Retaining faith in the face of evil (Forest Rain)

By Forest Rain

Why do horrible things happen to good people?

Some things are so horrific that they can only be called evil. The Holocaust. The Hamas Massacre of October 7^th, the new Holocaust. There aren’t enough words to convey the full extent of the horror. Words like “atrocity” are just too small and the question arises: where was God when these unspeakable events occurred?

Many people mistakenly assume that the trail of God by Jews in Auschwitz is an allegory rather than an actual event. 

Elie Wiesel once declared: "I was there when God was put on trial. It happened at night; there were just three people. At the end of the trial, they used the word chayav, rather than ‘guilty'. It means ‘He owes us something'. Then we went to pray." 

Then we went to pray.

Fast forward to the Holocaust of October 7^th. Head of the Southern district of ZAKA, Yossi Landau, described their own “trial”, in the devastated Kibbutz Be’eri.

ZAKA, Israel’s "Disaster Victim Identification" experts are volunteers who collect bodies in cases from car accidents to terror attacks. They are motivated by the belief that the dead deserve sacred respect. Burying them whole and with dignity honors the soul of the departed and recognizes the sacred spark of God that gives life to every human being.

The massacre occurred under the cover of a missile bombardment from Gaza. The search for survivors and the collection of bodies began before the massacre was over, while soldiers were still fighting the terrorists, while missiles were raining down on Israeli communities.

In one of the homes Yossi Landau, described an unfathomable scene.

The family’s dining table was in the middle of the room. On one side of the room, they found the bodies of a father and the mother. They were kneeling on the floor, their hands tied behind their backs. On the other side, as if in a mirror image, a little girl and boy approximately six and seven years old.   

The father had an eye gouged out. The mother had one of her breasts cut off. The boy had several of his fingers chopped off. The little girl, they chopped off her foot.

And after all that the terrorists sat at the table and ate the food the family had prepared for their holiday meal.

Yossi Landau explains that he feels as if the bodies speak to him, telling the story of their death. Although highly experienced in dealing with death but the joyous cruelty evident in this scene was overwhelming to him and his team.

The horror of what this family experienced was so evil, it was like a wall that could not be passed and yet, it needed to be passed in order to grant these souls the dignity of a proper burial.

Yossi Landau described this scene in many interviews. Only in a few did he describe how they dealt with this horror.

He collected himself and told his team to hold hands. They walked into the room. There was blood everywhere. They sat down in the middle, with the bodies and the table with the remains of the meal and they sang a Jewish song:

“I believe
With complete faith
In the coming of the Messiah.

And even though he may tarry,
With all this, I will still wait for him.
I will wait for him every day
May he come.”

And then they got up and began attending to the bodies.

This was just one of the first houses, there were many more to check and no way to know what they would find there.

Where was God amidst this evil?

In Judaism there is a concept of God “hiding His face”, as if stepping out of the story. That doesn’t mean that God is gone or stops caring, it means that we can’t feel the connection to Him. It is perhaps like a parent who steps out of the room to see how the children work out their problems by themselves.

The Jews in Auschwitz judged God and found him “owing” – and then they went to pray.
The Jews in Be’eri sat down in the blood of our tortured family – and sang their faith in the coming of the Messiah.

This is the unfathomable faith of the Jewish People in the face of horror. It is the strength of a People broken, yet still standing – the mysterious factor that leads to deep confusion about Jews.

Who are these people, victimized yet refusing to be victims?

Many conclude that the evil we face must not be so bad – because who could get up again after that?!

Broken yet still standing. God, not guilty but “owing”. We are still here and even in the midst of the blood of our tortured family members, can sing of faith in the coming of the Messiah – not here but with hope for a better future.

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Open Letter from A Jew to the Western World in the Aftermath of the 2023 Hamas Attack on Israel (Guest Post)

(Guest post)

Open Letter from A Jew to the Western World in the Aftermath of the 2023 Hamas Attack on Israel 

First, did the words "A Jew" have a disagreeable smell to you, just a little? Be honest.

They did to me, even though they say you can't smell yourself. I had to hold my nose to write them.

