The Holocaust
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The Jewish Holocaust in which 6 million Jews were exterminated by the Nazis during WWII was a tremendous blow to the Jews as a people and religion. One of the fundamental tenets of Judaism is that Jews are god's chosen people. Jews traditionally believe that they are special and different from all the other nations. They are smarter, more righteous and -if they follow god's will- more prosperous as well. This them is mentioned many times in the Bible "for god has chosen you to be a prized nation to him..." and it has been maintained throughout the days of temple and later in Diaspora. How do we reconcile the "favorite nation" status will all the humiliation and suffering experienced in the last 2,000 years? Simple! We have sinned and god is punishing us just like a dad slaps his little son a little, just enough to stir him in the right direction and teach him not to do wrong again. We believe that our 2,000-year-long suffering is only temporary and eventually we will be redeemed by the Messiah and our dignity and prosperity restored.

Okay, so that explains why the middle-age-era Jewish peasant or surf was tortured by the christian lord and the Jewish merchant peddled towns laboriously just to eke out enough money to barely survive and was then forced to give half of it away in taxes. And that might also explain some of the other more severe persecutions such as the Crusades. But what about the Holocaust? A father might slap his child on the back as punishment but will he choke him to death? If we are god's chosen people, how and why would god ever allow such a massive and tremendous blow to happen to us, the destruction of one-third of our nation in less than five years in the most brutal and sadistic ways imaginable. Many holocaust survivors have simply lost their faith in god as a result of the holocaust. It just doesn't make any sense; god cannot be looking after us and love us if atrocities like this can materialize.

They have an extremely valid argument and I agree that this is solid ground for dismissal of the "chosen nation" idea. But in reality the Holocaust is far more complicated than this. We must strive to understand what really lies behind the Holocaust. What motivated the Germans to commit these atrocious crimes? why did they hate the Jews so much and why were the Jews do defenseless?

Let's rewind back all the way to the days of when Christianity was created as a distinct religion. Christianity is NOT an independent religion when compared to Judaism. Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism; in fact it's a "reformation" of Judaism. Jesus and his small group of Jewish followers sought to "reform" the Jewish movement in the closing days of the second temple. His teachings were revolutionary. He said that people are not judged by how many animal sacrifices they bring to the temple or by ritual baths ("Mikveh") or by a host of other technical acts that were strongly emphasized by the Rabbi's in that generation. Jesus said that it's all in the heart and it's the intent that is much more important than the act. There's no need to go up to the corrupt Jerusalem in order to get god's attention. You can get god's attention right at home by helping each other and following the righteous path.

His disdain of the traditional Rabbinical emphasis on the temple and a host of other Jewish laws is what made him an outcast. His teachings were denounced as heretical and his followers ostracized. Although his original intent was NOT to start a new religion or even a religious movement within Judaism, the eventual spin-off of his movement into Christianity was pretty much inevitable. His teachings were just too revolutionary for the time and the Jews simply were not willing to go along with it. Since the movement, by its very essence sought to de-emphasize technical acts and emphasize good will and intent instead, it therefore naturally attracted gentiles who were not allowed entry into rabbinical Judaism and were unwilling to commit to all the details of rabbinical Judaism.

The new movement spread like wildfire! What was the movement? It was a Jewish reform movement called Christianity. The traditional, rabbinical Jews soon became the minority and they were outnumbered by a movement that was being laughed at just several years ago. The Jews had failed!!! They did not realize that it was a reform a movement; they thought that it was just another crazy movement that will evaporate and disappear in time. But Christianity had a gigantic future in store. It was destined to conquer the world and inspire western cultural life for thousands of years to come. Rabbinical Jews thought that they were failing him, but instead failed themselves! We now know that by holding on to traditional Judaism we held on to bigotry, fundamentalism and unwillingness to adapt. I'm not saying that early Christians were any better. In fact, early Christians were less educated than Jews. Jews are the "Am Hasefer" (Nation of the book); we as a nation have always been literate, while other nations were largely illiterate in these days. Yet, Christianity as a religion is a leap forward over its Jewish counterpart and we know this now in year 2005.

The Holocaust is a manifestation of the pent-up urge in every reform movement to destroy the conservative movement. Now I must note, that a conservative movement is typically more violent against a reform movement that a reform is against the conservative. That's because the reformists understand the vantage point of those who were left behind but those who were left behind do not understand what it's like to live in the modern world and they are therefore naturally more adamantly opposed to it. However in the case of Judaism vs Christianity, the Jews had their hands tied throughout the middle ages. They were largely outnumbered and were just happy to be able to maintain their conservative religious outlook and outdated religious practices. Trying to prevent or fight Christianity was something they could not even afford to dream of.

Christians throughout the middle ages very much resented the Jewish tenacity and attempted in various ways to convert them to Christianity. They did NOT do this because they hated them; on the contrary. Jews hate Christians because Christians are revolutionaries and seem to be trying to turn their world upside down. Christians, however, do not hate Jews. They just want to "enlighten" them so that they too could enjoy the benefits of a more modern religion. When the Christians fought in the crusades, they did did so with the intent of spreading the gospel and converting Jews and others to Christianity. Their primary intent was NOT to kill, whereas the professed intent of all major victors in battles of previous ages -including the battles of the Israelites against the Canaanites- was to kill and destroy the enemy.

I know, Jews were not given a chance to accept Christianity and escape the Holocaust. But that's because there is an extremely important principle that one must understand and that is: An opportunity for progress will become available once, twice, trice and maybe four times or more but there will come a point where the opportunity is lost and when it is lost, it is lost forever and ever and ever and ever. Unlike in the movies, where skirmishes amongst love objects rarely are permanent, in real life these skirmishes are sometimes permanent. It depends on whether the right party seizes the opportunity at the right time and place and seeks reconciliation and forgiveness. After thousands of years of ingrained hatred of gentiles and refusal to reform, it was too late!! Even those Jews who did manage to reform in earlier years were included in the collective punishment, although to a somewhat lesser extent.

Following are the lines of the movie "Chasing Amy". Bob is explaining how he found out that his girlfriend once had a threesome before they got together and he therefore broke up with her. "I wasn't disgusted with her, I was afraid. That moment I felt small, like I'd lacked experience, like I'd never be on her level... never be enough for her or something like that. But, what I did not get is, she did not care, she wasn't looking for that guy anymore, she was looking for me, for the Bob. But by the time I figured this all out it was too late, she moved on and all I had to show for was some foolish pride which then gave way to regret. She was the girl, I KNOW that now. but... I pushed her away. And so I've spent every day since then Chasing Amy."