A Holocaust Primer

In January 1945, while the gas chambers still were working, people knew that it was all over for the Jews of Europe. Most were dead, the rest dying. Few would survive until spring. At the annual conference of the Yiddish Scientific Institute held that month, the greatest Judaic theologian of this century, Abraham Joshua Heschel, a Jew from Poland, said what there was to be said. What lessons there were to be drawn from the death of European Jewry he did not specify; what lessons there were to be learned from its life he proposed to state.

He asked his hearers how one might appraise the historical significance of the world now ended in smoke and ashes. And he answered: “As Jews, with an old tradition for appraising and judging events and generations, we evaluate history by different criteria, namely, by how much refinement there is in the life of a people, by how much spiritual substance there is in its everyday existence. . . . We gauge culture by the extent to which a whole people, not only individuals, lives in accordance with the dictates of an eternal doctrine or strives for spiritual integrity; the extent to which inwardness, compassion, justice, and holiness are to be found in the daily life of the masses.” Speaking of the millions of Eastern European Jews, who had borne the brunt of the massacres, he said: “. . . in this period our people attained the highest degree of inwardness … it was the golden period in the history of the Jewish soul.” Heschel concluded this oration, which became a book under the significant title The Earth Is the Lord’s, as follows: “Loyal to the presence of the ultimate in the common, we may be able to make it clear that man is more than man, that in doing the finite he may perceive the infinite.”

JN

About the Author

Jacob Neusner

In January 1945, while the gas chambers still were working, people knew that it was all over for the Jews of Europe. Most were dead, the rest dying. Few would survive until spring. At the annual conference of the Yiddish Scientific Institute held that month, the greatest Judaic theologian of this century, Abraham Joshua Heschel, a Jew from Poland, said what there was to be said. What lessons there were to be drawn from the death of European Jewry he did not specify; what lessons there were to be learned from its life he proposed to state.

He asked his hearers how one might appraise the historical significance of the world now ended in smoke and ashes. And he answered: “As Jews, with an old tradition for appraising and judging events and generations, we evaluate history by different criteria, namely, by how much refinement there is in the life of a people, by how much spiritual substance there is in its everyday existence. . . . We gauge culture by the extent to which a whole people, not only individuals, lives in accordance with the dictates of an eternal doctrine or strives for spiritual integrity; the extent to which inwardness, compassion, justice, and holiness are to be found in the daily life of the masses.” Speaking of the millions of Eastern European Jews, who had borne the brunt of the massacres, he said: “. . . in this period our people attained the highest degree of inwardness … it was the golden period in the history of the Jewish soul.” Heschel concluded this oration, which became a book under the significant title The Earth Is the Lord’s, as follows: “Loyal to the presence of the ultimate in the common, we may be able to make it clear that man is more than man, that in doing the finite he may perceive the infinite.”