HOLOCAUST VICTIMS REINCARNATED SINNERS, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef Says

Haredi theodicy rears its ugly head, again.

'Shoah victims - reincarnated sinners'
By JPOST.COM STAFF 

Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef has argued that those murdered in the Holocaust were a reincarnation of sinners from past generations, Ma'ariv reported on Sunday.

In his weekly Saturday evening sermon, whose subject was the period between the 17th of Tamuz and Tisha Be'av fasts, the rabbi explained that on Tamuz 17, a number of calamities had occurred, including the breaching of Jerusalem's walls which led to the destruction of the Temple on Tisha Be'av, as well as the sin of the golden calf which led to the shattering of the Tablets of Stone.

"There is no calamity that the people of Israel suffer that isn't part of [the punishment for] the sin of the golden calf. The tragedies we've endured throughout generations - the Inquisition, the Holocaust - they are all part of the sin of the golden calf," Rabbi Yosef explained.

"After all, people are upset and ask why was there a Holocaust? Woe to us, for we have sinned. Woe to us, for there is nothing we can say to justify it," he said.

"It goes without saying that we believe in reincarnation," continued Yosef. "It is a reincarnation of those souls. Our teacher The Ari said that there are no new souls in our generation…all the souls were once in the world and have returned.

"All those poor people in the Holocaust…we wonder why it was done. There were righteous people among them. Still, they were punished because of sins of past generations."

Two years ago Rabbi Yosef blamed Israeli army deaths on lack of Shabbat observance by its soldiers and several years before that, Rabbi Yosef made the same Holocaust statement  made again yesterday.

This type of bizarre theodicy is endemic to fundamentalist movements.

The late Lubavitcher Rebbe did something similar with the Holocaust. Publicizing that in Ha'aretz two years ago, Professor Yehuda Bauer wrote:

…Schneerson does not accept the idea of "hester panim," or God's face being turned away, to explain why He was not present when 1.5 million Jewish children were murdered. According to some religious Jews, this hester panim was a consequence of man's sins, and, above all, the sins of the Jewish people. Schneerson says that God was there, and that he wanted to Holocaust to happen. But because it is inconceivable, in his view, for God to commit evil, he portrays the Holocaust as a positive event, all the more so for the Jews.…

Chabad went apoplectic and tried – as it did the first time this material surfaced in the early 1980s – to claim that we just don't understand the Rebbe, who based all he said on Torah. (When that didn't work the first time, Chabad resorted to claiming the Rebbe's opinion had been forged, something that wouldn't work the second time because the Rebbe's own handwriting is on the page, fine tuning the statement.)

Two years ago I wrote the following in response to the Rebbe's theodicy. In it, I mention Rabbi Yosef's:

There are several schools of thought in classical Judaism about why bad things – mega bad things – happen to the Jewish people. Most are predicated on God's involvement in the bad, and explain that by saying we do not truly understand the 'evil.' If we could view it from God's perspective, the reasoning goes, we would only see good.

A favorite example given is the operating theater. Imagine waling into a gallery overlooking an operating room. There behind the glass is are people dressed in white cutting off a man's leg. You have never seen surgery. You do not even realize there is a medical treatment called surgery. What do you think when you see the 'horror' below you? You scream, you try to get the 'butchers' to stop mutilating the man. But, in truth, what these men are doing is saving the life of that patient.

The problem here is not with the Rebbe's analogy or Professor Bauer's understanding (or lack there of) of it. The problem is the Rebbe made statement's without carefully thinking about how they would be viewed by people who are not steeped in the particular theology espoused by him. A more current example of this lack of forethought comes from Rabbi Ovadia Yosef who, not so long ago used the explanation of the Ari for the Destruction of the Second Temple and the deaths that surrounded it to explain the Holocaust. Rabbi Yosef's remarks were met with a similar firestorm of disapproval.

I wrote a piece for the American Jewish World explaining – but not necessarily endorsing – Rabbi Yosef's position. That piece was in response to a piece similar to Professor Bauer's, this one written by an old friend, Holocaust scholar Stephen Feinstein. I recall Rabbi Moshe Feller, the head Chabad rabbi in the upper Midwest, being very pleased with that piece and hoping the JTA would pick it up. (The JTA did not.)

My piece didn't change Stephen Feinstein's mind, largely because the fine distinctions needed to make these types of analogies work – in this case, the amputated limb is not itself bad, per se – are difficult to accept for those who do not buy into this line of reasoning to begin with.
Going back to the example of the Ari, he was explaining the Destruction of the Second Temple 1500 years after it happened. But what he was really doing without expressly saying so was explaining the Expulsion from Spain less than 100 years after that tragic event, roughly the same distance between it and the Ari's generation as the Holocaust and ours.

