The Jews are perceived as the “chosen people” of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God. However,

This is highlighted in the photographs of Jewish people suffering in the concentration camps. Post Holocaust era, Jews started to revaluate their religious traditions. They started to question why God had allowed this to happen and where he was when they were suffering. It had taken on the central role in thought of Jewish

In Elie Wiesel’s Holocaust memoir, Night, a man says that God is “hanging here on the gallows” while he watches three prisoners being executed in the concentration camp. It is a moment where the Nazis almost completely destroy Wiesel’s faith, as the narrator cannot fathom how a righteous God could allow these atrocities to occur. This question forms the basis of the debate surrounding theodicy: why do bad things happen to good people?

The religious views of the Jews have changed throughout the time of the Holocaust. During that time period, the Nazis tried “decimating European Jewry” , meaning they attempted to destroy their faith in God and all their beliefs. To “eliminate belief in absolute Divine power” was one way to force the Jews not to practice their way of religion. So, in other words, Jews could not practice any form of their religion. They also started rethinking how God could

There is no other culture on planet Earth more oppressed throughout human history than the Jewish people. From their hardships in the Middle East recounted in the Torah and Bible to the infamous event known as the Holocaust, the suffering that the Jewish people have faced is incalculable. One of the few silver linings that forms through oppression is the strong expression of culture. Jewish culture has grown exponentially since 1900, and the events of the Holocaust brought the Jewish community as close as it was in the ancient times.

Other victims of the Holocaust took much different approaches to how they viewed the treacherous and seemingly godless times they faced. Specifically, certain sects of Hasidic Jews grew closer with their faith, and maintained a strong relationship with God through the carnage. A variety

The age old question that is still being debated. In this essay I hope to answer a few of the big questions such as: How can a good God allow suffering? Why does evil exist? Is God like many have attributed to Him, a watchmaker, who winds us up and lets it go until it runs out? How could God allow the Holocaust? The theological field of inquiry called “theodicy”, which investigates the basic question: If God is all powerful (omnipotent), all knowing (omniscient), and all-good, (omni-benevolent) how can evil and injustice exist? Since reading Elie Wiesel’s soul shattering Night, this topic seemed fitting. I will provide rational and logical arguments as to why these things occur and how God can still be who He says He is. I will be stating dispassionately the critics of a free-will defense such as J.L Mackie and B.C Johnson, and then I will proceed to offer my responses. After having read Wiesel’s account, my heart only broke more and my mind was spinning with the question itself of How could God allow this? However, we can be mad at God for the Holocaust or for other human tragedies, but this is like a teenager who begs you to let him drive a car - promising to be responsible -, gets drunk, crashes in to a telephone pole, and then blames you for giving him the keys. If we agree that humanity must have free will, we must accept the consequences of its decisions. As Elie Wiesel wrote, “After the Holocaust I did not loose faith in God. I lost faith in mankind.”

If God could have made the world without evil and suffering, why is the world full of evil and suffering? This is the question The Quarrel raises in terms of the Holocaust. According to Webster’s dictionary, quarrel implies a heated, verbal dispute typically between two friends. The two friends in The Quarrel, Chaim, an agnostic writer, and Hersh, a rabbi, become caught up in a quarrel as to why such a good God could allow such evil to be present in the world. This essay will discuss the unexplainable evil that threatens our sense of meaning and purpose by exploring the major issues of theodicies and anti-theodicies in The Quarrel. Exploring these theodicies and anti-theodicies is important in understanding why evil exists rather than explaining the science behind what causes evil.

Just as western religions accept that G-d exists, we know that evil and suffering exists. Western religions know G-d as omnipotent, omniscient, and morally good. With these three fundamental characteristics in mind, G-d would have the power to destroy evil, the knowledge to know what evil is, and the will and desire to destroy it. Thus, the western conception of an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good G-d gives rise to a new Problem of G-d. To answer this problem, many scholars have searched for a theodicy, a rational explanation for evil in the world. When analyzing Judaism, the necessity for theodicy is most prevalent, and possibly most difficult, when trying to come to terms with the Holocaust. Using Elie Wiesel as my starting point, I will address the three conclusions scholars have reached: theodicy is possible, there is a human inability to construct a convincing theodicy, and a completely rejection of any possibility for theodicy. After presenting these options, I will offer criticisms as well as explain my own rationale for supporting Wiesel’s claim that G-d deserves to be questioned because He bears responsibility for evil in the world.

