Where is God? The Jewish Cry of the Holocaust - Vol 1 No 14

Mike's Final Paper

In the last Diary entry, we mentioned that Mike asked to write his final paper in his Holocaust class from the perspective of a fictional rabbi in a concentration camp experiencing the full onslaught of evil.  This rabbi, however, would be thoroughly versed in the ancient Hebrew Old Testament Scriptures and would rightly apply them to his experience.  This would personify the situation of a Jew thinking biblically about the problem of evil, the presence of God in suffering, and answer from the Ancient Hebrew (Old Testament) Scriptures the question of "Who is the Messiah?"  By popular demand, this is his paper. (He made an A.  :)

Where is God?

Finding the God of Hope from the Older Testament

by Mike Chastain

The Jewish Holocaust was a challenge to the faith of many Jews. As they wasted away in concentration camps like Auschwitz enduring incomprehensible torment and torture, many found themselves crying out, “Where is God? Am I forsaken?” For many, the despair was palpable, yet the answers that would give hope were right in their very Scriptures, the Torah and the Tanakh. This is the story of a rabbi in one of these camps, who using the Hebrew Scriptures, finds trust and hope in God, even in the midst of the environment developed by Hitler to bring death and despair.

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“Where is God?” I murmured as I held my knees tightly to my chest and rocked back and forth in my rough-hewn wooden bunk, caring just enough to try to not irritate the other men lying on the same rack. The stench of the latrine bucket and the gritty, oily, blood stained blankets made the smell of death seem to hover like a murky cloud over Auschwitz II – the Birkenau Camp. Life here is far different from the peaceful life I once enjoyed, and thought would never change.

Where is God? I squeezed my eyes shut to cover this darkness and seek light from the Invisible, but the question nagged on. Am I forsaken? Are Your people forsaken? I held my knees even tighter as grief, fear and anguish gripped my belly like a vise, very much like the pains I now live with from hunger.

“God, are You...dead?” I dared to whisper. I dropped my head in shame.

How could I even think such a thing? I scolded myself. Where is my faith? Where is my own faith? I grieved deeply. It is so inconsistent and hypocritical of me to be lagging in faith, I secretly thought in embarrassment to myself. Am I not a Rabbi? Am I not among the noted and respected teachers? Have I not stood for orthodoxy in the presence of many tragedies and deaths of many fellow observers in my synagogue, being their guide and source of comfort? Did I not assure them boldly but gently to trust the great but unseen God, just as Father Abraham had believed God and ַצִדּיק it was counted to him as righteousness. (Bereishit 15:6 – Genesis 15:6) God declares, “The righteous shall live by אֱמוּנָה faith.” (Chavakuk 2:4, Habakkuk 2:4) Abraham was the example of faith to all Jews and “Abraham staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that what God had promised, He was able also to perform.”

I grieved. Yes, I, Rabbi Michel Chiam, trained at a famous Rabbinical School, have memorized the Torah. I recently traded three rations of food for a Tanakh, which I have in my hands. I have studied the Midrash as a serious student to serve Jehovah. Most of my life I have led my people in the readings and in the synagogue rituals. But where is my own faith now? What am I to do?

Then, in the back of my mind, I heard a word. zāḵar! REMEMBER!

“What was that?” I silenced myself, straining to think. Then the word came to mind, zāḵar! REMEMBER!!!

Remember! Yes, that is a command and a major theme in the Torah and Tanakh. All of the signs, all the seals, all the rituals, all the prescribed daily practices were designed and given to cause us to personally remember God and His character. He is worthy to be remembered. Over and over, literally over two-hundred times in the Tanakh, Jehovah commands us to remember Him, His works, and His Lordship! Remember that He exists, and He is not silent, that He speaks without error and infallibly through His prophets. Remember His great faithfulness. Remember Him as Creator. Remember His covenants. Remember His promises. Remember His great deliverances. Remember His lovingkindness. Remember His wrath. Remember that He made a Heaven and a Hell for specific purposes. Remember the Torah. Remember the Tanakh.

This is my point of return. I will remember! I am committed to re-studying the Hebrew Scriptures to know God and to remember Who He is and what He is doing. And, as Rabbi, it is my duty to assist everyone with me to also remember.