The Rebbe would say after this experience that it is wrong to explain or justify the Holocaust. It is simply too close, to raw, and no explanation will be accepted.

I would say that a God who needs to treat an illness by roasting alive hundreds of thousands of Jewish babies is not much of a God. The Rebbe, I think, would reply that an illness that requires the roasting of those babies as treatment must be a horrible, horrible illness.
In essence, this is exactly what is happening today between Professor Bauer and Rabbi Shemtov.

The Rebbe's explanation requires belief in a perfect, kind and just God who does no evil. To accept that requires accepting unspeakable horrors as good, divinely mandated and endorsed. For most people, even believing people, this is very difficult to do.

The Rebbe's words cut like jagged-edged swords. They were widely publicized and hurt many, many people, especially survivors.

The Rebbe meant no harm, but harm was done, nonetheless.

Professor Bauer's words are not "unwarranted, unacademic, personal attacks against the Rebbe." They are words of a survivor, a man who saw unspeakable horrors and spent his life documenting them so the world would not be able to forget, not be able to sweep a few million butchered Jews under the rug.

What Chabad should do is admit the Rebbe's error, his lapse of judgment, and then move on. But Chabad will not do this because it will never admit that its rebbes were anything less than perfect.

A God who needs to bayonet, club and burn 1.5 million babies to death isn't much of a God. He shouldn't be worshipped. He should be ignored and belittled, spat on like the dust of this earth – dust laced with the blood and soot of 6 million of his children.

There is punishment and there is sadistic punishment. And then there is the sadistic orgy of hell caused, rabbis say, by inattentive worship of the Great Sadist Above, the Uber-Torquemada of the Heavens and the Earth.

At best, theodicy cheapens God. And that's at best. Most of the time it just makes Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins look smart and correct.

[Hat Tip: Joel Katz.]

Comments

[Yochanan Lavie]

Most theists are not as simplistic as Yosef. The arrogant atheists are just as insufferable as Yosef, in their own special way.

[Nachum]

"they are all part of the sin of the golden calf"

Actually, he's ignoring the second part of that tradition: It states that all sins have, as their template, either the golden calf- for sins between man and God- or the sale of Yosef- for sins between man and man. This is probably the best way to understand the "punished for those sins" idea.

Surprisingly, Yosef doesn't seem to grasp this and doesn't realize that man-to-God aren't the only sins out there.

[pierre]

He's said this before. in some circles, they refer to R. Yosef as the "O.Y."...

[WoolSilkCotton]

O.D.B. might be a better name, since the previous O.D.B. is deceased.

[A. Nuran]

Yochanan, at least the arrogant atheists take responsibility for the consequences of the their actions and do not blame random events on unfalsifiable bullshit. They have their own faults, no doubt about it. This particular brand of poison is the property of the religious fanatic. Not just Jews. Religious fanatics of all stripes.

[MalachHamovies]

Saadia Gaon

Rabbi Se`adiah ben Yosef Gaon , , was a prominent rabbi, Jew philosopher, and exegete of the Geonim period.He is known for his works on Hebrew language, Halakha, and Jewish philosophy....
, in Emunoth ve-Deoth
Emunoth ve-Deoth

Emunoth ve-Deoth written by Rabbi Saadia Gaon - was the first systematic presentation and philosophic foundation of the dogmas of Judaism....
, concludes Section vi with a refutation of the doctrine of metempsychosis (reincarnation). While refuting reincarnation, the Saadia Gaon further states that Jews who hold to reincarnation have adopted non-Jewish beliefs.

And this guy is a jewish leader !!

[Yonah]

I actually haven't seen Christopher Hitchens take responsibility for anything, including genocidal or just plain murderous atheist/secularly-motivaed regimes. Because REAL atheists wouldn't do such things. It reminds me of the same lame argument religious people use - a "real" Christian would never torture someone, so Christianity is in no way responsible for the Spanish Inquisition, etc.

[steve]

TOTALLY OT BUT NEWSWORTHY. PARENTS NEED TO WATCH OUT WHO THEIR KIDS ARE COMMUNICATING WITH, EVEN THOSE THAT CALL THEMSELVES "RABBIS":

'Fake rabbi' suspected of persuading teen to have sex
YNET News - July 5, 2009

http://www.ynetnews .com/articles/ 0,7340,L- 3741525,00. html

Policemen patrolling side street in Jerusalem surprised to discover 58-year-old haredi man having sex with 14-year-old newly religious girl. Youth tells investigators she met suspect on internet; 'rabbi' denies allegations
Efrat Weiss

A 58-year-old ultra-Orthodox man was arrested over the weekend on suspicion of posing as a rabbi and persuading a 14-year-old girl to have sex with him.

