The holocaust

[Thorwald Johansen]

In the N/T scriptures, we find, "There are those that say they are jews, but are not."

We know that not only jews, but others, received the same horrible demise in the many German 'final solution' camps. I communicated with a jewish rabbi, and asked him if it was possible, that many 'jews' living in Israel and around the world, could have lost their status, as the annointed children of God. He responded with, "Sadly this is true, due to improper marriages."

This leaves me with the question, "Were those 'jews' that were horribly put to death, real jews, or simply followers of the jewish faith?

 

[dmgdnooc]

The Holocaust was not 'faith' based, many Christians (even Christian Clergy) were murdered because of their Jewish descent.
It was supposedly a racial, or genetically based programme of systematic murder.
　
Ironically Arabs, who were probably more racially pure Semites than the European Jews, were lauded by the Germans - there were even Arab divisions in the Nazi war machine.
　
Fact is it was founded on hatred, therefore, it is not required to conform to logic.

 

[Zardoz]

What that Rabbi meant was only if your mother was Jewish would you be Jewish according to halacha, except for conversion. Not that it mattered, one only had to be 1/4 Jewish (one grandparent) to go to the camps.

 

[Levite]

In the N/T scriptures, we find, "There are those that say they are jews, but are not."

We know that not only jews, but others, received the same horrible demise in the many German 'final solution' camps. I communicated with a jewish rabbi, and asked him if it was possible, that many 'jews' living in Israel and around the world, could have lost their status, as the annointed children of God. He responded with, "Sadly this is true, due to improper marriages."

This leaves me with the question, "Were those 'jews' that were horribly put to death, real jews, or simply followers of the jewish faith?

A Jew is a Jew, so long as his/her mother was Jewish, or provided that s/he properly went through the ritual of conversion to Judaism. Once a Jew, always a Jew, regardless of action, inobservance, sin, or error. The idea that any kind of improper marriage can negate a Jewish person's Jewish identity is inconsistent with Jewish law. And for the record, practicing Judaism without either Jewish descent or conversion to Judaism does not make one a Jew-- nor, for that matter, is it now or has it ever been a common phenomenon.

In any case, the status of the Jewish people as a nation with a special relationship to God is not dependent upon individuals, but is a status shared by all the people, eternally.

More to the point however, is that the question of the identity of the victims of the Third Reich is both moot and irrelevant. They were innocent victims, whether they were Jewish or non-Jewish, and all too often, regardless of what they felt their own identity was.

What does it matter whether they were Jews according to Jewish law or not? Their murderers lumped them in with Jews, out of a perverse and careless desire to kill Jews. What does it matter if the murderers were careless or careful with details, when all their victims ended up just as dead?

 

[angellous_evangellous]

This leaves me with the question, "Were those 'jews' that were horribly put to death, real jews, or simply followers of the jewish faith?

Why would it matter?

 

[Thorwald Johansen]

What that Rabbi meant was only if your mother was Jewish would you be Jewish according to halacha, except for conversion. Not that it mattered, one only had to be 1/4 Jewish (one grandparent) to go to the camps.

Why is it, that the 'mother' is the dominant factor, in determining the faith of the offspring? Has this always been the belief in the jewish faith? I am just curious. The only concern of Abraham for his son Isaac, was that Abraham did not wish Isaac to marry a descendant of Canaan. The whole Bible seems to be 'male dominated'. A gentile cannot become an Israelite (as in 'chosen children of God'), but why would the child not be an Israelite, if the father was an Israelite?

 

[Thorwald Johansen]

A Jew is a Jew, so long as his/her mother was Jewish, or provided that s/he properly went through the ritual of conversion to Judaism. Once a Jew, always a Jew, regardless of action, inobservance, sin, or error. The idea that any kind of improper marriage can negate a Jewish person's Jewish identity is inconsistent with Jewish law. And for the record, practicing Judaism without either Jewish descent or conversion to Judaism does not make one a Jew-- nor, for that matter, is it now or has it ever been a common phenomenon.

