"Why, Lord, Did You Remain Silent?" said by Pope Benedict XVI

"Why, Lord, Did You Remain Silent?" said by Pope Benedict XVI
Rabbi Gary S. Creditor
June 16, 2006

Recently Pope Benedict XVI traveled to Poland and visited Auschwitz. Even as his entire trip and subsequent address at the Vatican are worthy of comment, his remarks as he entered and toured the concentration and extermination camp have been noted and evoke my response and elaboration. He said:

"In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can be only a dread silence, a silence which itself is a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did You remain silent?"

Every person who takes any religion seriously must ask that question. But it is not asked just about Auschwitz. It should be asked about the blood-bath of World War I. It can be asked about the forced marches in the Philippines in Bataan in World War II. It can be asked in Richmond, Virginia as human beings - so what that they were black and brown - were sold as chattel downtown. In fact, the litany of human misery, Jewish or not, white or any color, and on any continent or on the sea, in the many or in the one, evokes the existential questions: 

Where is God?

Why doesn't He/She/It do something?

It is the cry of Jesus recorded in the Gospel where he is quoting Lamentations: "Why, O God have you deserted me?" It is the supplication of Jeremiah, if it is he who authored Lamentations, as tradition ascribes, in wailing upon the utter destruction of the city, the Temple, and the devastation of the population. It is the wailing of David for the deaths of Saul and Jonathan, of the Psalmist for himself and his life, and of every Israeli at every war in the past, terrorist attack, and even those trying to thwart the pullback from Gaza. It is the cry in the hospital room.

Where are You, God, when I need you?

Why don't You do something?

It is the eternal cry of humanity.

When I was young and read the Torah and children's Jewish history books, God seemed so present to me. His reality was real. He spoke and others listened. He did and things happened. If He didn't there was a good reason. The image of that the Torah and writers of Jewish history present to us is an active and involved present tense God. When I read the Rabbinic aggadic midrashim, the Rabbis filled in the dialogue between God and the heroes of Jewish history. Surely, God knew us and did things for us. And when He didn't, there was a good reason. Usually, it was our fault. This I could very well understand. It was just like my life at home as a child, just that my parents were in God's place and it was my behavior that was the deciding factor. I did recognize, though, that they weren't always pre-emptively present to save me from some dilemma. I acknowledged this dissonance but did not allow it to intrude into the matrix of my understanding of life and of God.

Then I recognized a shift in the paradigm. It was not that God withdrew. Instead the actions of nations, of Israel, of human beings were now being described as God's tools. His actions were not, so to speak, being done by Him alone, but rather implemented by people and nations. There was a new presentation of God's Presence in the world. There was an earlier, perhaps more childlike vision of God's involvement. Now there was a more developed conception of God, more removed and separated, using humans and nations as His agents. One could describe the defeat of the Northern Ten Tribes of Israel, the Babylonian destruction of the Southern Two Tribes and the destruction of the Temple, and the Roman triumphs result in the destruction of the Second Temple and the dispersion in geopolitical and historical terms. Or one could say, as did the Biblical and later the Rabbinic writers, that these nations were God's tools effecting punishment upon the Israelites because of their sins. Today we would be loath to say this, for it would be interpreted as 'blaming the victim.' But the Biblical system of reward and justice demanded a quid pro quo, one happened because of either a good deed or a bad deed. God acted through others and not directly Himself.

This posture opens itself up to great difficulties. We are always children and always want to see the world, history and our lives with that naivete. Especially in our world of instantaneous electronic connections not even needing a wire, we want; we demand instantaneous presence and response. We want God as portrayed in the Torah as a visible advocate, an undeniable presence. We want to literally see the hand of God directly involved. The religious soul wants to feel God; not just read about Him, or to refer to Him metaphorically or through a refracted lens. The liturgy of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are written in that language, specifically, in dealing with our sense of right and wrong, that there is One was indeed watches, knows, rewards and punishes. The Haggadah of Pesach presents God as active Himself in Egypt when we read the passage about "I and not an angel, I and not a seraf…" On one hand our faith infuses us with the immediacy of God. Our liturgy with an eternal voice blends our intimacy with God who is at the same time the God of the cosmos, author of nature and all existence. Even nature, the sun and moon, stars and constellations sing His praise. This is an authentic, indisputable, irreplaceable component in our faith.