The police were expected to ask the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court on Sunday afternoon to extend the suspect's remand.

The man was arrested after police officers patrolling Jerusalem on Thursday spotted a suspicious vehicle on one of the capital's side streets. They were surprised to discover the man having sex with a teenage girl inside the car. The two were taken to a police station for questioning.

The girl, a newly religious from central Israel, told her investigators that she had met the "rabbi" on the internet. She said she had approached the man in search of answers to her questions, and that their relationship quickly developed into an intimate one.

According to the girl, the suspect had similar relations with other teenage girls.

The man, who is married and has children, is not an authorized rabbi. According to suspicions, however, he used to present himself as a rabbi in order to get young girls to obey him. He has so far maintained the right to remain silent, and the investigation continues.

[manishma]

again chabad is gentile and once that is accepted then chabad becomes just another antisemitic cult with the explicit desire of wiping out judaism.

[WoolSilkCotton]

Why does this 'rabbi' always wear sunglasses?

[Dave Marshall]

I am very ashamed of Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef. This was a very mean thing to say.
Why doesn't he say what really happened "God was there in the holocaust and is still here. The Nazis and many other Germans exercised their God-given ability to choose between right and wrong and they choose wrong and evil. Also the other goyim also sinned by not helping the Jews".
So the question is not, where was God in the Holocaust, but where was man?

[WoolSilkCotton]

Dave, I respectfully disagree.

God fvcked us in the Holocaust. Plain and simple. God was nowhere. He totally, totally fvcked us.

No more excuses. I'm tired of spending my life trying all kinds of acrobatic philosophical efforts to justify God and the Holocaust.

Either there is no God, or God totally fvcked us. Take your pick.

This 'rabbi' who dresses like a pimp can go screw himself.

[Shmarya]

Why does this 'rabbi' always wear sunglasses?

He is visually impaired.

[WoolSilkCotton]

Thanks, Shmarya. I didn't know that.

I guess he's impaired in a number of ways.

It could also account for his choice of wardrobe.

[Jerome Soller]

Dave Marshall,
I agree with your position.

[MisterApikoros]

At age 89, he'd be the world's oldest pimp.

[Dave Marshall]

Thanks, Jerome.
WSC, o.k. fine, you don't believe in God. You know it says in the Torah that God can't force you to believe in God. Fine, you don't believe in God. How do you keep on hoping for the future? Why bother to make any effort to be a good person, since basically there is no God, so we should follow the law of the jungle- kill or be killed. Why not? Is western culture or any culture an adequate substitute for God? Imagine your visiting a terminally ill patient and you say "I am sorry, I don't believe in God, but I'll play you a tape of a Mozart symphony, or if you prefer I can read you from a Shakespeare play". Yeah, right.
Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef is wearing the traditional dress of the Rishon-le-Zion chief rabbi, which was his former position.
I get fed up when people compare him or Rav Amar to someone from the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

[itchiemayer]

WSC - I respectfully disagree with you. I don't know why G-d allowed this to happen, but have faith he had a reason. We are human, and it is foolish for us to try to figure it out. If you are a religious person, you necessarily have faith. If you are not a religious person, then faith isn't part of the equation. G-d has never, never left our side. You can call that my faith and trust in G-d, or you can call it my naivete and/or stupidity. Nevertheless, I trust we'll eventually find out the truth...

[Clear]

I actually haven't seen Christopher Hitchens take responsibility for anything, including genocidal or just plain murderous atheist/secularly-motivaed regimes. Because REAL atheists wouldn't do such things. It reminds me of the same lame argument religious people use - a "real" Christian would never torture someone, so Christianity is in no way responsible for the Spanish Inquisition, etc.

I wasn't aware that Christopher Hitchens committed genocide or murder. If you have information to corroborate this, you should contact the relevant authorities so that he can be brought to justice.

[Dovid Komarov]

Different opinions regarding Rav O. Yosefs sunglasses.

First opinion: Ruined his eyesight by learning Torah, and was told by eye-doctor to wear sunglasses.
Counter-argument: but he wears them even at night as during motzei shabbat shiur.
Response: Bright lights in the room or his vision is very light sensitive even at night.