The Holocaust refers to the systematic genocide of over a million Jews perpetrated by the Nazi Regime during World War 2. Since the day it ended, historians over the world have attempted to uncover the true reasons behind the Holocaust, leading to the prominent debate over the exact date the Holocaust initially began. However due to a lack of considerable evidence, many opposing interpretations of the evidence has surfaced with the creation of several schools of thought: the Intentionalist, Functionalist and Opportunistic view. The Intentionalist view focuses complete blame on Hitler as the evil totalitarian leader of the Third Reich. From their perspective, the Holocaust is dated earlier, for it was always Hitler’s intention to implement the premediated genocide of the Jewish population. In contrast, the Functionalist view argues that Hitler wasn’t the driving force behind the Holocaust, but rather a weak dictator who was a willing slave to circumstance. They propose that the Holocaust was dated later and advocate instead that an accumulation of structural factors led to the Holocaust. Both these perspectives enhance our insight regarding the date of the Holocaust, they are however hindered by their reliance on the interpretation of certain pieces of evidence and as such are easily contradicted. As such the Opportunistic view offers the most comprehensive explanation, for it synthesises both these contributions while addressing their flaws to provide the better outcome.

Eckardt presents the idea that the Holocaust was a result of three distinct factors; that it was the culmination of the church's teaching of contempt, the culmination of the church's absolute theology and finally the culmination of modern man's self-liberation from the shackles of God and morality .

In the book Judaism: History, Belief, and Practice by Dan Cohn-Sherbok, he discusses multiple aspects of Judaism and one of those was Jewish ethics. Cohn-Sherbok points out that “in this quest Judaism did not separate religion from life; instead Jews were called to action, to turn humankind away from violence, wickedness, and falsehood” (Cohn-Sherbok, p. 573). Even though this is the ethics of Judaism, followers of other religions, specifically Christianity, Jews were seen as committing the evilest crime which was crucifying Jesus, their messiah. This was and still is a major tension among the two parties and it somewhat fueled the Holocaust. During the Holocaust, Adolf Hitler claimed to be a Christian and many Nazis did follow Christianity. They blamed the Jews and felt that they were evil doers. This can still be seen now with the amount of anti-Semitic activities going on, such as the neo-Nazi rally in Georgia over the past week. On the other hand, Jews feel that Christian had a major part in the Holocaust happening and them not stopping it. In Primo Levi’s book Survival in Auschwitz, he recounts the way that the Nazis treated them. After first arriving at the first camp and seeing some of the Nazis strike the other Jews he is in disbelief and says, “Only a profound amazement: how can one hit a man without anger?” (Levi, p. 5). This shows that the thought process of what other people can do changes how they view the world and God for letting these things

During their enslavement at the concentration camps, the Jewish fundamental belief of benevolence and preeminence are shredded to pieces. Jewish people lived in small, packed communities prior to the war, with their religion deeply rooted in. Their devoted faith has its base on the idea that the world revolves around the God. They believe the world, therefore, must good because God’s divinity reaches on every aspect of their lives. However, the Jews’ faith in the goodness of God is irreparably shaken due to the horrors witnessed in the concentration camps. In the story, the Jews’ faith in God started to waver at the sight of giant smokes rising from the smoke stacks of the Birkenau concentration camp. The sight

Describe your understanding of the Jewish theology of suffering, making specific reference to Schindler’s list, the writings of Elie Weisel and other Jewish Holocaust survivors/theologians, class notes, and other relevant documentaries selected for you to view.

The Holocaust is one of history’s most tragic events. During the immense armed conflict of WWII, there was conflict between individuals under Hitler’s Nazi ideology. Not all German authority believed what Hitler believed in. Since there were individuals like this, instances of resistance occurred which aimed at thwarting the deadly violence.

This event has oftentimes been conceived as a revolt against reason, the ultimate example of the “irrational,” designed and executed by the pathologically insane. But if reason was the subject of the revolt, it was also an associate, a dialectic so unusually rational that it could abrogate all the traditional bounds of morality. The Holocaust was an attack against morals, an attack against human rights, and attack against our dignity.