Holocaust and Faith — Wrestling with God After the Shoah
The Holocaust (Shoah) forced a radical rethinking of Jewish theology — and the responses of Jewish thinkers, from radical theodicy to protest-faith to post-Auschwitz theology, represent the fullest engagement with the problem of evil in modern thought.
The Holocaust (Shoah — catastrophe) — the systematic murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime — is the defining catastrophe of modern Jewish history, comparable in theological significance to the destruction of the First and Second Temples. Unlike previous catastrophes, the Shoah was unprecedented in its totality, its industrial organization, and its occurrence in the heart of 'civilized' Europe. Jewish theological responses range across a spectrum: Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum attributed the Holocaust to Zionism (an ultra-Orthodox response); Eliezer Berkovits maintained that God hides His face (hester panim) to allow human freedom; Emil Fackenheim added a '614th commandment' — to survive as Jews and not hand Hitler posthumous victories; Elie Wiesel brought the tradition of protest-prayer (Job's questioning of God) to its fullest modern expression; and post-Holocaust theologian Irving Greenberg proposed that after the Holocaust, all Jewish theology must be revised through the 'working principle' that no statement is credible that could not be uttered in the presence of the burning children.
We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
Philosopher Hannah Arendt's 'Eichmann in Jerusalem' — with its concept of the 'banality of evil' — provides one of the most searching analyses of how ordinary human beings can participate in systematic atrocity, raising the deepest questions about moral responsibility, institutional complicity, and the nature of evil that post-Holocaust Jewish theology wrestles with.
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- What Judaism says about grief
Jewish responses to the Shoah do not agree: Berkovits argued that God hides His face, Fackenheim added a commandment to survive, Wiesel carried on Job's protest. Irving Greenberg proposed a working test — say nothing that could not be said in the presence of the burning children — which disqualifies most consolation, including some of what is above.