Second opinion: if he would not wear glasses - people would not be able to look at his face. Like Moshe Rabbeinu wearing mask over his face.
Counter-argument: careful reading of the story shows that Moshe would take off mask when teaching Torah.
Response: I have not heard good response yet.

[mordecai]

This guy dresses like Michael Jackson

[WoolSilkCotton]

Actually Dave, I do work with terminally ill patients.

Most are not particularly religious, and don't spend that much time praying or hoping for miracles. Chaplains aren't as popular on the Heme/Onc floor as you might think.

Patients do, in fact, enjoy a kind word and a chance to spend their remaining time enjoying what they can, such as a tape of a symphony, or someone to read them a great work of literature.

I am not an atheist or agnostic. My religious beliefs are not easy to figure out. I'm still working on it. Anyone who says he's got the God thing figured out is a fool.

Your all-or-nothing approach to being a good person with hope for the future if you believe in God, versus being the opposite if you don't believe, just doesn't hold.
More people are slaughtered in this world because of the killers' belief in God than by secular people.

Peace came to Ireland and Northern Ireland (among other reasons) mostly because of the secularism of the younger generation (people in their 20's and 30's there are much less religious than previous generations). If it were up to the Protestant and Catholic church leaders, people would still be slaughtering each other.

Imagine if the younger generation of Palestinians were overtaken with secularism.

John Lennon's Imagine song probably got it right.

Way too many posts on way too many threads here consist of an orthodox person disqualifying or dismissing the validity of any form of Jewish belief, practice or existence other that orthodoxy. Take a good look at Evil Santa on the other thread- there's no difference, in my opinion, between him and an orthodox guy wearing a postage stamp yarmulke on his head who quietly disdains me.

Orthodox Jews are consumed with hate towards those who aren't orthodox. Some of you couch it nicer that others. At least Evil Santa's actions match his thoughts. He's probably the most honest orthodox Jew around.

[Dave Marshall]

WSC, I have "the God thing" figured out. I guess I must be a fool. Have you ever read this sentence in the Tanach "My ways are not thy ways, saith the Eternel". I don't mind if you don't believe in God. If one believes in the concept of God being the Creator of the Universe (which you don't and I do), then I feel it's it's a bit silly for me to argue with the Creator of the Universe. That's like arguing with the waves of the sea. I do pray for guidance, sometimes, but I don't argue with The Eternal. I am not an all or nothing person. In fact for the last few years I was so fed up with synagogue politics and religious polarization among Jewish movements that I have "davened" at home (I am Sephardic so I feel funny using that word, but if I don't many Jewish people think I am talking about some sort of kumbaya-style informal prayer which I am not- I am talking about praying with talit and tefilleen in the morning). Only recently have I been attending a Modern Orthodox synagogue, which is as easy-going as one can be, while still being Orthodox (there are many ex-South African congregants there). That's one of my big beefs with the Orthodox- ie. that it's my way or the highway. However, you have to admit, that the prayerbooks in most streams of mainstream Judaism do at the very least imply belief in the Creator of the Universe. Otherwise, why the f--- be Jewish, as far as I am concerned. For cultural reasons? Look, I am a 3rd generation Iraqi Jew born in India living since 5 years old in Canada, I studied Chinese in Beijing, I understand and speak more Chinese than I can Hebrew (although of course I can read much more Hebrew words than I can Chinese characters). So what could I possibly have in common with the "typical" Canadian or American Jew ie. of ancestry IF being Jewish is not based on some minimal religious faith? Basically, if you feel that being Jewish is mainly a cultural/ ethnic identity, then basically I and people like me of "bizarre/ non-traditional" backgrounds are irrelevant.
As far as I am concerned, I don't have much of a brief for Sephardic culture either if it is shorn of religious content. If one is interested in a high level of secular culture one should adopt Chinese culture.

[Yoel B]

IIUC the argument goes:

Everything Hashem does is just.
The murder chas v'shalom of a small child etc. does not seem just.

BUT I think the Ari would say that the purpose of life is to perfect the soul, and for most souls it doesn't get done in one lifetime. So if Ploni commits some transgression, and in the exercise of his free will doesn't do teshuvah, and in the working out of Hashem's larger plan for the world as a whole doesn't suffer the full penalty either in a court or at the hands of Heaven, after Ploni dies he will then come back. First as a stone, or, better, a plant, or, better a cockroach, -- each step of the ladder giving slightly better chances for repairing the damage-- or, better, a higher animal (maybe culminating by coming back as a chicken that gets a kosher shechita and is eaten on Shabbat, etc.)--until, (plug your ears, Shmarya) Ploni's soul is finally born to a Jewish mother; perhaps there was a flaw in a previous milah, and now that gets fixed. Perhaps the ultimate kapparah is dying as Kiddush Hashem, which, ipso facto, almost all of the Jewish deaths in the Holocaust were.

