4 111E BURNT JEWISH NEWS Friday, December 21, 1979 Indestructible Faith in Almighty and Rejection of Faithlessness Is Emphasized in Eliezer Berkovits' Volume, With God in Hell' rial day, his organization's guest speaker, a rabbi, de- clared that in view of what happened in the concentra- tion camps and the cre- matoria, he could no longer believe in God. His confes- sion greatly upset the audi- ence. camps is tackled in this de- eply moving volume by a very prominent author. The basis for the study and for the affirmation of faith is made to the author by a leader of a national secular movement. It is quoted in the preface: "On a Holocaust memo- A warning that faith should not be treated lightly is the emphasis in "With God in Hell: Judaism in the Ghettoes and Death Camps" by Eliezer Ber- kovits (Sanhedrin Press). 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U.S. No. 1 10 lb. bag $139 Orchard Lake Store Only •. FA YGO POP 1 litre bottle Specials Good Thru 12-27 4 for q been so deeply perturbed by the rabbi's statement. After all, theirs was a secular group. His an- swer was: `Many of them were concentration camp survivors,' and for him this was a sufficient ex- planation. "He meant to say that these survivors, who might well have lost their fatih as a result of their experiences, were angered by this 'suc- cessful' American rabbi's facile dismissal of the possi- bility of faith in God." They must have thought, "This man, who grew up in the most prosperous coun- try on earth, who never went hungry to bed, whose life was, most probably, never seriously threatened, who never spent a day in a ghetto or a concentration camp, who never watched the clouds of smoke over the crematoria, he is lecturing to us about loss of faith! What does he know of the anguish of the believing Jew who loses his faith be- cause he is so overwhelmed by the inhumanity of man that he can no longer be- lieve!' " Having quoted this statement, Dr. Berkovits comments: "I began then to under- stand that we have been talking and writing about faith lightly, without fully appreciating what we were about. Suddenly I saw be- fore me tens of thousands of Jews for whom Judaism was the sustaining well of their entire existence -- Jews for whom the loss of faith was, indeed, a greater disaster than the loss of all their worldly possessions. "I could not help thinking of the multitude of Jews who, having lost their faith as well as their lives in the gas chambers, pleaded be- fore the heavenly court: " 'Almighty God! We can forgive You every- thing that was done to us on Your polluted earth. Only one thing we cannot forgive: that You did not look after our faith in You; that You allowed such trials to be heaped upon our heads to which our faith was unable to stand up!' "That survivors, who had lost their faith, could be de- eply hurt by the facile disbe- lief of one completely alien to their own experience made one doubt that the modern Western Jew knew what he was talking about when he spoke of belief or disbelief. "This made it a demand- ing necessity to attempt to unravel the mystery of faith with the help of numerous testimonies to its continued manifestations, even in the ghettos and the concentra- tion camps. Forever pre- occupied with the problem of faith after the Holocaust, many of us often overlook the fact that in the ghettos and concentration camps- there were untold numbers of Jews who to the very end lived and died as Jews. We It is for this one that God prayed when He created know of many thousands man. who walked to the mass graves and the gas cham- "Oh, the realization of My dream, of My longings. bers with the dignity of an all-conquering trust in the My chosen one, whom My soul desires." God of Israel and in the fu- "Everyone of the exam- ture of the Jewish people, and with the superior ples presented here stands knowledge of the ultimate for the conduct of thousands defeat of the Nazi monster. of others and Katzenelson's "Only by making the ef- praise of Shloniti Zlichovsky fort of establishing em- is shared by many. The few pathetic contact with the of whom we have heard are authentic Jew of the ghettos a reflection of the continuity and the camps dare we hope of Judaism in the most ex- to gain some inkling of the treme conditions. Each one, mystery of Jewish faith, and in his own most personal a more significant under- life, reflects the eternity of standing of the nature of Israel." Among the leading Judaism and of the historic destiny of the Jewish Jewish philosophers, Dr. Berkovits has a deep people." Drawing upon scores of examples of faithful resistance, of devotion to the idea of indestructibil- ity for the Jew, Dr. Bee- kovits makes his book a veritable encyclopedia of martyrdom that is rooted in defiance of the god- lessness of the barbar- ians. His "With God in Hell" defines his own and the Jewish principles of faith in this declarative proclamation of faith: 'The ghettos and concen- tration camps that saw so much demoralization and human degradation were also the holy of holies on this earth. In those long and dark years, when mankind was silently standing by as the most barbarous crime in all human history was willfully perpetrated by one of the technologically most advanced nations of the world, it was in the ghettos and the concentration camps that the dignity of man was safeguarded, where the faith of man reached its highest man- ifestation, commensurate in its greatness to the abysmal depths of the moral bank- ruptcy of Western civilize- lion.- "Yitszhak Katzenelson, the great Jewish poet of the Holocaust, immortalized the walk of Shlomo Zlichovsky from the prison to the gallows. Katzenelson calls upon heaven and earth to sing that name, the name of the man who redeemed human dignity on earth. The poet comforts this poor, degraded globe of ours: Sing! Comfort ye, Comfort ye, my earth, Speak to the heart of the fal- len one: Hail unto thee, earth! . . . graced and blessed . . Who are all your heroes compared to the one hanged there in the mar- ket place of Zdunska- Wola? God Himself, smiles sadly, wrapped in brilliance. For Shlomo Zlichousky has found favor in His eyes, the man and the song. He loves Ibis son, Shlomo, the weak, the pale One. Who in all the earth is mighty like he! commitment to Judaism and is a thorough in- terpreter of Jewish teachings. In this book he deals with the Jewish identifications and devo- tions. A chapter in this noteworthy book on Emunah, faith, belief, is a philosophical classic. To quote Dr. Berkovits: "And these are my last words to You, my God of anger: nothing will avail You! You have done every- thing that I deny You, that I shall not trust You. Yet, I die as I lived — with rock- like emunah in You. "May He be praised forever, the God of the dead, the God of vengeance, the God of truth and justice, who will yet let His counte- nance shine upon the world and shake its foundations by the power of His voice . . . "Shema Yisra'el! Hear, 0 Israel! The Eternal is our God, the Eternal is One! Into Thy hand I entrust my spirit." — P.S. Diary Challenged LONDON — David Irv- ing, author of "Hitler's War" which questioned whether Hitler knew of the mass killings of Jews, now is questioning the authen- ticity of "The Diary of Anne Frank." Irving has asked Anne's father, Otto Frank, now of Switzerland, to send a copy of the original manuscript for testa by an independent firm of experts. In 1978, a right-wing West German attorney, Ernst Roemer, accused the now 90-year-old Frank of "inventing" Anne's diary. Frank sued and a German court fined Roemer. Roemer appealed and the court has asked experts to authenticate the age of the paper and ink of the original manuscript and Anne's handwriting. Intellectual consistency is far from being the first want of our nature, and is seldom a primary want in minds of great persuasive, as distinguished from con- vincing power.