Adapted from an address given to the boys of the Hasmonean High School, London, in Assembly. Published in the London “Jewish Tribune” of Friday 18 March 1983 and in the April 1983 edition of “The Federation Chronicle” of Johannesburg.
Some of us have been to see the Auschwitz Exhibition. [This was the Auschwitz Exhibition, in the crypt of St George’s in the East, Cannon Street Road, Stepney, East London. It later opened at Manchester and Newcastle.] It is a shocking experience and a frightening experience. Shocking — to see how low and bestial human beings can be. Frightening, because — yes, it can happen again. Yet indirectly it is an exhibition of the true victory of the Jewish spirit.
Until some time ago it was thought that this kind of exhibition is for the גּו ֹי ֹם — let them see what they did. But we Jews know all about it and don’t need to be told. Wrong. Unfortunately, many of us do not know, and we do need to know, for two reasons, at least.
Firstly, as time goes on, the facts will be forgotten or twisted. The events will be explained and rationalized. In 50, 20, even 10 years’ time, the subject will be ignored or falsified — some writers have already started to deny what the Germans did. So we must know and record the facts, otherwise we ourselves will believe the liars that are called historians.
And secondly, we must learn from these events and teach the true lessons to the world. But they are not the same lessons as the גּו ֹי ֹם would learn by themselves.
We, the Jewish People are the People of HaShem — it is a fact resented by the nations of the world, but a fact nevertheless. We have been taken by HaShem to be to Him as His People, as He Himself said, "ל ֹה ֹיו ֹתֹליֹס ֹגוּל ֹהֹמ ֹכ ֹלֹה ֹע ֹמ ֹיםֹכ ֹיֹל ֹיֹכ ֹלֹה ֹא ֹר ֹץ" — “to be to Me as My treasured People more than all the nations, for Mine is the whole world [and I can choose whomsoever I want],” to be His Witnesses, א ֹת ֹםֹע ֹד ֹי,ֹנ ֹאוּםֹה'ֹֹ — “You are My witnesses,” says HaShem.[ישעיהו,ֹֹמ"גֹ:ֹי'] This is a fact known by the nations of the world —and they have always resented it. So, either they deny it, or they scoff at it, or they usurp the title “Chosen People” and use it about themselves. But whether they like it or not — in fact, whether we like it or not — whatever they do to get rid of us, we will not go away. Empires come and go. Great rulers, tyrants, dictators, powerful men, will try their worst, but we do not go away. We are HaShem’s People and He has promised that we will live on as His People until the end of time.
קוּד ֹש ֹאֹב ֹר ֹיך ֹֹהוּאֹו ֹאו ֹר ֹיית ֹאֹו ֹי ֹש ֹר ֹא ֹלֹח ֹד — The Holy One, blessed be He, and the Torah, and His People Israel are as one. So much so, that we have become living proof of HaShem in an otherwise G-dless world.
There Was One Thing Missing
Werner Keller, at the beginning of his book “Diaspora,” quotes an interesting conversation. Frederick the Great asks, “Can you give me one single irrefutable proof of G-d?” And Jean Baptiste du Boyer, Marquis d’Argens replies: “Yes, Your Majesty, the Jews.” Nothing in our History as a People can be properly understood without remembering that we are the People of HaShem, and everything in our History can be understood when we do remember that we are the People of HaShem.
The Sponsors and designers of the Auschwitz Exhibition mean to teach what race-hatred can lead to: good. We all hope the exhibition helps. But this is not enough, because if the conditions should warrant it, race-hatred can again become acceptable and even encouraged.
But we are to see things somewhat differently, somewhat deeper, and teach what we see to the world. This is our duty. And race-hatred is not the main issue.
