's inscrutable terrible demand that he sacrifice his only son.
I believe that no one, no Jew, can or should find faith easily or automatically after the Holocaust. I believe that no one can or should say "I believe" without a shred of doubt or reluctance. But no one, no Jew, is free to walk away, for we have seen the amooday aish, the pillars of fire of the great alternative--world without G-d, without love, without mercy, without justice, without anything. We have seen the devils revelation that was Auschwitz. and we know that we cannot live with that revelation.
And so 0 G-d, G-d Who tests and torments and challenges, we must fight for You and that infinitely better world that You showed us at Sinai and throughout our over 3,000 year pilgrimage. We must fight for Torah, for kedusha. holiness, for justice, for mercy. After Hitler, after Himmler, after a million and a half dead Jewish children, what choice do we have but to fight for You and Your Revelation.
"Faith"–I pause and reflect upon that word and I find that I have no real patience for it. "Life"--that is what we must touch and seize. After Auschwitz ayn berayrah, there is no choice Ve'chai bahem, we must live. And G-d said to Jacob our father "Your name will no longer be Jacob but Israel, because you have wrestled with G-d and with Man, and you will, and you will, and we will win.