Language:
English
Year of publication:
2001
Titel der Quelle:
Judaism; a Journal of Jewish Life & Thought
Angaben zur Quelle:
50,3 (2001) 268-291
Keywords:
Holocaust (Jewish theology)
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Rosh ha-Shanah Liturgy
;
Yom Kippur Liturgy
Abstract:
An essay written to accompany the publication by Yad Vashem of a New Year prayerbook transcribed in 1944 by Naphtali Stern in the Wolfsberg labor camp. Halivni, then 16 years old, was present when the Nazis allowed this one-time public prayer in the camp. The essay includes theological observations as well as personal testimony. Based on biblical verses, stresses that, despite the claims of some prominent ultra-Orthodox rabbis, the Holocaust was not punishment for sins committed by the Jews. Views God's inaction when His people were being annihilated as a form of kabbalistic "tsimtsum", whereby God contracted himself, as it were, to allow room for human freedom, which was then used by the Nazis for ultimate evil. Focuses on one of the prayers, which was uttered by camp inmates with particular feeling, since it "asks God to eliminate the free will of the perpetrators and to take the reins of government back into His hands". The essay is preceded by Peter Ochs' "Introduction to David Weiss Halivni's 'Prayer in the Shoah'" (pp. 259-267), which provides biographical information about Halivni, including his Holocaust experiences and his combination of talmudic scholarship with modern religious commitment. See the response to Halivni by Berel Lang [in "Judaism" 52, 1-2 (2003) 51-59], in which he rejects Halivni's attribution of the Holocaust to God's "tsimtsum" since that too would be an intentional or, at least, a concurred-in action. Notes the difference between this view and the biblical one of a God of history. Halivni appears to accept the ominous implication that the Holocaust is somehow justified. Lang concludes that an adequate account of the Holocaust must either move outside the domain of religious discourse or revise the terms of that discourse. Suggests that God Himself is constrained or limited in history.
Description / Table of Contents:
Ochs, Peter W.. Introduction to David Weiss Halivni's "Prayer in the Shoah". 259-267.
Description / Table of Contents:
Lang, Berel. At the limits; reflections on Halivni on the Shoah. Ibid. 52,1-2 (2003) 51-59.
Note:
Appeared also, with Ochs' introduction, in Halivni's collected articles "Breaking the Tablets" (2007) 3-14 (Introduction), 15-41.
,
Appeared previously in Spanish as "Acerca de la Shoá y su plegaria" in "Plegarias de Rosh Hashana" (2001) 27-56.
,
In Hebrew:
,
"מחזור וולפסברג" (תשסא) 25-43
URL:
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