When א ֹב ֹר ֹה ֹםֹא ֹב ֹינוֹּ, our Father Avrohom, came into the land of Philistia, the Chumash tells us that he described Soroh his wife as “his sister,” meaning his clanswoman. And when Avimelech the king of the Philistines took her by force for himself, and was immediately punished by HaShem, he summoned Avrohom and asked him, “Why did you do this to me? Why didn’t you say she is your wife, that you bring G-d’s wrath upon me?” And Avrohom, the first Jew, answered him, "כ ֹיֹא ֹמ ֹר ֹת ֹיֹר ֹקֹא ֹיןֹי ֹר ֹא ֹתֹא ֹ-ל ֹה ֹיםֹֹ ב ֹמ ֹקו ֹםֹה ֹז ֹהֹו ֹה ֹר ֹגוּנ ֹיֹע ֹלֹד ֹב ֹרֹא ֹש ֹת ֹי" — “Because I said, ‘but there is no fear of G-d in this place, and they will kill me on account of my wife’.” As Rashi says, “If your officers ask a complete stranger about his wife, if they have no fear of G-d not to molest the wife of a passing traveller, then I have to worry for our safety.” When I came here I saw that your country is a civilized country, with efficient government and carefully regulated laws and customs. But if there is no fear of G-d, when those laws and customs are not the result of the fear of G-d but are only a means of maintaining man-made standards of morality and correctness, ר ֹקֹא ֹיןֹי ֹר ֹא ֹתֹא ֹ-ל ֹה ֹים if there is lacking only one thing, that is, the fear of G-d, then ו ֹה ֹר ֹגוּנ ֹיֹע ֹלֹד ֹב ֹרֹא ֹש ֹת ֹי — then you will kill me on account of my wife. If you are the ones who make the laws, and you have no fear of G-d, then you can make it legal and within the law to have me killed on account of my wife. O, it’s so easy to rationalize it, to murder me lawfully. You can pass a law to say that I am guilty of treason to the king for daring to keep Soroh as my wife: a woman of such exceptional beauty is fit only for the king and I am therefore guilty of disrespect to the king — or any such rationalization. Therefore, Avimelech, I did not disclose that she is indeed my wife and I said only that she is my clanswoman. And Avimelech had no answer.
At the Auschwitz Exhibition we saw how a whole nation in civilized Europe, with an evil genius at their head, can become monsters in human form — and all within the law. After the War, the Allies had the unprecedented task of passing judgement upon Germans who claimed that they were within the law and they were only following orders. Yes, the Germans were law-abiding people, but laws must have their foundations in the fear of G-d. Otherwise you have the Nuremberg Race Laws and — Auschwitz. Without the fear of G-d, you have a whole system of laws — passed by the legislative body of the nation, administered by the judiciary and enforced by the officers of law and order — to legalize the degradation and humiliation of fellow human-beings — leading directly to the cold-blooded murder of millions of people. The German people were civilized — every detail of the individual’s life and the German national life was regulated: and the arts flourished, the sciences progressed, the philosophers spouted their words of wisdom — and millions were tortured and killed. There was one thing missing: there was no י ֹר ֹא ֹתֹא ֹ-ל ֹה ֹים.
The brand of counterfeit religion that was preached and practised in Germany gave rise to the mass-murder of millions of ordinary people. Hitler י ֹמ ֹחֹש ֹמו ֹֹו ֹז ֹכ ֹרו ֹ said, “I am only carrying out what the Church has been teaching for the past two thousand years” — and he was right. Read, if you can stomach it, the filthy writings of Martin Luther, the famous Protestant of Germany, ”a man of the cloth,” a man who, by his own admission, could not pray without cursing and whose teachings became a foundation of hatred. If there is no genuine fear of G-d, then laws can be based on such values and lead to legalized mass-murder.
When we see what “law” can become without the fear of G-d, when law is man-made without having to answer to the ר ֹבו ֹנו ֹֹש ֹל ֹעו ֹל ֹם, we begin to realize how beyond comparison are the laws of the nations of the world and the laws of the Torah. With man-made law, fashions change; what was illegal yesterday becomes legal today, and “the law is an ass.” That is law without י ֹר ֹא ֹתֹֹא ֹ-ל ֹה ֹים.