I began to think. Here in this camp multitudes of earthly lives are ended hour by hour, I must remember that the end of this life is NOT the end of anyone’s eternal life. “He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can comprehend fully the work that Elohim does from beginning to end.” Kohelet/Ecclesiastes 3:11b. “And they were afraid of height, and the terrors on the way;...for man goes to his eternal home, and mourners go about in the streets.” Kohelet/Ecclesiastes 12:5

Life here seems like death, but I remember that with God there is the comforting and sure promise declared in Tehillim/Psalm 27:13 “I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of YHWH in the land of the living.” And I also remember the great promise in the same writing, that I “shall live eternally, and not see the Pit.” Psalm 49:9.

Only the God who can create all things ex nihilo, (out of nothing) can promise such amazing things and fulfill them. So let me return to Scriptures’ beginning. Bereishit – Genesis 1:28 and 2:7, “And the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” It looks to me as though God is very personal in his making of me and all people. He made me and all men in His image and while He spoke everything else that is into existence, He personally formed man from the dust of the earth and breathed the breath of life into him. God personally gave man a soul, a living soul, that could never die.

As I think about this to myself, it overwhelms me to know that I am not an accident. My existence was planned, and I am a human being crafted by the hand of Elohim. God must really value man to make him in His own image and to personally give him an eternal soul. He wants relationship with us.

Continuing in Bereishit/Genesis, I read chapter 3, that dark chapter where Adam and Eve were tempted by Satan. They decided they wanted to be like God in ways He forbade. They distrusted Him and sinned against Him. Sin entered the world. Because God is holy, they could no longer be in His garden, in His holy presence. God cannot abide sin in His holy presence. Before they left, God Himself clothed them in skins by shedding the blood of an animal. God made a promise that those who came from His enemy would strike the heel of the One who would come as an offspring of the woman, but the Seed of the woman would crush the head of Satan. I see that the devil instigated a fall of mankind that so marred him that the next event among brothers is that one would murder the other. Sin is nothing to be trifled with because it seeks to take dominion over us, as it did Cain, and as it did Hitler, and as it has all anti-Semites– in fact as it did all men. Bereishit/Genesis 4:7?

As I remember these historical events, I think through the implications to myself. It was a promise from God. A promise that says God would send a man to crush evil. Even evil so great as brother killing brother.

Every evening, I sit upon this bunk, scratching and reading by the dim light. Scratching because the bed bugs are prolific. As it turns out these lice and bedbugs are a blessing in disguise for a greater good. The guards will leave us alone at night in this infested barracks, not wanting to come near lest they too be infested with the vermin. So every evening, I read Scripture undisturbed.

Tonight, I read Bereishit/Genesis 6, that the evil which started at Adam’s fall had multiplied. The world was filled with evil people doing evil continually, disregarding the kindness and holiness of their Creator. God chose to destroy the earth and almost all of its creatures with a worldwide flood. A light comes on in my mind as I realize that God is so angry with sin that he was willing to kill with His own means every man, woman, child and animal everywhere on the face of the earth that breathed the breath of life. However, in His grace He chose eight and only eight undeserving people out of all the other undeserving people to survive. Those whom God would use to ‘restart’ the world’s population were Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives. They would be taught to build an ark in which to shelter themselves and lift above the waters of death the representatives of every kind of animal, male and female. Interestingly in Bereishit/Genesis 8:2, God would send seven pairs of all the animals used for sacrifice. As I read, I marvel that Noah did not have to go find the animals. God sent them. God provided them. The flood came and wiped out mankind and all the animals and plants, but Noah and his animals were safe in the ark. As the waters receded and the plants came back, the door to the ark was opened. The first thing Noah and his family did when they exited was build an altar and worship God, by sacrificing all of those clean animals as a symbolic substitute to show that the penalty for sin is death – exactly as said in Bereishit/Genesis 3. So, all excepting one pair of each kind of animal was offered in worship of God.

God keeps His promise, I thought. He preserved a people for Himself from which He would eventually cause to be born the Seed of the woman, that Man Who would crush evil. I read on. To be right with God, there must be shedding of blood in sacrifice for sin.” This makes me think of the sacrifices and worship made annually on the Day of Atonement. (Vayikra/Leviticus 23,25) I know that this sacrifice does not remove the guilt of sin, it only pictures the radical remedy God will provide in the future for the final and absolute removal of guilt, the Seed of Promise. But the promise is not for everyone. Not even for all Jews. The sacrifice on the Day of Atonement is a picture to be seen as a symbol, and believed by faith, that the day is coming when the Lamb of God who takes away all the sins of all believers forever and ever will come and pay the price to fulfill infinite justice. If the ritual of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) actually accomplished what it pictured, it would not need to be repeated annually. The final Lamb will be just that, The Final Lamb, accepted as payment in full for the sins of those who believe. This Lamb is the Seed of the Woman Who would crush Satan’s head.

