Six Million Trajedy
By the late Rachmiel Frydland
© Messianic Literature Outreach
used by permission
Many years have passed since the perversity of men contrived to kill, murder, and exterminate God's chosen people, the Jews. Hitler and his associates, like Haman of old, devised a way "to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women" (Esther 3:13).
Haman's design failed completely. Haman and his ten sons were hanged on the very day when all the Jews were to have been exterminated.
Hitler had a similar end to that of Haman, except that he committed suicide along with the cohorts who were close to him. Jewish people could have established a festival in memory of the victory over Hitler. They would only have to decide what delicacy to eat, as potato latkes are eaten on Hanukah in memory of the victory over Antiochus Epiphanes, and hamen-tashen (hamen pockets-poppy seed Danish) on Purim in memory of Haman's downfall. Yet, there are no joyful celebrations over Hitler's defeat. On the eve of Israel's independence celebrations, there is a memorial service commemorating the six million Jews who were exterminated under the Hitler regime. There are no joyous celebrations over Hitler's defeat because about one third of the Jewish population was wiped out in the course of World War II!
THE GREATNESS OF THE TRAGEDY
There is a Jewish saying based on the Talmud: "Whosoever destroys one life in Israel is as he would destroy the whole world, and whosoever preserves one life in Israel is as he would preserve the whole world" (Talmud, Sanhedrin 38a). Since Jewish people consider tradition and Talmud to be inspired, the next step is to blame God Himself for this tragedy. This feeling is expressed in strong words by Richard L. Rubinstein in his book entitled, After Auschwitz:
How can Jews believe in an omnipotent, beneficent God after Auschwitz? Traditional Jewish theology maintains that God is the ultimate, omnipotent actor in the historical drama. It has interpreted every major catastrophe in Jewish history as God's punishment of a sinful Israel. I fail to see how this position can be maintained without regarding Hitler and the SS as instruments of God's will. The agony of European Jewry cannot be likened to the testing of Job. To see any purpose in the death camps, the traditional believer is forced to regard the most demonic, anti- human explosion in all history as a meaningful expression of God's purposes. The idea is simply too obscene to me to accept.
THE DOUBLE TRAGEDY
Thus the tragedy is double. First, there is the physical and mental damage that was done to those who perished and those who survived the horrible death camps. Then, there is the mental and spiritual pain of those who identify themselves with the perishing Jews of World War II.
Many of our people have failed to look into God's Word to find out what God wants to say through these fearful events. From the Hebrew Scriptures we present some of the things God says:
- The Deceitful Heart
Here is the first thing we could learn from this tragedy. The prophet Jeremiah records in God's Word: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9). Similar words are found in the Brit Hadasha (New Testament): "What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Isn't it the whole army of evil desires at war within you?" (James 4:1).
The liberal world, of which our people are prominent spokesmen, maintained that the world is getting better and better and soon liberal men would be able to bring about a happy world. But, they ignored God's Word, which states that man's heart is wicked, deceitful, and capable of every crime and cruelty. Have we learned our lesson?
- The Neglect of God's Word
We know that great honor belongs to the Jewish people. From them God raised lawgivers, wise men, psalmists, and prophets who presented God's Word to the world by the inspiration and power of the Holy Spirit. The New Testament expresses it so beautifully:
"Then what's the advantage of being a Jew? Is there any value in the Jewish ceremony of circumcision? Yes, being a Jew has many advantages. First of all, the Jews were entrusted with the whole revelation of God" (Romans 3:1-2).
While due honor is given to the Jewish people, the prophets also place upon them special responsibility as recorded in God's words through the prophet Amos: "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities" (Amos 3:2). Instead of heeding God's Word to instruct our sons and daughters in the living Word of God, the very Book which justifies our existence as a people and a nation, we send them to colleges and universities to instruct them in medicine and law. Our religious Jewish people send their children to the Yeshivot. There, too, they are taught the words of men, the Talmud, because it is maintained that the study of the Talmud is more important than the study of the Tenach. As a result Christians have been translating the Hebrew Bible into hundred of languages, while we who gave the Bible to the world are standing on the sidelines.
- The Rejected Redeemer
In this respect also great glory belongs to the Jewish people. The following is a quotation from the writing of the great Jew, the Apostle Saul of Tarsus later called Paul in which he says of the Jewish people:
I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.
(Romans 9:1-5).
Jesus, the Messiah and Redeemer is ours; He is of our flesh and blood. We should have joined the Apostle in celebrating not only a Simhat-Torah (rejoicing of the Law but also a continuous celebration of Simhat-Moshiach as he admonishes believers in the city of Philippi: "Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say, rejoice (Philippians 4:4). Instead we looked and are still looking for someone else. Many times we thought that "someone else" had come and we were ready to follow him, but we paid dearly for our mistakes. From the time of the false messiah Bar Cosiba, killed in 135 AD to Shabbatai Zvi (died 1676) and his followers, large crowds of Jewish people, sometimes even the majority, would commit their lives to encourage these so-called "messiah-heroes" who brought woe and destruction to our people. Jesus Himself foreseeing that this would happen, expressed these words:
I have come in my Father's name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him.(John 5:43, New Testament).
The rabbis who wrote in the Talmud knew that Messiah was to be rejected, would suffer, and die. However, instead of applying these prophecies to the Lord Jesus, they posited two Messiahs: Messiah ben Joseph to suffer, be rejected and be pierced through in accordance with the prophecies of Isaiah 53 and Zechariah 12:10, "they shall look unto me whom they pierced;" and, Messiah ben David to fight God's wars, defeat the pagans, and restore Israel. But God's Word speaks of one Messiah to be despised and rejected and then exalted.
Other Jewish people, after disappointments with false messiahs, put forth a hypothesis that Messiah is not to be a person but an ideal. For many years our people hoped that social changes in the East and the promise of full equality was the redemption of which the prophets spoke. What a great disappointment! God's Word speaks of the only person who can claim Messiahship - a man of the household of David, born in Bethlehem in a supernatural way.
THE ANSWER TO MEN'S TRAGEDY
If the Jewish people had a prophet today or if we would heed the words of God's prophets of old, we would cry out as did Hosea: "Come, let us return to the LORD! He has torn us in pieces; now he will heal us. He has injured us; now he will bandage our wounds." (Hosea 6:1).
God has already started to heal us. He is beginning to bind up our wounds. With these acts of mercy and restoration, God wants to woo us again to Himself. At the same time God's Word extends to us a warning in the words of the Apostle Paul:
Don't you realize how kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Or don't you care? Can't you see how kind he has been in giving you time to turn from your sin? (Romans 2:4)
Here is the answer for us as a special people of God and for you and me as individuals. What has happened cannot be changed. God's Word says that we have failed - not God. Herein are set forth some of the mistakes we have made. Are we ready to correct them? If so, then we should acknowledge before God that we, too, have sinned, and being God's chosen people, a greater responsibility rests on us than on others. We must return to the Holy Scripture and seek the answer there. If we will sincerely seek, then it will become clear that our greatest mistake was and is that we have not accepted our own Messiah and Redeemer who still calls to us. Are you willing to receive Him?
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,.... How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn't let me. And now look, your house is left to you, empty and desolate. For I tell you this, you will not see me again until you say, Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! (Brit Hadasha, Matthew 23:37-39).
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