For a mekubal, it's not such a big deal to say that all of us are here because of some past life transgression. (A few in the past may have done a sort of Bodhisattva thing and come back to help their fellow man...) There are no new souls now, so ROY was certainly including himself in the category of reincarnated transgressors.

And if you accept the Ari's premises, ROY wasn't badmouthing the kedoshim of the Holocaust, because whatever their history of gilgulim had been, they were now meriting to be born connected to the Jewish people and dying sanctifying the Divine Name. Of course such a Judeocentric explanation doesn't address the nonJewish deaths, but I suspect the system is adaptable enough to do so. And Hester panim has real problems of its own. וידום אהרון tends not to be the defult position of the blogosphere.

[A. Nuran]

Apropos of WSC's latest post...

A very dear friend of mine got rid of the drug dealers who had set up shop outside his house. He told them "I don't care what you're selling. But if you're selling it in front of my house and you aren't paying me you're disrespecting. Now get out."

"What'll you do to us?"

"I'll lynch y' and set y' on fire."

They left.

I asked him how he got away with that kind of thing. Well, besides the fact that it wasn't an idle threat.

He replied "They respect me because I'll call them 'nigger' to their face, not smile at them and say it behind their backs."

[itchiemayer]

WSC states "Orthodox Jews are consumed with hate towards those who aren't orthodox."
Not true - I don't hate two of my siblings, I don't hate my Father and Mother, A"H, none of my plentiful non-orthodox and non-Jewish cousins, and on and on. Really, I think you may be in a bad mood today, because you are a bit over the top today with this comment and your prior comments about G-d and the holocaust.

[Shlomo]

Chabad I think does have a concept of hester Ponim (just look at the Maamer of Bossi Legani) but they also believe that everything that happens is by devine providence as well. That might be interpreted as at certain times the middah (trait) of chessed (kindness) is more hidden than others.
As far as I understand what The Rebbe was saying re the Holocaust is that what happened was so terrible that there is no (human) explanation but that God still decided to "let" it happen (man has free will to do what he wants) and that there is no way we can understand such a horrible event. You can ask the same question on other events but we are further away from them so it doesn't effect us. eg 1648 or the angels complaining about the deaths of R Akive et al
The bottom line is that the Rebbe did not blame the people for what happened to them (other people have and I think that that is much worse)

[mordecai]

I have the "G-D Thing" figured out for all of you who are wondering or uncertain. G-D is actually a cosmic muffin. Some factions are convinced that he is blueberry while a minority though growing faction believe he is a corn muffin. Of course the English being anglo-centric believe him to be an English muffin.

Disputes among these groups are growing daily and sometimes erupt in violence. Those of the modern orthodox persuasion are indifferent to the specifics of the derivatives forming the muffin but insist that the muffin be only kosher.

[Radical Feminist]

Rav Yosef is a Jew hater and a Holocaust defender. I wouldn't be surprised if he were writing love letters to Assad and Amedinajaad.

[Radical Feminist]

I actually haven't seen Christopher Hitchens take responsibility for anything, including genocidal or just plain murderous atheist/secularly-motivaed regimes

Your argument is a poor one at best. Those killings were not done based on the teaching of the Atheist manifesto. Had they been Hitchens and other atheist would have made a statement. You cannot blame every nut job not affiliated with an organized religion on the atheist or the teachings of atheism. Atheism does not teach homo-phobia, chauvenism, or racism, these are not core teachings of the atheist manifesto.

[Radical Feminist]

Dave, I respectfully disagree.

God fvcked us in the Holocaust. Plain and simple. God was nowhere. He totally, totally fvcked us.

Or he does not exist at all which is why he did not intervene and the idea of God is just something invented in the minds of some nomads on the desert 5 thousand years ago; that has now become a worn out belief system causing more injury then its worth.
These are just elaborate fantasies. The Holocaust happened because humans are violent emotional creatures subject to tribalism and cruelty with little provocation, and the world wasn't willing to risk getting involved because people ultimately care about themselves and their own families then any kind of ideology or guiding principle.

[Ben]

Dave Marshall, your type of people are indeed relevant in non-religios Jewish ethno-centric universe, which is much more inclusive lately then Jewish "true" religious one. "True Jewish Haredi" universe excludes all Jews of exotic origins, all secular Jews, all reform Jews, all conservative Jews, all Jews descended of mixed marriages, all Jews from community other then mine...

