This important essay discusses the interplay of rachamim and din in history with particular application to the period known as the Holocaust. It was first published in 1998, almost 22 years ago.
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There is a well-known Chazal (Rashi cites it concerning the first posuk of Bereishis): "Initially [Hashem] thought of creating the world with middas din (the trait of strict justice), but when He saw the world could not exist, He first [created it with the] middas rachamim (the trait of mercy) and joined to it the middas din."
There are set principles controlling the interaction between those two middos. These principles enable us to understand clearly and unmistakably several events that have occurred to mankind and to Klal Yisroel in particular during the course of history. This concerns not only happenings narrated in the Chumash, the Nevi'im, and the Kesuvim, but even what has happened to us until the present day.
The dreadful Holocaust, the horrifying event that befell Am Yisroel more than fifty years ago at the hands of the seed of Amolek, the Nazis ym'sh, when six million of our brethren — men, women, and children — were sacrificed on the mizbeiach as korbonos for Hashem, caused most people to ask the obvious question: "Ruler of the World! Why?"
Not only those who themselves suffered and witnessed our nation's infernal calamity, but those — even non-Jews — who merely heard or read about the endless, unfathomable cruelty, were stirred and asked the same question: "How could such a thing happen? Why?"
Another tragic result of that terrible churban, whose systematic wickedness is unparalleled in world history, was that many Jews lost their faith in the Creator of the World and completely forsook Yiddishkeit.
They have still not heard an answer to their question! But actually, an answer is not necessary for everyone: a person who firmly believes in Hashem knows we cannot question a decree from Above.
I believe that what occurred during the Holocaust should be explained according to the principles we have just outlined. Chazal offer us here a real clue as to how to fully understand the ways of Hashgocho.
The Midrash (Shemos Rabbah 23:3) reveals this clue to us: "`Moshe will then sing (Oz yoshir)' (Shemos 15:1). This is [the meaning of] what is written, `Your lips, O my bride, drop as the honeycomb' (Shir HaShirim 4:11). Moshe said: `Ruler of all worlds! With the thing with which I sinned before You I will praise You.'
"R' Levi bar Chiya said: `This can be compared to a country that rebelled against the king. The king said to his duke: `Let us go and fight against [the country].' The duke said to him: `You will not succeed.' The king was silent, and at night went by himself and conquered it. The duke found out [about what the king did], made a crown, and brought it to the king. [The king] said: `Why [are you bringing this to me]?' [The duke] answered: `It is because I sinned with this [i.e., the crown, signifying the king's power] and claimed you would not be able to [conquer that country].'
"In the same way, Moshe said before HaKodosh Boruch Hu: `I know that I sinned before you with oz, as is written, `For since (mei-oz) I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, He has done evil to this people" (Shemos 5:23)'; and behold, You drowned them in the ocean. Therefore I praise You with oz, as is written, `Oz yoshir Moshe' (at the splitting of Yam Suf). Come and see the way of tzaddikim, with the thing they have sinned with they make amends. This is what is written, `Your lips, O my bride, drop as the honeycomb.'" (See the continuation of the Midrash.)
The Midrash is apparently difficult to understand. The parable and its moral lesson are altogether inconsistent. The duke did not realize how great the king's power was, but Moshe had no doubts at all about Hashem's power. Moshe had an entirely different complaint (as we see in the previous posuk, v. 22): "Why have you dealt ill with this people?" Not only have You not redeemed them, but Pharaoh has done even more evil to them.
Chazal are alluding to the great secret of how Hashem acts towards people. They are teaching us that the splitting of Yam Suf was a sufficient answer to Moshe's pained question, "Why have you dealt ill with this people?" I will explain exactly what I mean.
Moshe saw the nissim at Yam Suf; he saw Hashem's glory revealed to bnei Yisroel to such a degree that they attained the awesome perceptions about which it is written (Rashi, Beshalach 15:2), "A maidservant saw at the sea what even Yechezkel ben Buzi did not see," and that bnei Yisroel reached such a high level that they sang shirah for Hashem.
After all this, Moshe understood Hashem's ways retroactively. He grasped why bnei Yisroel were forced to suffer and be so greatly oppressed by Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Moshe perceived that only when bnei Yisroel were fully punished for their sins — when the middas din had been completely satisfied — would it be possible for this enormous measure of middas rachamim and Divine love to be miraculously revealed to the Jews and for the Egyptians to be punished for subjugating bnei Yisroel.
This is understandable. In any joint enterprise where each side has equal rights, property and resources are divided evenly. For example, if one partner uses only a certain part of their joint resources the other partner cannot use more than what the first uses.
The same happens in Shomayim. In the partnership between these two middos, din and rachamim, as long as the middas din has not received what it deserves — its entire claim — the middas rachamim cannot show all of its ahavoh. Furthermore, according to the measure of punishment by the middas din — partial or full — only so can the midda of rachamim function.
An evident kushyo on what I have just said can be raised from a Chazal that Rashi (Shemos 20:6) cites, to the effect that, "The good midda (i.e. middas rachamim) is five hundred times greater than the midda of punishment." This would seem to indicate that the partnership is quite unequal.
But Chazal's meaning here is altogether different. They actually want to teach us that the measure of reward for doing a mitzvah is five hundred times more than the measure of punishment for an aveiroh. However, if, for instance, Hashem acts toward a certain nation in such a way that He only punishes them for part of their aveiros, likewise Hashem will not reward them for all their mitzvos but only for part of them. Chazal are dealing with the intensity of reward and punishment and not with the rules of just proportion upon which they are based.
Let us return to the main theme. Moshe retroactively understood that there was a price to be paid for the miracles HaKodosh Boruch Hu did for bnei Yisroel at Yam Suf, and for the prophetic revelation to the masses, and for the miraculous punishment of the Egyptians. The middas hadin had to agree to all this.