Judaism also made a revolution in human thinking, juxtaposed to paganism, earlier and later, that we did not control God. The rituals and rites did not command God to perform according to our wishes. Elijah mocked the prophets of Baal when they gashed themselves saying, "Perhaps he is sleeping. Do it more! Do it louder!" To our God he prayed and entreated, yes with faith, but not the thought that he controlled God. And thus God accepted his sacrifice. I had to give up the idea that if I truly and sincerely implored God, that if I made a deal with him to eat all my vegetables and listen to my parents better, He would magically change my answers on the test to the correct ones. We do not magically control God, no matter how right we are, no matter how just the cause, no terrible the circumstance. That is one of our most significant contributions to human thought about the Divine. But it has its consequences.

One is that we come to a reckoning that our childlike belief that there is a true balance between right behavior and reward and wrong behavior and punishment is not correct, at least not necessarily in our lifetime or in this world. At least to our simple, limited and compromised human eyes we don't see it. We have a Biblical book on that thesis, Job. He says two things: It isn't fair, all the evil that befell him. And he was right. It wasn't. And he didn't know why. We do, only because we know the stage setting, to which he wasn't privy. And he refused to abjure his belief in God. God does not tell Job why it all happened. God does not justify the imbalance between righteous living and bad things happening. God just testifies to Job, that nevertheless, God exists and there is a higher plane of existence, and there all things will be squared. When I confront evil, when I confront disease I lean heavily on that faith. Life isn't fair, at least to my eyes. And can't go "Puff" and God will do what I want Him to do, no matter how right I think, I know I am. But I keep asking. I keep knocking on His door, with every private Mi Shebarach I recite and every mitzvah I do. I have faith that there is some Divine economic system that will balance the "in" and the "out," the "right" and the "wrong," the "reward" and the "punishment."

The other consequence of our thought is that we are obligated to live the highest ethical and moral lives. That directly implies that we are responsible for the rights and wrongs of society, and addressing them.  It is our obligation to feed the hungry by minimally giving unstintingly to the Virginia Food Bank, to Mazon - the Jewish national organization, and other such organizations that actually put food on their plates. It is our chovah, our duty, to participate in Caritas when we house and feed the hungry and homeless here in Richmond. We can not say: "God, where are You?" Last night at the Baccalaureate Service for the Governor's School where I participated Monsignor William Carr, of St. Bridget's Catholic Church told a story that every faith could repeat, whose punch line was "You de one," referring to the priest that took him in and saved his life. The "You" in the line was the priest, not God. The priest was doing God's work. Judaism shares that same belief. "You de one" is always us. 

If that belief is accepted, then the Pope's words are misdirected. God was never silent! 

Humanity was silent! 

The Church in all its denominations was silent! 

God was screaming, but no one listened! 

God was shouting, "Don't murder" but no one obeyed! 

God was roaring, "Don't kill" but everyone ignored Him. 

The Holocaust and every chapter of pain and misery in Jewish history, as part of human history are excruciatingly painful for the person of faith. For we know in the marrow of our bones, with every beat of our heart we know what God wants. We know with complete certitude beyond any shadow of doubt what God wants. 

Live righteously. Do justice. Walk humbly with God.

From the slaves at Richmond's docks to the desert of Darfur, from the homeless to the hungry, to Auschwitz, the onus is not on God. And God is waiting for us to listen, to obey, to respond. Not Him. Us. We are not children, with a child's understanding of duty and obligation. We are adults. The world is adults. Pope Benedict perhaps meant well, but this piece of theology is lacking. God was never silent. He taught us, through the holy texts of Judaism and Christianity and even Islam, what to do and how to live. While in the childlike recess of my heart I still want Him to go 'puff' and make it all better, I know better. And so does He. And hopefully, we.

Shabbat Shalom