In any case, the status of the Jewish people as a nation with a special relationship to God is not dependent upon individuals, but is a status shared by all the people, eternally.

More to the point however, is that the question of the identity of the victims of the Third Reich is both moot and irrelevant. They were innocent victims, whether they were Jewish or non-Jewish, and all too often, regardless of what they felt their own identity was.

What does it matter whether they were Jews according to Jewish law or not? Their murderers lumped them in with Jews, out of a perverse and careless desire to kill Jews. What does it matter if the murderers were careless or careful with details, when all their victims ended up just as dead?

I fully agree with your posting. What I have a hard time with, is why it ever took place. Is it all 'satan-based', or, did God have a hand in it, for His purpose and glorification? Was there a reason behind this horrific event, that we simply do not understand? By simply interpreting what happened from the view of 'man' (symptoms/causes/effects), are we missing something, that may point to the prophecies being filled? Just a thought.

 

[Thorwald Johansen]

The holocaust was an episode forsaken by a God. the third Reich had a strict system of racial purity, their persecution as far as I can tell was based mostly on racial 'purity' and 'infection'.
further more, it is true that many of us marry gentile women, maybe far far less in Israel, but that hardly matters since many of us are atheist, we consider our heritage to be a matter of origin first, so rabbinical opinion of 'Jewishness' is not relevant, we live our life based on our ideology, not based on modern rabbinical ideology which is unrecognized by many if not most Jews, its not the Judaism we were raised with, rabbinical Judaism in modern Israel is considered by large sector of the society as decayed and unrelated to our daily life for the most part, when we think of Judaism we think of our history and heritage, not on modern rabbinical culture, which is practically an abomination of eastern European descent, unrelated to Jewish desert culture we are so nostalgic about.
So yes if a gentile woman is a fine woman, I would take her over a Jewish princess any day, and I will easily shrug off a rabbi who will lecture me about it. its one of the reasons people in Israel have recently began doing purely atheistic weddings, even when the marriage is of a Jewish couple, the Rabbinical system has no concept of Jewish society at large, they are stuck with their books and outdated rituals, while we are stuck in reserve duties and border patrols and trying to make a living in a modern reality.

Since I am a Christian, I follow the Bible. In the O/T, it is written, that God preferred not only marriages within the Israelite 'tribes' in general, but also, that each tribe should marry within their 'own' tribe, so that each tribe's inheritances would remain within that particular tribe.

 

[dogsgod]

I fully agree with your posting. What I have a hard time with, is why it ever took place. Is it all 'satan-based', or, did God have a hand in it, for His purpose and glorification? Was there a reason behind this horrific event, that we simply do not understand? By simply interpreting what happened from the view of 'man' (symptoms/causes/effects), are we missing something, that may point to the prophecies being filled? Just a thought.

According to Hitler the Jews killed his God. A great deal of anti Jewish sentiment existed for centuries in Europe, so Hitler was actually appealing to existing deep rooted prejudices of the people of his time. If you go back far enough, the holocaust is gospel based, unfortunately. According to the story a crowd of Jews called for Jesus' execution even though Pilate found Jesus innocent of any crime. Matthew 27:25. “His blood be upon us and our children.” Furthermore, it can be said without fear of exaggeration that the devastation imposed and inflicted on the Jewish people by the Church’s anti-Jewish reading of Matthew 27:25 has shed oceans of Jewish blood issuing into a ceaseless stream of misery and desolation that horribly culminated in Hitler’s Holocaust. In light of this it is extremely important that the true meaning of Matthew 27:25 be obtained so that the Chosen People can be free of the false accusation of “Christ killers” that is constantly imputed to them, resulting in the inevitable persecution and murder of the Jews that follow. “His blood be upon us…” — Matthew 27:25 and the Jewish People

 

[Levite]

I fully agree with your posting. What I have a hard time with, is why it ever took place. Is it all 'satan-based', or, did God have a hand in it, for His purpose and glorification? Was there a reason behind this horrific event, that we simply do not understand? By simply interpreting what happened from the view of 'man' (symptoms/causes/effects), are we missing something, that may point to the prophecies being filled? Just a thought.

