Part I
Last year marked sixty years since the Holocaust. The
liberation of the Auschwitz death camp in which one and a
half million people, the majority of them Jews, were brutally
put to death is now marked in many places as a day of
remembering the entire Holocaust. Rallies and memorial
services are held yearly on the premises themselves, and in
many places throughout the world.
There is a certain significance to the events of this kind
with an international nature, especially upon the painful
background of such a proliferation of renewed antisemitism in
accelerated form in these past years. This is taking place,
of all places, in European countries, those very countries
which were victims of the vicious conquest of the Nazi war
machine.
Antisemitic phenomena teach that the lessons of that murky
period were not internalized and not learned but, on the
contrary, hatred towards Judaism and Jews was not eradicated
even in view of the dire consequences resulting from the
sophisticated genocidal program of the Nazis. Added to this
is the disgusting trend of Holocaust denial, as if it never
took place or only occurred in minuscule proportions in
relation to what really took place.
This actually corresponds to the gentile attitude towards
Jews dating all the way back in history. It is perhaps futile
to ask questions on a phenomenon which is obscure,
unfathomable and enigmatic vis-a-vis normal human logic. Is
this not the very time-worn axiom of "It is an immutable law:
Eisov despises Yaakov"? A fact which cannot be changed.
But there is another part to it, which relates to the
relationship of Judaism towards the traumatic events of the
slaughter of European Jewry. And this is something which must
be faced and dealt with.
At this point, one must make two distinctions in the reaction
and relationship in the post-Holocaust period up till present
times. One way is what the secular leadership and its
followers have embraced which, to some degree, has dragged
the religious Zionists after it. The other approach is that
of chareidi Jewry, which continues to conduct itself along
the beaten path blazed by its spiritual leaders, Torah sages
and Chassidic leaders. Regardless of the differences between
these latter leaders and their institutions, the single
purpose before them is to unite and consolidate with those
millions who were incinerated al kiddush Hashem, and
to continue where they left off.
*
The chief secular spokesmen presided last year over the
ceremony which took place in Auschwitz. We mean the President
of the State of Israel, Moshe Katzav. He, like others,
express the substance of their message as, "Never Again." In
other words, after the establishment of a Jewish state, such
a devastation as occurred in Auschwitz and other death camps
can never be repeated.
Mr. Katzav also reiterated the foolish saying which has been
stated in the past by other Israeli leaders: "The State of
Israel came into being just too late for the six million . .
. " In other words, had it existed at the time, during the
Second World War, the Holocaust would never have taken
place.
This is an idiotic statement since it has no grounding in
reality.
Let us assume that it had already been in existence. Would it
have been mightier than Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia,
France, Belgium, Denmark and other countries, all of which
were crushed with lightning speed by the Nazi stormtroopers?
Would it have been difficult for the German army to reach
Eretz Yisroel and conquer it without undue effort? Were not
the troops of Field Marshal Rommel verily at the gates of the
land and only by an open miracle was Hitler's scheme foiled
in that he suddenly opted to stop their advance in the Middle
East in favor of a surprise attack on Russia? What, then, is
this inane talk about "if we had only been on the scene?"
Let us further presume that Rommel was disinclined to enter
into battle with the Israeli army which was defending its
country. How would this have simultaneously prevented the
massacre of the six million Jews throughout Eastern and
Western Europe? Would they have sent paratroopers there,
naval commando forces, marines? Would they have had any
chance whatsoever to penetrate there, to infiltrate forces
with the capacity of stopping the satanic process of evicting
Jews from their homes and herding them into ghettos, and from
there, transporting them en masse to concentration
camps, a process which was meticulously charted and
masterminded with typical German thoroughness in every single
detail?
Perhaps, thanks to the establishment of the State and the
enactment of the Law of Return, all of those millions of Jews
would have managed to immigrate to Eretz Yisroel and
settle themselves, and thus be saved from the diabolical
fangs of the Nazi beast? But this theory is likewise
invalidated from beginning to end, for with the outbreak of
the Second World War, there were some nine million Jews
living in Europe, all of them targeted by the Nazis. In other
words, in order to prevent the destruction, it would have
been necessary to remove them all from Europe.
Would Eretz Yisroel, under the conditions prevailing
at the time, been able to absorb such a massive refugee
influx? Would Israel, even under the conditions prevailing
today, be capable of such a thing? In those times, there were
only four hundred thousand inhabitants living in Palestine.
Let us suppose that thanks to the establishment of a Jewish
state — depending when this would have happened —
hundreds of thousands of Jews would have converged upon the
country. Would they have been able to absorb them, and the
millions more which the Nazis longed to remove from the face
of the earth?
*
The attempt to present the State of Israel from this aspect
as a potential for Jewish salvation had it only been in
existence at the time is altogether vacuous.
Is it any better today? The world which was supposed to have
learned a lesson from what happened during that period, did
not become much wiser. In the course of time, after the
Second World War, there have been some very severe examples
of attempted genocide in places all over the globe where the
`hands' of the leading world nations were powerless to avert,
or assist the victims. And surely little Israel, with all of
its military might, could not have prevented them.
The debate on this topic seems altogether pointless in light
of the bitter fact that Jewish lives even within the
precincts of the State are a far cry from being secure from
the wicked machinations of our enemies. Even its secular
leaders have expressed the view that the most dangerous place
for Jews is here, of all places, more so than in any other
country in the world. And reality seems to bear out that in
Israel, more Jews have been killed just for being Jews than
in any other place.
In the face of such harsh facts, the strident voices that
mocked the millions of Jews who were `led like sheep to the
slaughter' have been altogether muffled. As if it could have
been prevented!
When eleven Israeli athletes were murdered in Munich in 1972,
people began to understand how it was possible for people
being held captive in the clutches of brutal murderers to be
so helpless to act. How much more so when you are talking
about a very powerful police state with diabolical
intentions, a world power that conquered entire nations,
almost overnight, in its sweeping war path.
The argument of "had there been a Jewish state at the time"
is utterly ridiculous, as are the boastings of the nature of
"Never again." All that remains is the very Jewish age-old
reality of our people being like "a sheep among seventy
wolves." It is with this fact of life which we must contend
and maneuver.
We must follow the leadership of our Torah sages, first and
foremost through a constant reinforcement of a Torah life, in
study and practice. Our tradition has proven that so long as
we guard ourselves in this aspect, our enemies are helpless
to harm us or carry out their nefarious schemes against
us.
"The voice is that of Yaakov." So long as the voice of Yaakov
resounds in the halls of yeshivos and places of worship, the
hands of Eisov are powerless, and vice versa; if the sound of
Torah ceases, the enemy's hands become strengthened
(Eichoh Rabbah, introduction, 3).
Similarly, "So long as Israel is not doing the will of
Hashem, the nations of the world decrease its ranks and flog
[punish] it" Ovos deR' Nosson 34).
End of Part I