  As I read on, I remember the life of Abraham, dear Father Abraham. (Bereishit 12-17) Oh, how many times have I read those glorious verses about God’s covenant with Abraham to make him the Father of the Hebrew nation, God’s chosen people.

I gasped. “What?!” I had never thought of this before! In a Suzerain treaty, both parties walked between the split animals to signify that if either party broke the agreement, let it be done to them as was done to these animals. Let them be destroyed. But only God walked through the pieces. Not Abraham. Selah. God was promising here to keep both sides of His promise to send a Seed (a uniquely qualified man) to deliver His numerous people from the guilt of their sin and guarantee those who believe, trusting the accomplishment of that particular one, to have a place with Him forever. God would keep Abraham’s side and His side of the covenant OR HE WOULD DESTROY HIMSELF. Selah.

I affirmed what this Scripture was saying for myself, God has promised on His life as God (Who cannot die and cannot lie, and cannot deny Himself, and cannot violate His perfect character), that He (YHWH) will love and keep the Hebrew believing people for Himself and provide a man, a Messiah, to deliver them from their sin. Should he not do this, He will destroy Himself.

Then a nauseating thought gripped my stomach and caused the bile to rise in my throat. Has God destroyed Himself in failure to keep his promise? Is that why He is not with us? Is that why we suffer mercilessly at the hands of these Goyim? Where is this Seed? Where is this Deliverer? Where is this Messiah?”

I closed the Books, held them tightly to my chest and lay on my side with my knees drawn tightly to my chest. My sobs came slowly and then more and more as I let these questions rise up in tears that began to flow like the waters of a broken dam. I had not cried in quite a while, even over the death I have been seeing all around me on a daily basis. I’ve grown hard, but this thought that God is dead is more than I can bear. At this unfathomable thought I pushed my face into my filthy hands and wept until, exhausted, I fell asleep.

The next evening after a heavy and harsh day of labor, and after eating my evening ration of soup, I sat on my bed with the Torah and Tanakh before me. Should I continue? Is there really an answer? Again, the words came to mind, REMEMBER. GO ON. I stared at the tomes. These were supposed to contain the Words of Life. REMEMBER. PRESS ON. Mechanically, I opened the Torah again and began to read further in Bereishit.

Father Abraham was called by God to be the father of these many nations. God promised that he and his wife Sarah were to have a son through whom the Seed (the Messiah) would come. Yet, for twenty-five years no child came. They waited in faith until when Abraham was one hundred years old and Sarah ninety, and just as God said, she bore him a son, Isaac, in her old age. I thought to myself, Isaac was a Son of a particular Promise, the Promise of God through His Covenant to have a believing people for Himself who would eventually be redeemed by the Seed He provided. God wanted to have recorded for the world to see through all ages that He is the miraculous Provider.

I read on to Bereishit/Genesis 22 where God called Abraham to sacrifice this special son, his dearly loved Isaac, as a blood offering to Him. He instructed Abraham to bring Isaac to Mount Moriah where Abraham was to kill Isaac with his knife on an altar he was to build. Abraham was willing to obey. He did not tell Isaac. He walked the son he loved to the top of the mountain, and Isaac asked, “Where is the Lamb for the sacrifice, Father?” Abraham, full of faith, answered, "God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." Just as Abraham lifted the knife in faith to slaughter his own son, an angel called to him and told him to stop. Bereishit/Genesis 22:12. "Do not stretch forth your hand to the lad, nor do the slightest thing to him, for now I know that you are a God-fearing man, and you did not withhold your son, your only one, from Me."

I thought to myself, Abraham proved that he loved and feared God more than he feared losing his son. He was willing to give his one and only son. Abraham, the Father of the Jews trusted God. I am a Jew. So must I.

Just as Abraham put the knife down, the Torah says “Abraham lifted up his eyes, and he saw, and lo! there was a ram, and after that it was caught in a tree by its horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.” Bereishit/Genesis 22:13.