Well, I can't say it was satan-based, since Jews do not believe in the devil. And I would certainly hope it was not God-based. My inclination is to say that the Holocaust was the most pointed example ever of free will, and how our right to make choices with which God would not be happy can be abused to the point of world-breaking evil. The only "reason" behind the Holocaust, I think, was humanity's own reckless penchant for dehumanizing each other, for failing to recognize within one another the spark of the same divine Source that we all share.

In any case, as a general rule, I think it is unproductive to seek for prophetic meanings in our daily events. In looking over Jewish history (and from what I know about Christian history, through the lens of European history), it seems to me that whenever people do this, it never brings deeper truths to light, but only drives people on to search for hidden patterns or cause events to try and fit a pattern, at the cost of responsible living.

Whether there were miracles or supernatural phenomena associated with the Holocaust is certainly a valid and open question. But to my mind, at least, that question simply pales before the obvious priority of the fact that this was an example of hatred and ignorance and callous dehumanization and the lusts for power and control gone so mad that human beings invented complex industrial systems to kill one another methodically. Let's work on the hatred and the ignorance and the dehumanization of others and the uncontrolled power-seeking and so forth first: once we have managed to excise most of that from the human experience, then let's take the luxury of time to speculate about potential for hidden mystica in modern history. That's my two cents.

 

[Thorwald Johansen]

Well, I can't say it was satan-based, since Jews do not believe in the devil. And I would certainly hope it was not God-based. My inclination is to say that the Holocaust was the most pointed example ever of free will, and how our right to make choices with which God would not be happy can be abused to the point of world-breaking evil. The only "reason" behind the Holocaust, I think, was humanity's own reckless penchant for dehumanizing each other, for failing to recognize within one another the spark of the same divine Source that we all share.

In any case, as a general rule, I think it is unproductive to seek for prophetic meanings in our daily events. In looking over Jewish history (and from what I know about Christian history, through the lens of European history), it seems to me that whenever people do this, it never brings deeper truths to light, but only drives people on to search for hidden patterns or cause events to try and fit a pattern, at the cost of responsible living.

Whether there were miracles or supernatural phenomena associated with the Holocaust is certainly a valid and open question. But to my mind, at least, that question simply pales before the obvious priority of the fact that this was an example of hatred and ignorance and callous dehumanization and the lusts for power and control gone so mad that human beings invented complex industrial systems to kill one another methodically. Let's work on the hatred and the ignorance and the dehumanization of others and the uncontrolled power-seeking and so forth first: once we have managed to excise most of that from the human experience, then let's take the luxury of time to speculate about potential for hidden mystica in modern history. That's my two cents.

First, I am curious about the Jewish non-belief in the devil/satan? What does the Jewish faith use to 'categorize' evil/sin/disobedience to God? If a person does not follow God (and His laws), then 'who/what' is this person following, in the Jewish faith? Does the Jewish faith simply attribute sin, etc., to 'ungodliness' (ie. for or against God, only)?

Secondly, I still have the problem, of understanding why the holocaust even took place. God has always taken care of His chosen people. The only time that they were 'forsaken', was when God deemed it necessary to 'chastise' them. This is what I am trying to 'get at'. The holocaust was such a heinous/horrific event, of such a magnitude, that was never seen on the face of this earth before, where the chosen children of God were concerned. We read of horrific acts against gentiles, because of their ungodliness, but why the Jews, if they were in fact 'godly'? We have read of the Israelites being in bondage/captivity, but not massacred, as they were in the holocaust. I am just curious.

 

[Zardoz]

First, I am curious about the Jewish non-belief in the devil/satan? What does the Jewish faith use to 'categorize' evil/sin/disobedience to God? ...

In a nutshell there is no devil/satan in the Torah... at all. Not surprising, as there was no revolt in Heaven to report, as angels have no free will.

