Rabbi Eliezer Shemtov responds
There's been some talk about it recently, with another Professor supposedly "exposing" the Rebbe for his true stance on the Holocaust. Biz Yetzt hut men Gevust that the Rebbe said that we can't understand Hashem's ways, and in no way do we say that the Holocaust was somehow a punishment for the Jewish people. Now, this Professor says, we find out from a well-known letter written by the Rebbe in 5740 to the former head of one of the underground movements during the Holocaust and later Israeli MK, that it was a kind-of "surgery" to remove a diseased limb from the Jewish People.
Read it. Click on the link above.
24 comments:
Don't you get sick of your own dumb apologetics?
The Lubavitch position during the war was that Hitler's victories would continue until Jews did Teshuva, at which point Moshiach would come. The FR ran a huge campaign in Hakria Vehakedusha based on this premise. Was there any official explanation as to why this did not happen?
well, Steven
I AM sick of dumba--es like yourself defiling my blog with assinine comments, yes.
Keep up the good fight!!!
-fellow Hungarian/Lubavithcer
There was also a call-in answer by Menachem Brod, earlier.
Brod focuses more on the misinterpretation in "Emuna U'Mada", and explains that it was later changed for accuracy. And, as for Bauer missing points in the Rebbe's letter as well.
The audio for Bauer & Brod are available on COL:
http://www.col.org.il/show_news.rtx?artID=29880
joe, that is an over simplification of what the FR wrote and said. During the war, he encouraged people to do Teshuvah to end the war, which is standard Jewish practice as noted by the Gemara and the Rambam leHalachah. After the war he did not speak in this tone.
Over simplify very simple things.Now that's an art.
The truth is that Lubab inc saw it was not good for p.r so they hide what was said especially after Rav Shach said something that the Rebbe had to come out against.
Why did Lubab inc use Eliezer Shem Tov for the op ed in Haaretz when they could have used our own 'brilliant' commentator hmmm.He has a n answe for everything
truth, eh?
is Lubab inc a publicly traded company? Is there a Snag inc too? I wonder.
Anon is so OUT OF TOUCH with the real world Eliezer Shem Tov is the real name of a person alive today.
During the war, [the FR] encouraged people to do Teshuvah to end the war, which is standard Jewish practice as noted by the Gemara and the Rambam leHalachah.
He said that Hitler would continue his military victories and destroying the Jews until they all did Teshuva. I'm telling you that this is what it says in Hakria Vehakedusha. It might even be in the very first issue.
After the war he did not speak in this tone.
Yes, that's my point.
Find me the quote, please. Then we can discuss it.
This happens every few years, some new scholar decides to get to the bottom of the story and makes up some bs
Regarding the Rayatz and Hakriah VeHakedusha:
1941: WW2 would end with the Moshiach, who was standing behind our backs Vol 1, No 9 (May 26, 1941)
1943: murder of millions of jews and the threat of annihilation constituted Chevley Moshiach. Vol 3, No. 26, August 1, 1943
There are many more references.
It's most revealing, and explains the theological urgency from the Rayatz through to the last Rebbe (in my view)
Somehow I could not imagine the last Rebbe writing in the same style as Reb Avrohom Levit did in the name of the Rayatz, in Hakreiah Vehakedusha.
hey reb hirshel-- do u know anything about the sefer(im) Aspaklaria? by shmuel adler?? kdai tzoo kofein?
isaac, there is no question about that. LeAlter LeTeshuvah LeAlter LeGeula (not just about the war) was still being promoted by the Rebbe in the last years.
Hmmm, I think you may be missing the point. The tenor and tone of Hakriah VeHakedusha made it clear that the Rayyatz felt the Moshiach was coming in the 40's. This was due not to Achisheno but due to "Mipnei Chatoeynu" which he saw as the storm before the coming. It's quite clear and plain. It was B'Itoh and the time was immediately (LaAlter) after the Holocaust. This was why he believed he had been spared by Hashem, to be Mekabel P'nei Moshiach (yes, at Dor Hashishi)
The last Rebbe didn't use this type of language. The Rayatz's langauge was more expansive than the "sick limb" comments being discussed.
No doubt the last Rebbe didn't argue with his father-in-law on theology. He spoke in a different language though. Those who analyse the comments about the "sick limb" need to relate those comments to the Rayatz's philosophy UNLESS they contend that the Rayatz and the last Rebbe held different views.
Senior figures in Chabad who I've spoken to, tell me the Rayatz and last Rebbe held the same views and when I ask about the comments in Hakreiah I am met with complete silence. I know this silence. This is the formal silence which is advocated when things shouldn't be spoken about B'Farhesyo. I'm obviously not Anash, but am technically a "Tomim" although far from that!
Lealter legeulah was developed in 5702, during the Holocaust, not after.
You also have to distinguish between the general tone of hakriah vehakdusha which was not under the influence of the Rebbeim and the articles which bear the FR's name.
And perhaps the FR was davening for Moshiach to come with those words, as the Rebbe did so many times?
"You also have to distinguish between the general tone of hakriah vehakdusha which was not under the influence of the Rebbeim and the articles which bear the FR's name."
With respect, "hmm", have you read any issues of Hakriah Vehakedusha? It was the official Chabad publication at a time when Chabad was quite small. It's nonsense to say that the "general tone" was not under the FR's control. In any event, it's not a matter of tone but of direct statements that the FR revealed various prophesies, some of which are printed in a scrambled form.
