Q&A: Request for a Column
Request for a Column
Question
Hello, honored Rabbi.
Maybe there is a column that explains the difficulty of where God was during the Holocaust, and how that is different from the general difficulty that exists regarding all suffering in the world. And if there isn’t, then perhaps the Rabbi could write one. Thank you very much.
Answer
There are quite a few discussions about evil in the world, both on the site and in the second book of the trilogy. I truly think that the Holocaust is not especially unique in this respect.
Discussion on Answer
In my opinion, even from the ordinary perspective that is so. How is this different from the madness and suffering that there was at the destruction of the Temple? Stories of horror. And in general, there are many cases of terrible suffering of individual people, and I do not see why, when the suffering happens to many, that becomes a fundamentally different question.
It is not unique only in accordance with your general view of providence, which in any case leaves the discussion of evil only at the planning stage, and the creation of the possibility for it, or do you mean that even if one departs from that point of view and looks through the lens of providence, it still would not be different?
(Because it does contain a drastic statement about unimaginable evil, which is hard to accept specifically as a punishment upon the Jewish people.)