Scholars regard the Book of Lamentations as one of the most problematic in the Tanakh. Written after the fall of the First Temple in 586 B.C.E., Eicha describes Jerusalem’s decimation and the nearly complete destruction of its inhabitants. The text acknowledges sin only briefly and it does not specify its nature. Traditionally, commentators have interpreted Lamentations in light of theodicy (the justifying of God’s actions); the people sinned, and God punished them.
But when reading the text, we have to ask ourselves how comfortable we feel with the idea of starving mothers having to boil their own children for food. How can we take seriously the idea that God has purposefully distanced Himself from His children and that He has abandoned his wife, now a widow, leaving her abused, raped, and naked on the side of the road, crying out her shame and suffering with no one to listen? The people are confused, disconnected, and sorrowful. They wonder how they deserve this punishment which seems completely disproportionate to the vague sin that they committed. We cannot accept the idea that Israel sinned, and God punished them accordingly. We would not condone what befell these people.
Lamentations 3, a man supposes that if he waits for God, Adonai might save him, but the lines describing this number only three, and the individual immediately returns to mourning. His experience tells him that God will not grant him mercy. Clearly, we cannot accept the traditional interpretation of Lamentations’ moral: always to trust in God. Lamentations has no message; it only contains expressions of raw emotion – of lament. God never speaks; He never intervenes. There is no moral here.
This Wednesday and Thursday, November 8th and 9th, mark the seventy-third anniversary of Kristallnacht. On the Night of the Broken Glass, Nazis and other Germans destroyed many Jewish homes and 7,500 Jewish-owned shops and businesses. People stole from over 1,000 synagogues, killed ninety-one Jews, and rounded up 26,000 for deportation. This pogram represents perhaps the first time that German Jews began to understand that they were no longer welcome. Unfortunately, those Jews that came to grips with the reality of the situation were few, and even they could not begin to predict the horrors of the Holocaust.
Just as many interpreters continue to view Jerusalem’s destruction in Eicha as proper punishment for Israel’s iniquities, some Jews consider the Holocuast, the greatest tragedy ever to befall the Jewish people, to be punishment for their sins. Yet, as we cannot understand the appalling events in Lamentations that came upon the Jerusalemites as a God-given “punishment,” even less so can we seriously say that God punished the Jews with the Holocaust. Beaten, “medically experimented” upon, starved, raped, murdered, and dehumanized – about six million Jews, approximately one and half million of them children, died from Hitler’s vile actions. We insult ourselves by justifying such affronts on humanity and genocide. Why? Because some actions lack any human explanation. What do we do in light of the Holocaust? We educate to prevent anything remotely similar from perpetuating. We do not only say, “Never Again,” but we also put those words into action.
So the next time that you see or hear of someone, explaining the Holocaust as punishment for Jews’ sins, basing their explanation on textual analyses from sources such as Lamentations, please, stop them, and say no. Explain to them that by attempting to put God in the picture of such events, they justify inexplicable crimes against humanity. If they really want to bring God into the world, they will recognize that God encouraged courageous people to put their lives on the line to save whom they could during the Holocaust, and that we bring God into the world when we act on “Never Again.”
Much of this interpretation of Lamentations comes from Professor Mroczek, and the information on the Holocaust is from Professor Lehmann. The author expresses his respectful thanks to both.
Born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, David Bloom attends Indiana University Bloomington where he majors in Jewish Studies and Religious Studies. His column, J-Studs, usually appears here on alternating Saturdays.