Amazing! I thought to myself, God Himself provided the sacrifice for their sin. God Himself planned and provided the animal covering for Adam and Eve. God Himself provided and protected the animals for sacrifice for Noah. God Himself planned and provided the animals for the Abrahamic Covenant. God Himself provided the ram for Abraham in place of his son. God will Himself provide the Messiah. Who is He? Where is He? How will I know?

As I contemplated this, I remembered reading Iyov (Job) not long after I had acquired the Tanakh. I had been struck by Job’s faith. When faced with overwhelming tragedy, not unlike what I am in now, Job’s faith had been firm. Job had not buckled. When Job heard that all of his children, property and livestock had been killed in one day, he “stood up, tore his robe and pulled his hair; then he fell to the ground and prostrated himself. And he said, ‘from my mother’s womb, I emerged naked, and I will return there naked. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken; may the name of the Lord be blessed.’ Despite all this, Job did not sin, neither did he ascribe unseemliness to God.” Iyov/Job 1:21. Also reading further on in Iyov/Job 16:19, “Even now, behold my Witness is in heaven and He Who testifies for me is on high.” Job says in Iyov 19:25-27, “But I know that my Redeemer lives, and the last on earth, He will endure. And after my skin, they have cut into this, and from my flesh I see judgment. That I see for myself, and my eyes have seen and not a stranger; my kidneys are consumed within me.” [The same Scripture more clearly renders in English:

For I know that my Redeemer lives,And He shall stand at last on the earth;

And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, That in my flesh I shall see God,

Whom I shall see for myself,And my eyes shall behold, and not another.

How my heart yearns within me!]

I thought to myself, The Lord has given to me and the Lord has taken away. I bless His Name by faith. He will send the Seed. There is a Witness, a Redeemer as Job says, for whom my heart yearns. The promised Redeemer is both heavenly and earthly. He is God and He is man. I now see this proof that mankind is special in God’s plan. How do I see this? The Scripture is telling me that God so loves men that He is willing to become one of us. He is coming as a Jew, and we can distinguish Him from all other Jews by by what the Scriptures reveal. So I turned in the Tanakh to the section known as the Nevi’m to the book of Michah/Micah to see what is there and look for identifying marks that distinguish the Messiah from all who may make the claim.

In Michah (Micah) 5:1-2 I read, “And you, Bethlehem Ephrathah-you should have been the lowest of the clans of Judah-but from you, He shall emerge for Me, to be a ruler over Israel; and his origin is from everlasting, from days of yore.”

I thought to myself, The Promised One will be born in the town of Bethlehem and He is eternal. There has never been a time when He was not.

Then I read in the book of Yeshayahu/Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore, the Lord, of His own, shall give you a sign; behold, the young woman is with child, and she shall bear a son, and she shall call his name Immanuel.”

This is amazing! I thought to myself, He (Messiah) will be born of a young virgin and His name is Immanuel, ‘God with us.’ He will come from God and become a human by being born of a young virgin woman and will live as the God/Man in our very world among us. Then I turned two chapters over and read (9:6)

For unto us a Child is born,Unto us a Son is given;

And the government will be upon His shoulder.

And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor,

Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

This is saying that Mighty God has a Son who will take on flesh and be born a human. I remember that Mishlei/Proverbs 30: 4-5 asks the metaphorical question:

Who has ascended into heaven, or descended?

Who has gathered the wind in His fists?

Who has bound the waters in a garment?

Who has established all the ends of the earth?

What is His name, and what is His Son’s name, if you know?

Every word of God is pure;

He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him.

I thought to myself, God has a Son, an eternal Son. And God’s Son is the One who is actually the Creator of the heavens and the earth. This plurality in singularity should have been clear with the opening phrase of the Bible, “In the beginning, God (Elohim = a plural form of a singular proper noun) created the heavens and the earth. And the Ruach (Spirit) hovered over the waters that were created. And God said,...” So, there is revealed that God is three in one.

But what is this three-in-one, triune God going to do with sinful mankind like me? How can we be in His holy presence?

Because I must know, I dare to read from the chapter in the Nevi’m that is the FORBIDDEN chapter in Rabbinical school and is not to be read in synagogue. That chapter is Yeshayahu/Isaiah 53. Feeling almost like an unfaithful husband, I began to read the forbidden chapter. The drum of my heart kept time like a galloping steed as my eyes scanned the disallowed Scripture:

Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD

been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant,

And as a root out of dry ground.