For contrast, let's do a sniff test on two other words: "A Christian."

Totally different, right? If "Christian" were a perfume, its signature would be Wholesome, Righteous, Valiant, Honorable, Loving, and Good. Interestingly, it’s the diametric opposite of "A Jew.” 

"Moslem" feels positive too, conjuring images of majestic spires or perhaps a demure woman in a hijab.

Relevant? I think yes, considering how important is the shared connotation of words. Just ask any "person of color" about being called a "colored person." Happily, Jew-equals-stinky-poo is not inhaled by quite everyone (and deep gratitude for the many with clogged noses!). Yet it's remarkable to me that it isn't, considering how pervasive the stench has been over the centuries in Western culture. I refer to everything from literature to philosophy to architecture to - dare I say it - parts of the Christian Bible (if Jews could kill Christ, what aren't they capable of?). And unlike the toppled statues of slavery defenders, these pillars of our culture have suffered little more than an occasional ding from academia lo these many centuries.

When you want to wage a war, you assert that the other side is both evil and powerful, and everyone rallies for "self-defense." Since for Jews, this portrayal is definitional, it's never a bad time to "defend" yourself - or others - against Jews!

So naturally, anti-Jewish actions in the West have been historically regarded as positive and liberating, from the Crusades to the Inquisition. Why would anyone expect a turnaround? True, modern cultural and Church influences have had some sway, but antisemitism still seems to feel only semi-wrong to many otherwise decent folks. If someone, regardless their contempt for Israel, cannot declare the deliberate targeting of an infant for mutilation as categorically immoral, I must conclude that they are among those who believe Jews cannot be fully guiltless by definition.

To many pundits and protestors, it’s as if no amount of anti-Jewish barbarism is completely undeserved. Rape and beheading as a form of "freedom fight" or venting of frustration sure look disproportionate to those of us with clarity. So much so that one can only deduce that the true offense must be The Cosmically Evil Jew. Only under this delusion are such acts “appropriate” - not to mention historically familiar.

Apropos disproportionality, ever consider disproportionate intent? The Hamas intent is avowedly genocidal; its founding charter says so. The intent of Jews is to finally live unmolested and in their place of origin (if Jews - swarthy, hook-nosed, and speaking a semitic language - are rather a Germanic tribe, do let me know). Indeed all that was ever required of sovereign Gaza was to live and let live. If someone believes that building a massive tunnel network into Israel had anything to do with Hamas procuring food for its people, then I have a proverbial bridge to sell you. 

As confessed by captured detainees, Hamas shelters its arms and leaders in hospitals, schools, and mosques as a way to avoid IDF attack or else max out civilian casualties. Taking such criminality further, Hamas also instructed Gazans, including at gunpoint, to stay put after Israel had warned them to leave. Yet how does the media and its followers process all this? By expressing distrust and "humanitarian" outrage at the side trying to defeat these leaders, and in favor of the side demonstrably and unreservedly committed to inhumanity, even toward its own people.

Here’s another curious media reaction: Hamas long made its genocidal intent toward Jews public, and now it has broadcast its gruesome early successes. Yet within twenty-four hours of the Hamas attack, media focus shifted to the horrors that Israel would do, could do, wanted to do, or was surely already plotting to do against innocent Gazans. This is classic anti-Jewish thinking, often referred to as hallucinatory. The trope is that Jews are suffused with malevolent intent and plot away in the shadows. (What could be more convenient than shadows, since who-all knows what goes on there? Only one’s fevered imagination is the limit!) It’s another reason why the atrocities actually committed by Hamas and actually documented by the perpetrators got eclipsed from the get-go.

Some are still inclined to say it's not about Jews but about fill-in-the-blank (Palestinians, Zionists, Netanyahu, settlers, right-wing governments, colonialism, oppression, occupation, apartheid, land theft, water, U.S. tax dollars, capitalism, imperialism, or perhaps intersectional transgenderism). My response is please don’t bother. Have instead the integrity of those you are allegedly "defending" and just say, "I oppose the Jews because this is my religion." 

It is the only argument that cannot be answered.

Yours truly,

A Jew

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

Read More