What was the price? Bnei Yisroel were obliged to be mercilessly oppressed by their Egyptian masters. In fact, they were so brutally subjugated that even Moshe Rabbenu bitterly complained to Hashem. Only in such a way was the middas hadin appeased and it agreed to join with the middas rachamim and show Divine love in such a miraculous way.
This is the explanation of the above mentioned Midrash: the moshol comes to teach us that Moshe lacked knowledge of how the Creator acts with us — how the middas rachamim and middas din work together. He was not aware, at the time, that HaKodosh Boruch Hu would later show the glory of His kingdom to the Jewish Nation to the point where even a maidservant saw prophetic visions and all of Klal Yisroel sang that "Hashem will reign forever and ever." All this endless ahavoh was the result of the middas rachamim functioning. However, in order to be zoche to such rachamim the Jewish Nation had first to fully suffer the punishment it deserved, which was measured out by the middas din. This is, with Hashem's help, the correct explanation that enlightens the meaning of the Midrash.
Now we can understand the ways of Hashem during the dreadful Holocaust. It seemed then that Hashem had, chas vesholom, spurned His children and handed them over to an enemy to do whatever the enemy wished. What happened three years after that churban? At the United Nations in New York, representatives (directed, of course, by their governments) from almost all nations of the world (even though non-Jews have a natural inclination not to love us, or even each other) decided to return Eretz Yisroel to Am Yisroel! After we were exiled from Eretz Yisroel for some two thousand years it was returned to us!
Someone who reflects about this realizes that a real miracle had happened. The ruling is that, "Amon and Moav were purified by Sichon" (Gittin 38a) — Sichon's capturing the land of Amon and Moav allowed Yisroel to conquer their land even though the Torah forbids us to fight with Amon and Moav (see Bamidbar 21:21-30, Devorim 2:9,19). The gemora says that this teaches us that non-Jews can acquire possessions and land through force (to make a kinyan through chazokoh) — that conquering another land is considered by the Torah a complete kinyan. With the nations, too, a land taken over by another people is considered to belong to the conqueror. According to all these rules those who had forced bnei Yisroel to go into golus and conquered Eretz Yisroel became the owners of the land. Someone who came after them and took it away from them would now be the new rightful owner. All this is accepted and commonplace.
But that a land should be returned to those who once lived in it two thousand years previously? This never happened until now. Is there any example even close to this in the history of other nations? "For ask now of the days that are past, which were before them, since the day that Hashem created man upon the earth, and from the one side of heaven to the other, where there has been any such thing as this great thing is, or whether aught has been heard like it?" (Devorim 4:32). Is it not a wonder that after thousands of years something like this could possibly happen?
Is it not Divine Providence that the nations of the world had pity on the nation of Hashem, the nation hated by most of them, and announced publicly that the right to Eretz Yisroel as set forth in the Torah, as promised by HaKodosh Boruch Hu to our fathers, is eternal? This follows the principle outlined above, that after the middas din had finished fully punishing us and had destroyed a great part of Hashem's nation, Rachmono litzlan, from that point on it was possible for the middas harachamim to show its great power and fulfill Hashem's promise to our holy Patriarchs and return the land to their descendants.
Something similar — but happening after only a short golus — occurred to bnei Yisroel after the churban of the first Beis Hamikdash when they were in golus in Babylonia (see the last two pesukim in II Divrei HaYomim 36:22-23): "Now in the first year of Koresh, king of Persia, so that the word of Hashem spoken by the mouth of Yirmiyohu might be accomplished, Hashem stirred up the spirit of Koresh king of Persia, that he proclaimed throughout all of his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, `Thus says Koresh, king of Persia: Hashem, the Elokim of Heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and He has charged me to build Him a house in Yerushalayim, which is in Yehuda. Whoever is among you of all his people — Hashem his Elokim be with him, and let him go up!'"
HaKodosh Boruch Hu placed in the heart of Koresh, the ruler over Eretz Yisroel, the desire to return the land to bnei Yisroel. Likewise in our days, Hashem placed in the hearts of the heads of the nations a desire to return bnei Yisroel to their land.
The Ramban writes (Bereishis 15:18) on the posuk, "In the same day Hashem made a covenant with Avrom, saying, `To your seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt . . .'": "When [Hashem] commanded [Avrom] at the time of the mitzvah of mila, Hashem said [`And I will give to you, and to your seed after you, the land in which you will sojourn, all the land of Canaan] for an everlasting covenant, and I will be their Elokim' Bereishis 17:8) meaning that if they should be exiled from it they will again inherit it." This is a nevu'ah from one of the great Rishonim based on how he translates the posuk, and it has actually taken place. About this and the like is written, "His words are living and continual, faithful and delightful forever and to all eternity" (Bircas krias Shema).
According to what we have written and according to Chazal's statement that "the good midda is five hundred times greater than the midda of punishment," we can understand the ways of Hashgocho after the terrible Holocaust. A previously nonexistent abundance of rachamim and chesed has come to the world. In most countries benefits and money are being dispensed to almost anyone who needs it: the elderly, the retired, widows, orphans, the sick, the unfortunate, and even for newlyweds without sufficient income. This was not present before the Second World War. Technology has also developed miraculously, and today we have inventions that fifty years ago no one would have dreamed of.
This is because the middas din was almost satisfied, and now the middas rachamim is bestowing an endless abundance, as is written, "For His anger endures but a moment; in His favor is life" (Tehillim 30:6).
HaRav Leib Heiman zt"l was the rav of the Beis Knesses HaGra in Bayis Vegan, Yerushalayim.