Religion, as professed by the Haredim is not unifying element of Jewish life. Sadly, quite the opposite is true

[Dr. Dave]

Read Iyov (Job) to get the low down on theodicy.

Iyov asks G-d why he did mean things.

G-d essentially states that humans do not possess the necessary mental capacity nor the understanding to comprehend G-d's plans.

If you believe G-d has an infinite mind and you possess a finite mind you shouldn't try to understand G-d's plans

- in direct contradistinction to our erstwhile Rabbis.

[WoolSilkCotton]

So the Book of Job gives a great explanation- we can't explain things, so don't dare question God, because He is SO much smarter than us. Besides, He will get pissed off at you for questioning, and will smite you.
Yeah, really good answer. Just what I'd expect from a writer thousands of years ago.

Itchie (9:31), you are a Ba'al Tshuvah, just like me. We were not raised and ingrained with the same hate that our orthodox 'friends' were. In the eyes of the orthodox, we are not orthodox. We are BT's. They laugh at us behind our backs. Deny it if you'd like. But get used to it.

Dave Marshall (8:57), there you go again, dividing us into 'believing in God' or 'not believing in God'. It's not black and white. I realize that the orthodox mindset cannot see shades of gray. In orthodoxy, you're either one of 'us' or you are a subhuman 'them'.
I guess not being orthodox makes me a 'subhuman them'. Sorry to get in your way, Dave. Enjoy your loving all-wonderful God.

[Dave Marshall]

WSC, Please let me repeat- I Never said I am personally Orthodox. I am only attending a Modern Orthodox synagogue because unlike Conservative they have not caved in on traditional Jewish morality.
Secondly I repeatedly told you that I do not mind IF you believe in God or If you do not believe in God. What is your problem??
I never ever ever said that you are somehow an unworthy person.
I do not believe in Torah Mi Sinai. How could I possibly be Orthodox? Please think about that one.
However, Please please leave me alone with my belief in God. It makes me happy and gives my life support. Although I am a friendly person, I have high standards for myself and others so I don't have many friends. Beliving in God gives my life purpose.
I feel that either I believe in an Omniscient Omnipotent God of Justice and Mercy or I cannot believe in God. I choose to believe in an Omniscient God of Justice and Mercy.

[Dave Marshall]

Ben, I am sorry, I have hung out with a lot of Reform and secular Jews in the past, and believe me (this was in the 1970's and 1980's) I was certainly considered as a bizarre type of Jew, totally irrelevant. Now I have a bit more credit with them, only because Sephardim in Israel are now 51% of the population of Israel. And now some Middle Eastern music is trendy. If that disappears it will be back to "you don't eat bagels, etc.".
However, with the (Ashkenazi) Orthodox, because I happen to be descended from 5 rabbis in Iraq, they're at least officially obliged to give me some minimal respect.
Apart from all this, if I felt I had to give up my belief in God or not talk about it to be accepted by this secular Jewish group, I would be very sad, because believing in God and praying ("davening" as you call it) daily, gives meaning to my life. So I would never really be accepted by this secular Jewish group.
I realize neither am I accepted by the (Ashkenazi) Orthodox. However I will never give up my belief in God because it gives meaning and purpose to my existence.

[Shlomo]

I think Ramban (Nachmanides) explains Job that he had a previous incarnation and so what was happening was an atonement for his past life. I know this also is difficult to comprehend
WoolSilkCotton I would prefer to think of you as a Chozeret Btshuva and I admire you especially since you didn't become a fundamentalist (as some do)
I am a 2nd generation holocaust survivor

[R]

I don't get how someone's soul should be punished over and over again for the same sin that happened thousands of years ago. It really seems idiotic and stupid as it's not like you are going to learn from it either.
The holocaust didn't just destroy those that died, it destroyed those that survived too.

I don't know why people bother asking where G-d was during the holocaust. Sometimes people need to take responsibilty over their actions and to sit there blaming G-d only takes away the blame from those who actually acted in such a despicable manner.
Humans are flawed and so therefore their religions are flawed and so are their holy men who they hold in high esteem. I cannot say G-d is flawed because i don't even know what G-d is and i don't think i quite understand G-d either. So instead of blaming souls and past sins from millenia ago, how about looking at the present situation of the world and religions and understand that zealots and extermists should not be tolerated.

