A letter I wrote to Morris at the request of the organizers of the yeshiva's trip to Poland -- I have no idea what other parents wrote, I can't believe anyone else wrote something like this. I doubt it was helpful, but I really didn't know what else to say.

February 25-29, 2012

Dear Morris,

We were sent email  on February 23^rd [two days ago, just before Shabbat] asking us to write -- in the next week  --  a letter with an appropriate  message to be given to you at the end of your tour of Auschwitz, along with a request that it be returned by this coming Friday, March 2^nd. Our instructions stated:

Things you can write can vary, it can be your feelings about your sons trip to Poland are, the role in the future of the Jewish people you think he is capable of fulfilling. You should write to him about his connection to his family, his tradition, his nation, and his land. Write things that will strengthen him, and let him know how much you love him.

Well and good. It reminds me of the letter your teachers at Hausner had us write you for the Gold Rush trip in 4^th or 5th grade, except, of course,

•      that letter was done in a fictional context  and
•          we were given more advance notice.

Still, here you are, in a very real place of horrific destruction and pain, and, whatever my irritation at the assignment, you deserve whatever comfort I can give you. 

Well, what comfort can I be? You know, I think, how much we love you and how proud we are of you.  I don’t think it’s meaningful to try to quantify it [“7,” we’d say when you or Henry asked a question that we obviously couldn’t answer, the joke being that it was an arbitrary number without any units attached to it and could therefore mean anything and thus meant nothing. I hate to explain the joke, but it would be cryptic to anyone else reading this otherwise.] 

Frankly, words are inadequate, reasoning inadequate, and I think, though you probably don’t agree with me, religion is inadequate to explain, or cope with the magnitude and cruelty of the Holocaust, let alone to justify it.  When I got the email requesting this letter, I immediately thought of the haftarah from the week before, for parashat  Mishpatim, in which Jeremiah says that the destruction of Jerusalem was because the people had broken their covenant with Hashem by recapturing their freed slaves. Of course, elsewhere [Rav Google cites Yoma 9b], it’s blamed on the idolatry, immorality and bloodshed that went on in the temple. The same page famously – even I had heard of it – goes on to ascribe the destruction of the second Temple  to the baseless hatred Jews felt for one another.

Were  prophecy still alive,  we’d no doubt learn from a modern-day navi what caused the Holocaust, or God’s purpose in it; Of course, there is no shortage of secular and religious writers willing to step into the void. Was it because of European Jewry’s abandonment of traditional Judaism? Or is the beginning of the seed of the dawning of the redemption, the birth-pangs of the Messiah? Or punishment for Zionism itself? [The Satmar rebbe said something like this, but I shouldn’t twist his words].

Is anti-Semitism explainable in socio-economic terms, or from religious rivalry and jealousy, or is there some deeper theological meaning? Is it a punishment from God for our sins? Or a tool to keep us from assimilating?

Is God nonexistent? Or limited in power? Or does he choose to remain hidden to allow us to exercise free-will at any cost? Or is all just part of a larger plan we can’t understand, but would appreciate if we could?

Bleah. It’s all insufficient and none of it is compelling. Maybe it’s all true at the same time in all its contradictions. So what?

But, as I said before, here you are, in this real place, where real evil happened, where real people, maybe even some not-too-distant relatives, suffered and died.

[I don’t know if you had any ancestors who died at Auschwitz, but I’m pretty sure some of Bubbe’s family died at Treblinka.  For example, Sheyl Chajka, who was the brother of my maternal grandmother and his family, from Wysokie Mazowieckie, for example. Zeyde’s family had relatives in what is now Belarus who died in the Holocaust, but I’m not sure if any died in concentration camps – some may have died in the liquidation of Dolginowo.  Does that change anything?  Maybe it does, I honestly don’t know.]

Am yisrael chai. Ankoraŭ. We’re here. You’re here. Slogans aside, who knows if there are more tragedies in the future of the Jewish people? Prophecy aside, who knows if there is a future for the Jewish people? We can’t honestly answer those questions, they are in God’s hands (of course, so was European Jewry).  

All we can do is our part – to grow, to learn, to be decent and kind, to contribute as best we can to the Jewish people and to the world. You’ve been doing a very good job of all of this so far, we’re proud of you, we love you [did I say that already?].

Love

Dad [and on behalf of Mom, too]

P.S. I still have enough sympathy with universalism  to feel uncomfortable mourning the destruction of the Temple while cheering the extermination  of the Canaanites – even the Amalekites, not that they wouldn’t have done the same to us. Showing any mercy, as King Saul did, was a severe offence. If so, the issue isn’t the horror and cruelty, but the choice of victim.