Fragmentary knowledge prevents proper assessment of monumental events; The full picture is beyond the observation of human experience; Drawing realistic insight for our survival.
[5737]
Dr. . . .
New York, N.Y.
Greeting and Blessing:
I am directed to acknowledge receipt of your letter with an apology for the unavoidable delay.
As a matter of principle, the Rebbe does not participate in any kind of symposium and the like.
On the subject matter of your letter, namely the Holocaust, the Rebbe has of course expressed his views on various occasions, such as Farbreingens which partially have been reflected in the Jewish press. The enclosed will no doubt be of interest to you.
The basic points which the Rebbe emphasized are, briefly, as follows:
No person is qualified to make a proper judgement or assessment of any event or situation on the basis of fragmentary knowledge.
The Holocaust is an event which is part of the course of Jewish history, with countless generations that preceded it and will follow it; a course of history which is linked with the whole destiny of the Jewish people and is directed by Divine Providence. To isolate it and attempt to explain it out of context of the whole course of Jewish history can have no logical or scientific merit.
By way of illustration, the Rebbe cited the following hypothetical example.
Suppose a person was standing outside a hospital and observed people coming out of the building — one on crutches, another one in a wheelchair, a third one with a patch on his eye and so forth. Let us assume further that the observer does not know what a hospital is and he judges only the evidence of his eyes. He would undoubtedly conclude that the formidable house from which those invalids emerged was a house of torture, where persons were callously injured and maimed.
However, had our hypothetical observer known the history of each individual emerging from the hospital, and that those persons had been in danger of losing their lives and that through the medical treatment they had received in the hospital their lives were saved and though some of the patients are not yet fully recovered or cured, there is every expectation that this will be so in due course — obviously the observer’s conclusions would be quite the opposite.
Similarly, one who sees life on this earth as no more than what meets the eye and believes that a person’s life is confined to his lifespan on earth, beginning at birth and ending with death of the physical body — such a person would, of course, be puzzled by many questions and problems in a world without rhyme or reason, “a home without a master.”
But one who realizes that the world does have a Creator and Master, Who manages and supervises all its affairs in accordance with His plan and design, from the beginning of time to the end of time; and that a person’s life on this earth is but a brief interlude in the eternal life of his soul, with all that follows from such realization — such a person will not presume to pass judgement on a single fact of the whole picture, however immense and overwhelming it may be in itself.
To mention the other pertinent point: the Holocaust is particularly traumatic to our generation because it took place before our eyes or, for the younger generation, before their parents’ eyes. Yet without minimizing it in the slightest, it should be remembered that in the course of our Jewish history there have already been holocausts which in many aspects, were even more traumatic to our people. Suffice it to mention the twice-repeated holocaust of the destruction of the Beis Hamikdosh in Jerusalem and the exile and dispersion that followed and also the holocausts during the Middle Ages. These took place in times when the Jewish people was concentrated in a relatively small area, when the complete destruction and disappearance of our people was a distinct possibility as indeed happened to larger and smaller nations, which were obliterated in similar circumstances.
The above are some of the most fundamental points that should be clearly understood if one is to have a more realistic perspective of and insight into the Holocaust of our time. Moreover, as Jews we cannot contemplate it in a detached manner but must, above all, draw the logical corollaries that affect our present and future survival, both as individual Jews and as a Jewish nation.
With blessing,
Secretary