[Hometown Postville]

A Nuran: "This particular brand of poison is the property of the religious fanatic. Not just Jews. Religious fanatics of all stripes."
I agree. Hitler chose to destroy Jews for the same maniacal reasons a biblical king chose to destroy all male children under the age of 2. Jim Jones led 900 believers to their death because he convinced them he was God. This was not God at work, this was Satan. We won't know why God didn't stop it, until we stand before Him. That's what "faith" is all about. The knowledge and power of God is totally beyond the comprehension of all mortal man. In the meantime, peddling hate theories only keeps people at each other's throats; again, fullfilling Satan's heart's desires. The holocaust was real and horrific- a time of great misery and grief for all. How we choose to interpret and consequentely allow it to manifest in our present lives is a testament to our on-going committment to God. We can allow the hate to fester and infect everything around it or we can view it with introspect and do all we can to prevent it from happening again.

[Yonah]

Clear:

yyyeah that was terrible wording on my part. Hopefully you know what I mean, though.

[itchiemayer]

WSC - Perhaps in the big cities the BT is a "lesser" citizen, but in the smaller communities, like a St. Louis, it does not manifest itself like that. Besides, my shul is full of BT's anyway. I'm sure there are some elitists out there, but I don't think most orthodox Jews look down at BT's, I really don't. Sure, the yichus thing with shidduchim is way overrated, and puts the BT at a disadvantage, but so be it.

[Yochanan Lavie]

God is not a micromanager. We are responsible for our own actions, including the Shoah. Hopefully, there is an afterlife to set things right, although we can't know that for sure. As in it says in "The Brothers Karamazov", if God doens;t exist, then everything is permitted.

But as the famous atheist Voltaire said (an anti-Semite, but a better thinker than the current crop of intellectuals): I may disagree with what you say, but I'll defend to death your right to say it. How can a somewhat religious person endorse this? Read John Milton's Areopagatica. God is not Kim Jong Il, and prefers honest dissent to coerced forms of homage. (Not that Milton knew of the Dear Leader...)

(Disclosure: I am conservadoxoprax with a left-modern-orthodox ideology tainted by a drop of apikorsut.)

[justayid]

interesrting metaphor, YL, micromanager. When a firm is in danger of collapse, its not micromanagement for the CEO to step in.

1939-1945 wasnt just a cruel injustice, of which we know many. It endangered the physical and spiritual survival of the Jewish people. I would respectfully say that the shoah IS a dramatic challenge to Judaism. Not necessarily an unanswerable challenge, but a great challenge, one before which many traditional theodicies fail. I share R' Fackenheims view that a post Shoah Judaism must face the shoah, and to begin to rebuild must find strength in the existential affirmation of Judaism by Jews in the camps. That is unfashionable these days, when theologians both C and O want to move away from "holocaust theology". I find their arguments unconvincing.

As for Doestoevsky - thats a weak argument. A - it ignores the history of western ethical thought since Hume and Kant. B - it makes of God an object of convenience - we need morality, ergo we need God, rather than teh other way around. If your ethics are so important you have to invent a God you dont otherwise believe exists, than surely you DONT need Him to be ethical.

My own selfdisclosure I am conservaformpraxic with an inclination to Jewish existentialist theology (Rosenzweig, Buber, and Fackenheim) and a mid range C view of halacha (okay with Dorff, troubled by statements by Gilman and Tucker) and a general inclination toward postdenominationalism.

[justayid]

as for atheist atrocities

of course they dont reflect "an atheist manifesto" . Just as say, christian atrocities dont reflect "a theist manifiesto" There are different theist ideologies, and different atheist ideologies. If a Conservative Jew, say, is responsible for everything from the first crusade to the Baruch Goldstein massacre to the Taliban murder of Shia Hazaras, then by the same token a "nice" atheist is responsible for the gulag archipelago and the cultural revolution in China. And if not not. Some atheists have made statements against Stalinism and Maoism, some have not.

I think thats all a distraction.

[Clear]

yyyeah that was terrible wording on my part. Hopefully you know what I mean, though.

1)I thought that your comment was in response to A. Nuran's:

"Yochanan, at least the arrogant atheists take responsibility for the consequences of the their actions and do not blame random events on unfalsifiable b-------."

I took AN's comment to mean responsibility for their own, personal actions. In that case, Hitchens has no need to take responsibility for murder and genocide, since he hasn't committed such.

2)If your comment meant that Hitchens should take responsibility for "genocidal or just plain murderous atheist/secularly-motivaed regimes" because he is an atheist and Stalin/Mao, etc. were atheists, then it is a false argument.

Hitchens does not need to take responsibility for Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc. just because they were atheists (I'm not convinced that Hitler was an atheist - he was too fond of Nordic Paganism for me to think that he was an atheist). Why? Because Hitchens is NOT advocating the type of regimes that they ran.