We Jews refer to HaSatan:

Satan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

and the Yetzer hara (Evil Inclination)

Yetzer hara - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

... when we refer to temptation, etc. Oh, BTW, Jews do not believe in 'original sin' either.

Secondly, I still have the problem, of understanding why the holocaust even took place...

Isaiah 53

 

[Levite]

First, I am curious about the Jewish non-belief in the devil/satan? What does the Jewish faith use to 'categorize' evil/sin/disobedience to God? If a person does not follow God (and His laws), then 'who/what' is this person following, in the Jewish faith? Does the Jewish faith simply attribute sin, etc., to 'ungodliness' (ie. for or against God, only)?

More or less. If a person does not act morally or ethically, then they are doing what displeases God. But we believe in human free will: people have the power to do as God finds displeasing, and they need no supernatural help or temptation to do so. Jews believe that innate in all human beings is a yetzer ha-tov (will or urge to do good deeds) and a yetzer ha-ra (a will or urge to do evil, or at least chaotic, deeds). These both are reflective of God's nature (see Isaiah 45:7).

The general idea is to master the yetzer ha-ra (evil or chaotic urge) so that its force is sublimated or channelled into productive outlets: greed and anger are sublimated into becoming healthy competition and ambition, a drive for success; lust becomes sublimated into marriage and procreation; gluttony, idleness, laziness, bibulousness, all become sublimated into appreciation of the produce God's earth brings forth and an appreciation of rest and celebration on God's holy days; and so forth.

So, someone who simply has not mastered their yetzer ha-ra, or has allowed it to rule them, is guilty of doing what displeases God, but more internally, is guilty of both self-neglect and unrestrained egotism, in that it is both to society's detriment and to their own personal detriment that they do not exercise self-control and self-care.

In any case, Judaism is, generally speaking, much less interested in the motivations behind sin or good deeds than in the concrete actions themselves. What we understand to be most displeasing to God is being unjust to other human beings; thus, motivation is of secondary importance: acting justly and ethically is of primary importance. True, it's better to act justly for the right reasons than justly for the wrong reasons, but either is better than acting unjustly for any reason.

Secondly, I still have the problem, of understanding why the holocaust even took place. God has always taken care of His chosen people. The only time that they were 'forsaken', was when God deemed it necessary to 'chastise' them. This is what I am trying to 'get at'. The holocaust was such a heinous/horrific event, of such a magnitude, that was never seen on the face of this earth before, where the chosen children of God were concerned. We read of horrific acts against gentiles, because of their ungodliness, but why the Jews, if they were in fact 'godly'? We have read of the Israelites being in bondage/captivity, but not massacred, as they were in the holocaust. I am just curious.

Perhaps God does take care of the Jews: perhaps that's why there are any of us left at all. It could easily have been otherwise.

In any case, we hold that God does not relish anyone's death. There is a famous midrash (exegetical parable) that relates that, when the Egyptians were drowning in the Red Sea, after it closed over them (the Israelites having safely crossed already), the angels in Heaven wished to sing and rejoice; but God stopped them, and demanded, "How can you sing when my creations are drowning?!"

I wasn't kidding when I spoke about human free will earlier. I think that God values free will deeply, and as the human race evolves and humanity becomes smarter, and, hopefully, wiser also, He interferes less and less overtly in human affairs. In that sense, God has certainly not always taken care of us: we were often killed by the Romans, and have fallen victim to pogroms and bloodbaths of various kinds in nearly every land we have inhabited. During pretty much every crusade, the Christians spent their time en route to fighting the Muslims by massacreing Jews in every community they passed through. The Spanish Inquisition had us massacred by the cartload. The Tsars had us massacred, the Poles famously massacred us.... Granted, the holocaust was far vaster in scale, but in essence it was nothing new.