This sounds like the Son will grow up before the Father God as a boy and then a man.

He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him,

There is no beauty that we should desire Him.

He is despised and rejected by men,

A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;

He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

He thought, This man who is the arm of the Lord was not believed. He was rejected.

Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows;

Yet we esteemed Him stricken,

Smitten by God, and afflicted.

But He was wounded for our transgressions,

He was bruised for our iniquities;

The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,

And by His stripes we are healed.

The one from the Lord was hurt, wounded and afflicted for the purpose of bringing peace to us. He was beaten and by his stripes we are healed. Healed of our sin?

All we like sheep have gone astray;

We have turned, every one, to his own way;

And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

The Lord laid on this tortured man, the sin of us all. He is the Messiah! He is the Promised Seed, the One who will take away our sin so we can be holy before the Holy God.

He was oppressed and He was afflicted,

Yet He opened not His mouth;

He was led as a lamb to the slaughter,

And as a sheep before its shearers is silent,

So, He opened not His mouth.

He willingly died without putting up a fight. He had a mission to be the final sheep to be sacrificed for sin.

He was taken from prison and from judgment,

And who will declare His generation?

For He was cut off from the land of the living;

For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.

For the sins of God’s people, this Man, this Messiah, was despised, suffered, tortured and killed.

As I read this, I thought, It is clear to me that the prophet is describing Messiah. It also sounds very much like the one we, and then the Gentiles, called Yeshua/Jesus which means, “YHWH saves.” Could it be that Jesus/Yeshua is the Promised One who would crush the head of the serpent? Yeshua is the one who would take on flesh through the womb of a virgin, be born of her, live a sinless life so He could represent humanity and be sacrificed – EXACTLY as Tehillim/Psalm 22 declares! It is exactly as Yeshayahu/Isaaih 53 tells us. Yeshua is the very Son of God.

And He did this, NOT for any sins He committed, because He was sinless, but is the perfect lamb of God who can and will take away the guilt of the sins of those who believe. The Holy One sacrificed for the unholy ones who would trust His work for forgiveness. The Just One sacrificed for the unjust ones who would depend only on His work of forgiveness. The Loving One sacrificed for the unloving ones who would trust His work for forgiveness. This is amazing!

My heart began to beat fast. The solution to the sin problem I have is the Sacrifice that was promised from the beginning. Only the Messiah can do for me what I cannot do for myself which is to live a perfect holy life and then give that life for me as a sacrifice, as I give him my sin. He forgives and gives me His perfection.

But Who is He? He is the virgin born Son of God. I have heard of this one in history. Jesus the Christ claimed to be born of a virgin, just like the Scripture said. I know from history that He was born in Bethlehem as Michah (Micah) wrote. I know that we ourselves, the Jews, crucified him for being a blasphemer, for claiming that he was the Son of God. What if He was the Son of God?! I know that “we did not esteem Him” as Yeshayahu/Isaiah 53 said. What if this Jesus was the Messiah? What if He is the one what was “wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities.” I know we beat him. What if “by His stripes we are healed.” I know that this Jesus was crucified at Passover. What if “he was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not His mouth.”

My breath was coming fast. I was panting as my heart beat wildly. It is Jesus. He is the Messiah. There are just too many prophecies that are fulfilled in His life. He is the Messiah! He is the Son of God... and we crucified Him!

I knew that this Jesus the Christ was claimed to have risen from the dead. I had heard about his body being placed in the sealed tomb and the story of it having been rolled away. The body was gone. The oral history is that his body was stolen but what if it was not? What if as Ivov (Job) said, “... I know that my Redeemer lives, and the last on earth, He will endure.” He has resurrected from the grave. Jesus is clearly the Redeemer Who lives, prophesied throughout all of Scripture!

My heart was flooded with faith, new hope in the Redeemer Who lives. The Redeemer who is the Seed of Eve, the Ark of Noah, the Promise of Abraham, the Ram in place of Isaac, the Lamb of Isaiah and the eternal Redeemer of Job. Jesus did conquer sin and death and lives as the Savior sent from God. I thought, In Him I have hope. My earthly life may end here in this miserable camp, but my soul shall live on with God because Jesus has redeemed me!

And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, That in my flesh I shall see God,

Whom I shall see for myself,And my eyes shall behold, and not another.

How my heart yearns within me!

Iyov/Job 19:26

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