Not so with our Torah, תו ֹר ֹתֹא ֹמ ֹת, the Law of Truth, תו ֹר ֹתֹה'ֹת ֹמ ֹימ ֹה, the perfect Torah of HaShem, immutable and unchanging. Torah is מ ֹןֹה ֹש ֹמ ֹי ֹם, it cannot be changed. It comes from HaShem and it is not ours to change it. And when we see how other law systems change with the times, and the values of the Torah do not, we understand why תו ֹר ֹהֹמ ֹןֹה ֹש ֹמ ֹי ֹם is such an important principle of our faith. The morality that HaShem teaches us in the Torah is pure, and it doesn’t change with the fashions. If it’s forbidden to commit murder, then to commit murder six million times is six million times forbidden. But if the law is man-made, if it is based on the rationalization of greed and hatred, then a whole nation can be led down to the depths of hell and can become the willing butchers of innocent people. There were exceptions, true, but so few that they deserve the special praise that is given to the uncommonly good person.
The nations of the world, too, who knew of what was happening at Auschwitz and who stood by and let the murder happen — they too deserve condemnation because their inaction comes from a lack of fear of G-d and their laws too, even today, are not based on the fear of G-d. They could so easily do the same, if ח ֹסֹו ֹש ֹלו ֹם conditions should arise and if the people become mesmerized by a raving lunatic. Don’t think it couldn’t happen. Without י ֹר ֹא ֹתֹֹא ֹ-ל ֹה ֹים, without the fear of G-d, anything can happen.
We went to see the Auschwitz Exhibition. Millions of people killed, six million of them Jews. Do you know what six million people means? Wembley Stadium can accommodate 100,000 people. Six million is sixty times the capacity of Wembley Stadium. The mind boggles. It cannot grasp the numbers. But when you see photographs of the huge heaps of shoes which were waiting to be sorted “for use in the war effort” and which the Germans did not have time to destroy before the Allies came, heaps in halls as big as this, we begin to get an idea. We saw how low a people can become without י ֹר ֹא ֹתֹֹא ֹ-ל ֹה ֹים.
But we must not view Auschwitz through the eyes of the גּו ֹי ֹם, because then we will miss the lessons to be learned and we betray those of our People who were murdered ע ֹלֹק ֹידוּשֹה ֹש ֹם. If we see Auschwitz only as the most extreme form of Anti-Semitism and for that reason must Anti-Semitism be fought, then we make a mistake. Anti-Semitism is vile, yes; Anti-Semitism is cruel, yes; but Anti-Semitism is also the universal recognition that we are the people of HaShem — because Anti-Semitism is jealousy.
When Hitler י ֹמ ֹח ֹש ֹמו ֹ ordered the extermination of millions of humans, fathers, mothers, children (over one million children) he warned the German people to be ruthless and firm. “There is no place for conscience. Conscience is a Jewish invention!” — his words. Yes, the Jew is the moral conscience of the world because the true Jew embodies the Torah of HaShem in his very being. And the Jewish message of י ֹר ֹא ֹתֹֹ א ֹ-ל ֹה ֹים, fear of G-d, is hated and resented — nobody likes to be told what he is allowed to do and what he is not allowed to do. Everybody likes to be free. And. the Jew challenges that freedom by teaching of the Great G-d Who orders the destiny of men and Who will call to account every single being. That is why the Jew is hated, this is the “Jewish peril.” Or, as he said, “Conscience is a Jewish invention!” “Why,” asks the Gemara (Shabbos 89) “was the mountain called ‘Sinai’?” Because ש ֹנ ֹא ֹה, hatred, Jew-hatred, came down upon the world when we received the Torah.
The גּו ֹי ֹם, and those secular Jews who follow in their ways, speak of the Jewish history of tragedy, all the time stressing the tragedy of the Jew to such an extent that one is led to believe that tragedy and sorrow are the main parts of the Jewish story. But it’s not true. If we view the story of a people purely as an account of what happened to them physically, yes, the Jewish story has much tragedy in it, with Auschwitz one of the darkest. But when we look beyond the physical being of the Jewish People, when we look at the story of the Jewish spirit, — ah, there we see the true picture. The unconquerable spirit of the Jewish People.
Our everlasting task is to bring to the nations of the world an awareness of HaShem as the G-d of all Mankind, that all the families of Mankind shall recognize Him and fear Him — for their own good. We must never forget this, our task, until that great day "ב ֹיו ֹםֹה ֹהוּא" when "ו ֹה ֹי ֹהֹה'ֹל ֹמ ֹל ֹך ֹֹע ֹלֹכ ֹלֹה ֹא ֹר ֹץ" — HaShem will be acknowledged as the King of all the World.