Chosenness doesn't mean that God's our personal bodyguard. I'm not sure it ever meant that. Chosenness is also not necessarily exclusive. I think there's a common misconception that because we are sometimes called the Chosen People, that means that we think God picked us, and He likes us better than other people. That's not actually what Chosenness means. We were chosen to be tasked with certain responsibilities. We were chosen to be Jews, and keep the Torah. Many of us presume that this either does not preclude or actually indicates that God may have chosen other peoples for other responsibilities, and given them other teachings to keep. Our relationship with God is special. But presumably other peoples could have different special relationships with God.

In any case, the holocaust almost certainly had nothing to do with Chosenness or with God's choosing or not choosing to protect us. I don't think God's stepping in for anyone, in that sense. Human free will means that even if we choose to do things so displeasing to God that they are unprecedented in their evil, God will not interfere. It is a harsh lesson for us about what kind of creature humanity can become, if evil is unchecked.

 

[Pegg]

Why is it, that the 'mother' is the dominant factor, in determining the faith of the offspring? Has this always been the belief in the jewish faith? I am just curious. The only concern of Abraham for his son Isaac, was that Abraham did not wish Isaac to marry a descendant of Canaan. The whole Bible seems to be 'male dominated'. A gentile cannot become an Israelite (as in 'chosen children of God'), but why would the child not be an Israelite, if the father was an Israelite?

I actually asked this question to a jewish woman a couple of years ago because my grandfather was a jew, but he married a german woman.

The answer I got was that if a jewish man marries a gentile, her children will not be brought up with Judaism because gentiles have their own religions.
However, if both mother and father is jewish, then the children will grow up with Judaism.... in her opinion, to be a 'jew' one must practice their religion.

That rings true because my father was not brought up with judaism.

 

[arimoff]

In the N/T scriptures, we find, "There are those that say they are jews, but are not."

We know that not only jews, but others, received the same horrible demise in the many German 'final solution' camps. I communicated with a jewish rabbi, and asked him if it was possible, that many 'jews' living in Israel and around the world, could have lost their status, as the annointed children of God. He responded with, "Sadly this is true, due to improper marriages."

This leaves me with the question, "Were those 'jews' that were horribly put to death, real jews, or simply followers of the jewish faith?

I communicated with a jewish rabbi, and asked him if it was possible, that many 'jews' living in Israel and around the world, could have lost their status, as the annointed children of God.

Your question explains your intentions so what answer are you looking for?

 

[Thorwald Johansen]

In a nutshell there is no devil/satan in the Torah... at all. Not surprising, as there was no revolt in Heaven to report, as angels have no free will.

We Jews refer to HaSatan:

Satan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

and the Yetzer hara (Evil Inclination)

Yetzer hara - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

... when we refer to temptation, etc. Oh, BTW, Jews do not believe in 'original sin' either.



Isaiah 53

I interpret Isaiah chpt 43, as a prophesy of the coming of the Messiah (Jesus Christ per Christianity).

Also, If Jews do not believe in 'original sin', then they do not believe in the book of Genesis (supplied to us by Moses, originally). Is my understanding correct?

 

[fallingblood]

I interpret Isaiah chpt 43, as a prophesy of the coming of the Messiah (Jesus Christ per Christianity).

Also, If Jews do not believe in 'original sin', then they do not believe in the book of Genesis (supplied to us by Moses, originally). Is my understanding correct?

No. Genesis does not teach about the theological idea that is not called original sin.

 

[fallingblood]

According to Hitler the Jews killed his God. A great deal of anti Jewish sentiment existed for centuries in Europe, so Hitler was actually appealing to existing deep rooted prejudices of the people of his time. If you go back far enough, the holocaust is gospel based, unfortunately. According to the story a crowd of Jews called for Jesus' execution even though Pilate found Jesus innocent of any crime.

The Holocaust is not Gospel based. Matthew, the writer you are quoting, was a Jew. He has Jesus being a Jew. He has Jesus saying that one must follow the Jewish laws. The first Christians were Jews.

