Israel Prize winner Rabbi David Weiss-Halivni, the former Illui of Sighet, discusses the Holocaust after the jump in the extended post:
Halivni retired about three years ago and decided to immigrate to Israel, which is what made it possible for him to be awarded the Israel Prize (which is contingent on Israeli citizenship). Last fall, he published a new book, "Breaking the Tablets" (Rowman, Littlefield), which deals with post-Holocaust Jewish theology. Halivni sharply attacks those who pose the question of why the Holocaust happened, and especially those who try to "explain" it by various sins, calling them collaborators with the Nazis. In his opinion, Auschwitz is tantamount to a divine revelation, such as the revelation on Mount Sinai, but is opposite to it in nature: "This is a revelation of the absence of the divine, a revelation of the possibility of God's absence from the world."
Halivni lost his entire family in the Holocaust. Halivni himself was a prisoner in a Nazi work camp and in Auschwitz.