Hitchens has been very clear about what he advocates: a society that embraces the ideals of Spinoza, Thomas Paine, and Albert Einstein, etc..

The above men were believers in personal freedom, opposed slavery (esp. Paine), were against tyranny, opposed the abuse of one's fellow humans, etc. So, a murderous and genocidal regime would stand in complete opposition to a government founded on the ideals of Spinoza, Paine, and Einstein. Therefore, since Hitchens is advocating something which is completely the opposite of that embraced by murderous and genocidal regimes, there is no need for him to accept responsibility for them.

Incidentally, please note that Spinoza was a pantheist, Paine was a Deist, and Einstein was, depending on the statement he made, an agnostic, a believer in "Spinoza's God," or something hard to define. He was indeed a humanist, but he also denied being an atheist and a pantheist.

So, even as anti-theist as Hitchens may be, the type of society that he advocates is not entirely based on the philosophies of atheists.

So, on the basis that he argues that if a society follows Spinoza, Paine, Einstein, etc. it will not end up with either Medieval Christian Europe (with pogroms, crusades, witch hunts, and inquisitions) on the one hand, or Stalin's USSR, Mao's China, or Pol Pot's Cambodia (with oppression, tyranny, absence of freedom, purges and genocides) on the other, he is not under any obligation to take responsibility for such murderous and genocidal regimes.

(I am not an atheist myself. So my defense of Hitchens on this point is not born out of agreement with his atheism.)

[itchiemayer]

Noach came back as Moshe Rabeinu. Believe it or not, but I believe it. I guess it is just a coincidence that they were both saved in a tayva, the woman who save Moshe is named Batya (rearrange letters in Hebrew to get tayva), and when Moshe says "m'chayni na", he was also alluding to the "mey noach". Anyhow, I find nothing offensive about what R' Yosef says. If I have a choice at death of going to gehinnom or having another chance, I'll choose the second chance. Even if you think this is all hogwash, I don't see how his words should offend anyone. He's trying to provide perspective to the shoah, just like WSC tries to do when he says G-d abandoned us. Two vastly different explanations, but no reason for anyone to be offended.

[justayid]

"Yochanan, at least the arrogant atheists take responsibility for the consequences of the their actions and do not blame random events on unfalsifiable b-------.""

Where has R' Yoseh taken an action, the consequences of which he blames on something unfalsifiable? As a statement about personal responsibility, A Nurans statement is incoherent. Which is why some read it differently.

A Nurans statement strikes me as a belligerent, uncivil, general attack on theism, not as a call to personal responsiblity. Ergo, any attempt to discuss anything in response to it is liable to similar incoherence.

[Yochanan Lavie]

While some people prefer "Imagine" I prefer "Whatever gets you through the night is alright." I have no personal animus against Hitchens, who is an interesting thinker on other issues. I just don;t like neo-atheists who rely on ridicule to prove their case.

I am aware of the history of Western Philosophy, albeit a bit rusty. Sometimes it strikes me as too clever by half. To get through my own life, or to make a momentary decision, I don't think in terms of the Categorical Imperative. I try to imagine what God wants me to do.

However, I don't think, unlike Chassidim, that if I stub my toe, or decide to kill someone, God is waving his magic wand to make it happen. I just think that the world works on the laws of nature. If I drink poison, I will die, no matter what kind of person I am. If I kill someone, s/he will die, no matter if that person is deserving or not. But unlike fully-blown Deists, I need to believe in ultimate reward/punishment to keep my sanity, and to motivate myself to do good. If that doesn't float your boat, gei gezunte heit.

[Ben]

Itchie you statement: "Sure, the yichus thing with shidduchim is way overrated, and puts the BT at a disadvantage, but so be it." shows that even in the depth of Saint Louis you are aware of yichus selectivity. It is more pronounced in big communities. But it Ok your children can marry children of other BTs, or BTs themselves, or converts or people with correct yichus with serious sicknesses or people with correct yichus falling off the derech (drugs, crime or sheer stupidity). I understand that this kind of automatic assignment of 2nd rate people to your family by the FFBs is Ok by you. This means that you yourself know that your children can not hold a candle to any of the FFB children. Good that you are able to admit your and your children's inborn inferiority.

[nobody]

If you think Rav Yosef is wrong from a Torah perspective, explain how his view is mistaken and bring proofs to back yourself up. Otherwise, your petty insulting attacks on him as a person are a disservice to all of us. This entire thread is disgusting.