The Christian attack on Judaism didn't happen really until after the First Jewish War, when Judaism was centralizing. Because of that, they tolerated sects less, and deemed them to be heresies. Thus, a rift between Rabbinic Jews and other sect of Jews, including Christians, began. There was pushing on both sides, and tensions grew. Because of this, both sides became harsh towards each other. Before you continue this idea that the Holocaust is a Christian atrocity you need to actually do some research on the subject.

 

[Levite]

Also, If Jews do not believe in 'original sin', then they do not believe in the book of Genesis (supplied to us by Moses, originally). Is my understanding correct?

No. Just as Jews don't read Isaiah 53 as referring to Jesus, we don't read Genesis as referring to Original Sin. There are many, many ways to read Biblical texts. Those two are simply readings that Judaism does not have. There are quite a number of ways Jews have read Genesis, but none postulate Original Sin, and a number of ways Jews have read Isaiah, but none postulate Jesus.

According to Hitler the Jews killed his God. A great deal of anti Jewish sentiment existed for centuries in Europe, so Hitler was actually appealing to existing deep rooted prejudices of the people of his time. If you go back far enough, the holocaust is gospel based, unfortunately.

The Holocaust is not Gospel based. Matthew, the writer you are quoting, was a Jew. He has Jesus being a Jew. He has Jesus saying that one must follow the Jewish laws. The first Christians were Jews.

The Christian attack on Judaism didn't happen really until after the First Jewish War, when Judaism was centralizing. Because of that, they tolerated sects less, and deemed them to be heresies. Thus, a rift between Rabbinic Jews and other sect of Jews, including Christians, began. There was pushing on both sides, and tensions grew. Because of this, both sides became harsh towards each other. Before you continue this idea that the Holocaust is a Christian atrocity you need to actually do some research on the subject.

Yeah, what fallingblood said there is pretty much correct. Without getting sidetracked into the precise nature of the reasons Judaism and Christianity ceased to be sects of the same religion, and became different religions, the real issue here is that none of it had anything to do with the Holocaust, except in a very indirect sense.

It is certainly true that the Nazis exploited a long-standing culture of anti-Semitism in Europe in order to pursue their political and social ends. But Hitler, and most of his closest compatriots, were indifferent Christians at best, and Hitler himself seems to have been desirous of discreetly disfavoring Christianity as much as possible. If you look at the Nazi-approved Bibles, they excise the Old Testament entirely, and they re-edit the New Testament in order to attempt to display Jesus as an Aryan, in the model of Hitler's racialist philosophies. But if you read Hitler's own words in the letters he wrote, or in the secondhand accounts of those who spoke to him, he seems to have been more compelled by Norse mythology than by Christianity, and thought it better religious material for the Aryan race.

Hitler certainly used and exploited Christianity whenever it suited him, just as he used and exploited anything else he found of use, so long as it was useful. But his anti-Semitism, and his obsessive need to kill Jews is in no way a result of a tumultuous spiritual angst over the supposed culpability of "the Jews" in Jesus' crucifixion. I doubt he cared much, if he believed in Jesus at all.

I recommend reading Mein Kampf which, if chilling and horrifying, nonetheless provides a remarkably clear view into Hitler's demented mind, and shows that Christian zeal was certainly not his motivation. I also recommend reading William Shirer's excellent The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which shows how Christianity was manipulated by the Nazis for power, but was never really a motivating part of their beliefs.

 

[Zardoz]

I interpret Isaiah chpt 43, as a prophesy of the coming of the Messiah...

Messiah is more than just the man, it is also a people who live in an age. The Jews are the people and this is the age of Messiah ben Yosef, the suffering servant of Isaiah 53.

Also, If Jews do not believe in 'original sin', then they do not believe in the book of Genesis (supplied to us by Moses, originally). Is my understanding correct?

It is not correct, because you don't have the book of Beresheet supplied to us by Moshe, you have a flawed translation. Even in there, you can read the account of Adam in Genesis all you want, and while you will find many severe punishments for the sin they did, nowhere is the punishment of perpetual hereditary damnation to be found.