It’s not easy, this task; it has cost us rivers of blood and oceans of tears through the ages, but we have not failed in our duty. We have indeed changed the face of the world. But we must never lose sight of our calling as the message-bearers of HaShem to the world. We must never sink to the depths of the גּו ֹי ֹם, to assume the values of the גּו ֹי ֹם, to follow their lifestyles and ideals. For us, the values and ideals of HaShem’s Torah are our life, and with Torah as our light "נ ֹרֹל ֹר ֹג ֹל ֹיֹד ֹב ֹר ֹיך ֹ"— —the Jewish spirit of G-dliness and nobility will never be extinguished. We went through Auschwitz — but we did not become beasts. The Jewish spirit lives on. That is not tragedy, it is triumph.
We went to the Auschwitz Exhibition. We saw the flogging stool that was used at Auschwitz, we saw some of the lengths of steel cable and heavy sticks that were used to beat our people. The man’s feet were locked in stocks, one SS-man held him over the stool, and two SS-men smashed with all their strength till blood ran. Many times he fell unconscious. And sometimes we were made to stand to attention and watch. Once, at one such flogging, a man whispered to his Rebbe, who was standing next to him — “Rebbe, is this what it means to be a Jew?” And the Rebbe answered him quietly, “Would you rather be the SS-man?” And the man said, “No, Rebbe, never!” They could not make us into beasts — they could not destroy the Yiddishe נ ֹש ֹמ ֹה, the Jewish spirit.
We went to the Auschwitz Exhibition. And we saw how the Germans tried to humiliate us and degrade us. Our clothes were taken from us, and we were made to wear prison uniform. Ordinary people, remember; except we were Jews. We were made to lose our own identity; no more names, only a number tattooed on the left arm. But they didn’t win, because we didn’t sink to the filthy level of the German beast. The parlour psychoanalysts still write about the cowardly Jews — easy for them in the comfort of their armchairs to criticize half-dead and starved physical wrecks for not fighting armed sadists. (Anyhow, our People did resist the Germans, but that’s a different subject.)
But these critics see in those years of murder only the physical side, they don’t have eyes to see nor hearts to understand the victory of the Jewish spirit. They choose not to see how the Germans, by their bestial treatment of our People, sought to obliterate the noble spirit of our People, and how they did not succeed. We were humiliated, but not humbled; we were victimized, but not vanquished. When we hear of the woman who asked her Rabbi what to use instead of a sharp knife — not to commit suicide, but so that she can perform Bris Milah on her child before the Germans herded them to the slaughter, we see the spirit of the Jewish people. There were hundreds, thousands, of such episodes; the full tale of the true heroism of our People has yet to be told. And when you hear it, when you hear of what stuff the Jew is made, you will be so proud to belong to this most wonderful, unique people. As you get older you will appreciate more and more the real greatness of the Jew, and with true feeling and genuine gratefulness you will make the ב ֹר ֹכ ֹה ֹevery morning, "ש ֹל ֹאֹע ֹש ֹנ ֹיֹגו ֹי".
And the ר ֹבו ֹנו ֹֹש ֹלֹעו ֹל ֹם knows full well why He chose us more than any others to be His People: where else would He find such loyal subjects? No wonder that in His Tefillin He has the phrase "וּמ ֹיֹכ ֹע ֹמ ֹך ֹֹי ֹש ֹר ֹא ֹלֹגו ֹיֹא ֹח ֹדֹב ֹא ֹר ֹץ" — “Who is like you, Yisroel, the most unique people on earth!”
That even after an Auschwitz there should be a reawakening and return to the Torah — that is the Jewish spirit. Our determination to remain loyal to HaShem is our victory, and the persecution by the גּו ֹי ֹם does not lessen our greatness. On the contrary, it even helps us to rise over the brutal גּו ֹי ֹם. Even the nations of the world recognize this. In the words of Lloyd George: “You may say you have been oppressed and persecuted — that has been your power. You have been hammered into very fine steel, and that is why you have never been broken!”
