Whose to Blame!

Rabbi Ken Alpren
Sermon Notes by Teresa Bennett, Pharm.D.
4/14/12

Whose to blame for the Holocaust? We may ask this question as we remember the Holocaust this time of year on the Day of Remembrance or Yom HaShoah. Were the German people to blame? Was G-d to blame? What about the Red Cross? In 1997 they gave a statement that they knew about the atrocities of the Holocaust and did not report it. What about us, as Jewish people? Do we blame ourselves because we allowed ourselves to become assimilated and weren’t prepared?

Doesn’t the Holocaust attest to Scripture that people act wickedly when they are detached from G-d and His Word?

Amos 3:1-2, “"Listen to this word which ADONAI has spoken against you, people of Isra'el, against the entire family that I brought up from the land of Egypt: 2 "Of all the families on earth, only you have I intimately known. This is why I will punish you for all your crimes."’

The truth is we are all guilty by our actions and by our inactions. The question should not be whose at fault, but how do we find G-d in this?

Romans 3:4, ‘Heaven forbid! God would be true even if everyone were a liar! - as the Tanakh says, "so that you, God, may be proved right in your words and win the verdict when you are put on trial."’

It is easy to affix blame when we generalize and don’t have all the information.

During the time of the Holocaust, Germany was focused on the glorification of man; of themselves.

2 Timothy 4:1-3, ‘I solemnly charge you before God and the Messiah Yeshua, who will judge the living and the dead when he appears and establishes his Kingdom: 2 proclaim the Word! Be on hand with it whether the time seems right or not. Convict, censure and exhort with unfailing patience and with teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not have patience for sound teaching, but will cater to their passions and gather around themselves teachers who say whatever their ears itch to hear.’

‘Shoah’ in Hebrew means catastrophe. ‘Olah’ means consumed by fire as in a burnt sacrifice. Yeshua was our Sacrifice or ‘olah’ too and He is identified with Israel’s suffering and our suffering too.

David lamented the death of Saul and Jonathan equally even though Saul tried to kill David and Saul may well have been demon possessed. David wrote three times, as recorded in 1Samuel 1:17-25, that ‘the heroes have fallen’. He honored Saul in spite of how he was treated.

G-d loves us in spite of our sin and He will use us in spite of our sin if we will allow Him!

Mature believers do not engage in battles over whose right and whose wrong, but we are called to mollify not exacerbate wounds.

1 Peter 4:8, ‘More than anything, keep loving each other actively; because love covers many sins.’

Ephesians 5:2, ‘and live a life of love, just as also the Messiah loved us, indeed, on our behalf gave himself up as an offering, as a slaughtered sacrifice to God with a pleasing fragrance.’

We are called to not judge by appearances, but to see clearly we should evaluate through the lens of the Spirit. All will err in life, people get hurt, we fail, we sin and disappoint.

1 Corinthians 2:15, ‘But the person who has the Spirit can evaluate everything, while no one is in a position to evaluate him. For who has known the mind of ADONAI? Who will counsel him? But we have the mind of the Messiah!’

How should be respond when we are failed and disappointed or even when we have failed or disappointed ourselves and others?

Do you want to become bitter or more tender?

Romans 8:35-39, ‘Who will separate us from the love of the Messiah? Trouble? Hardship? Persecution? Hunger? Poverty? Danger? War? 36 As the Tanakh puts it, "For your sake we are being put to death all day long, we are considered sheep to be slaughtered." 37 No, in all these things we are superconquerors, through the one who has loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor other heavenly rulers, neither what exists nor what is coming, 39 neither powers above nor powers below, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which comes to us through the Messiah Yeshua, our Lord.’

Notice the wording. That it is in all these things; that is, trouble, hardship, persecution, hunger, poverty, danger, war, that we are super-conquerors! Not outside of these things or because of these things, but in these things!

Immediately following this portion of Scripture, Paul writes this next passage:

Romans 9:1-5, ‘I am speaking the truth - as one who belongs to the Messiah, I do not lie; and also bearing witness is my conscience, governed by the Ruach HaKodesh: 2 my grief is so great, the pain in my heart so constant, 3 that I could wish myself actually under God's curse and separated from the Messiah, if it would help my brothers, my own flesh and blood, 4 the people of Isra'el! They were made God's children, the Sh'khinah has been with them, the covenants are theirs, likewise the giving of the Torah, the Temple service and the promises; 5 the Patriarchs are theirs; and from them, as far as his physical descent is concerned, came the Messiah, who is over all. Praised be ADONAI for ever! Amen.’

Take victory and compassion to those who hurt us!

“If we allow the memory of the Nazis to keep us from Messiah, we give Hitler the power to reach beyond the grave and destroy us in an awful way that even his evil mind could not imagine.” - Vera Schlamm, Survivor

Further Reading: Deuteronomy 28:67, Judges 6:13, Esther 3:13, Ezekiel 37:1-4, 6, Hosea 6:1-3, Romans 1:20, Galatians 4:6, Proverbs 10:12, 15:1, John 7:24, Isaiah 11:3