It is historical revisionism to attempt to distance the Rayatz from Hakriah Vehkedusha in any form. The unknown editor, later revealed to be Reb Avrohom Levitt, faithfully checked the editorials with the Rayatz. This is known, and accepted. It was the official organ.
Actually, the historical revisionism is to attempt to create the image you project. There were known issues between the FR and this gentleman, and in the first issue of Hakriah Vehakedusha you can see the sticker placed over the original words to change it from being under the editorial power of the FR, to simply being with the brocha of the FR. As I said, only those items specifically in the FRs name can be attributed to him.
As far as official organ, Talks and Tales served this purpose.
As can be seen further from the fact that HaKriah VeHakedusha did not carry the Kehos stamp, while Talks and Tales and Shmuessen did.
Response to Haaretz article written by Yanki Tauber which directly takes the author to task:
A Gross Misrepresentation
by Yanki Tauber
In an article titled "G-d as Surgeon" (Haaretz, June 3, 2007), Yehudah Bauer makes the bizarre claim that the Lubavitcher Rebbe believed that, "the Holocaust was a good thing because it lopped off a disease-ravaged limb of the Jewish people - in other words, the millions who perished in the Holocaust - in order to cleanse the Jewish people of its sins."
The Rebbe said no such thing. Nor did he ever imply it. In fact, the Rebbe is on record, in numerous published letters and talks, as angrily rejecting and denouncing the very notion that we can explain the Holocaust to be a result of the sins of the Jewish people, or, for that matter, to offer any explanation at all for such an horrific event. If anything, the above-quoted words, written by Bauer, represent the very antithesis of the Rebbe's statements on the subject. Yet Bauer glibly states them to be the Rebbe's "clear stance" on the Holocaust.
The following is a direct translation of the Rebbe's own words, spoken on December 29, 1990 and subsequently edited and approved by him for publication (Sefer HaSichot, vol. I, p. 233):
The destruction of six million Jews, with such great and horrific cruelty--a catastrophe of such magnitude, the like of which never was (and will never again be, G-d forbid) in all generations--could not possibly have occurred as a punishment for sins. Even Satan himself could not possibly find a sufficient number of sins in that generation that would justify, G-d forbid, such punishment!
We have no rationale or explanation whatsoever for the Holocaust. We only know the fact that it was a Divine decree... Most certainly, it cannot be explained as a punishment for sins. On the contrary: All those who were murdered in the Holocaust are called “kedoshim” – holy ones – since they were murdered in sanctification of G–d’s name, and G–d himself will avenge their blood...
This is one example of many published talks and letters in which the Rebbe repeatedly presents his view: We cannot explain the Holocaust, and it is a colossal chutzpa to even suggest that any humanly comprehensible "reason" could possibly explain it. It is not the believer's task to "justify" G-d on this--on the contrary, it is our duty to protest and rail against the Divine decree, and only G-d Himself can answer for what He allowed to happen. The Rebbe's distinct theological approach to the Holocaust is well known to all students of the Rebbe's teaching, all the more so because it markedly differs from the standard "religious" approach.
Yet Mr. Bauer blithely ignores all this. He even ignores extensive portions of the very letter on which he builds his "thesis." He neglects to inform us that in that letter, the Rebbe protests to MK Grossman her misinterpretation of the "surgeon" metaphor quoted in his name, and sets the record straight on eight (8) itemized misunderstandings of his words. The letter is a matter of public record, and is published in Likkutei Sichot, vol 21, pp. 397 (Kehot, 1983).
The metaphor of the surgeon (which the Rebbe cites in other contexts as well) is this: Imagine that a person who knows absolutely nothing about modern medicine walks into an operating room and sees a surgeon cutting into his patient. He will think that he is witnessing a sadistic murder, when in truth, the surgeon is saving the patient's life.
The point of this metaphor is NOT that the Holocaust was a "surgery." The point is that the human mind is no more capable of understanding G-d's actions than the hypothetical caveman can understand the meaning of what transpires in the operating room. The surgeon metaphor is not an "explanation" of the Holocaust; on the contrary, it conveys the idea that there is no explanation that we could possibly understand.
If Bauer wrote his article based solely on his (mis)understanding of that one letter, and is ignorant of the Rebbe's well-documented conception of the Holocaust, he is a poor scholar. If he is aware of the Rebbe's philosophy but thinks that none of the readers of Haaretz are, then he is a fool.
In either case, he owes the Rebbe (who lost a brother and several other close relatives in the Holocaust) a public retraction and apology.
For a more transparent analysis of Chabad and the Holocaust, I suggest people read Gershon Greenberg's 1992 paper in Modern Judaism Volume 12, entitled: Redemption after Holocaust according to Mahane Israel- Lubavitch 1940-1945.
The suggestion that the Rayatz and HK (Hakeria Vehakedusha) were somewhat at a distance is perhaps best described as fanciful apologetics.
How anyone can suggest that HK wrote such strident material without explicit protest from the Rayatz and yet quote the last Rebbe as in fact protesting about such views is a delicious irony and blatant theosophical contradiction. They are saying that were the last Rebbe in charge of HK he would have protested but the Rayatz just let these things get published and never contradicted them!
Come on now.
Again: "let these things get published". Wrong.
The facts surrounding the publication of HK are known, logic has no place where the history is known. And you still have not provided exact references (I am not interested in looking through each volume you cite for the exact quote).
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