Holocaust Memorial Day 2021

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One has to ask, in point of fact there has been more than one rabbi ponder:
How is it that so many of Moses' people were caught up in the Holocaust?
Where was God during all that? Why didn't He step in and do something to
protect His chosen people?

To find an answer to that question one need look no further than Ex 34:6-7,
Lev 26:3-38, Deut 27:15-26, and Deut 28:1-69. In other words: the Jews,
as a people, brought it on themselves in accordance with the covenant that
their ancestors agreed upon with God as per Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
and Deuteronomy.

A covenant is essentially a contract. Well; if God were to fail to fulfill His end
of the agreement; then He would be in breach of contract; which is not only
unethical, but also uncivil. Long story short: the covenant requires Him to
lower the boom on His people for failure to honor their end of the
agreement; and you can see the extent of the damage for yourself in the
scripture references in the above paragraph.

There are numerous blessings that God is contractually obligated to fulfill
too; so the covenant isn't all one-sided; viz: compliance with the covenant
accrues blessings; while breaching the covenant accrues curses. Anybody
who has read the Old Testament can attest that God came down on His own
people quite often for breaching the covenant; and just as often quite
cruelly. The curses that Lev 26:3-38, Deut 27:15-26, and Deut 28:1-69 list
are very disturbing; and when examining them, one cannot help but realize
they're reading a synopsis of the Jews' history.

The status of God's chosen people has its advantages; but also its
disadvantages; viz: the status of God's chosen people is not something to be
proud of; but rather, something to fear because the covenant's God is not
the kind of judge influenced by favoritism. No; if anything, Moses' people
run the risk of being judged even more severely than Gentiles because of
their privileged position and the insider's knowledge they were given of His
likes and dislikes.

• Amos 3:1-2 . . Hear this word that Yhvh has spoken against you, O
children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land
of Egypt, saying: You only have I known of all the families of the earth:
therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. (cf. Luke 12:42-48)
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FAQ: Is the world supposed to believe it was the Jews' own fault that they
were rounded up like cattle, stripped of their dignity, their property, their
wealth, and their possessions, enslaved, starved, deprived of basic human
necessities, tortured, subjected to Frankenstein medical experiments,
worked to death, and gassed, shot, and incinerated by the millions?

A: If the covenant that Moses' people agreed upon with God is binding; then
yes; the Jews, as a people, are definitely at fault for what happened to
them. There's really no mystery to this: it's all laid out in black and white at
Lev 26:14-38, Deut 27:15-26, and Deut 28:15-69.

FAQ: God caused an event whose collateral damage led to the deaths of all
those other people too besides the Jews?

A: We're not saying God engineered the Holocaust. All we're saying is: He
stood by and did nothing to prevent a number of His own people being taken
in it. In other words: the essential thing that Moses' people brought upon
themselves was the loss of God's providence. I think God took advantage of
Hitler's agenda as an opportunity; viz: a convenient means of throwing His
people to the wolves like He did in the Old Testament with Nebuchadnezzar.

The covenant Moses' people agreed upon with God obligates Him to protect
them from misfortune when they're compliant with it; but the same time the
covenant also obligates God to lower the boom on them when they're not
compliant with it. If there is only one good thing to come out of the
Holocaust is that it proves to the world that God is reliable, viz: He can be
trusted to honor His commitments.
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FAQ: Supposing there is no one to blame for the loss of Jewish life in the
Holocaust but the Jews themselves? If so; then how many of them would've
had to breach the covenant to put them all in so much danger?

A: It's surprising how few Jews it takes to ruin it for all the rest. For example
the incident at Ai in the 7th chapter of Joshua. The insubordination of one
insignificant Jewish man-- just one --caused God to stop assisting Joshua's
army in battle. As a result, 36 men were needlessly killed in action; and
ultimately capital punishment was inflicted upon not only the insubordinate
man himself, but also his sons and his daughters. God's accusation? "Israel
has sinned" (Josh 7:11)

See that? God didn't accuse the perpetrator; no; He accused Israel. In other
words: in that particular incident; the sin of just one Jew under Joshua's
command became the sin of all the Jews under his command; viz: the whole
kit and caboodle-- lock, stock, and barrel; and Israel could proceed no
further with its conquest of Canaan until the guilty man was executed.

And then there's this incident:

• 2Sam 21:1 . . Now there was a famine in the days of David for three
years, year after year; and David sought the presence of the Lord. And the
Lord said: It is for Saul and his bloody house, because he put the Gibeonites
to death.

Joshua agreed to a non-aggression pact with the Gibeonites during the
conquest of Canaan (Josh 9:3-16). Saul, when king, dishonored the pact. He
apparently got away with it; but not his countrymen, no; God slammed them
for what Saul did; and that posthumously.

In another Old Testament incident; God lowered the boom on 70,000 Jews.
What did they do to deserve it? Absolutely nothing. The insubordination of
just one Jewish man caused their deaths. King David breached the covenant
that Moses' people agreed upon with God by taking an unwarranted census.
As a result; those 70,000 Jews went to their deaths through no fault of their
own; it was all on David.

I can't imagine what just one Jew would have to do in order to bring about
the deaths of six million of his fellows; but if a whole bunch of them
throughout the world were breaching the covenant all at the same time, I
guess that could become a sort of force-multiplier.

That's pretty scary when you think about it because more than fifty percent
of the Jews living in the State of Israel right now today are hiloni (secular).
In my estimation, that's easily enough insubordinate Jews all in one place for
God to justify bringing down the whole country; and then if you combine
those with the number of insubordinate Jews around the rest of the world,
including the USA; now you can appreciate just how insecure Israel's future
really is.

Another possibility is that the generation caught by the Holocaust, was
caught not only due to their own breaches of the covenant, but also due to
breaches committed by generations preceding them.

• Ex 34:6-7 . . Then Yhvh passed by in front of Moses and proclaimed: Yhvh,
Yhvh God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in
loving-kindness and truth; who keeps loving-kindness for thousands, who
forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the
guilty unpunished: visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the
grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.

That statement is included in the covenant, so God is morally obligated to
honor it lest He be found in breach of contract. But it just goes to show that
sins have a way of snow-balling from one generation to the next till the
snowball is so big that it triggers an act of God; which is disturbing because
it tells me that it's not impossible that the Jews of today are endangering the
Jews of tomorrow by their current breaches of the covenant-- breaches that
according to Ex 34:6-7, God will by no means sweep under the rug.

Wouldn't it be awful if the next Holocaust took place right inside the Jews'
own homeland? I sincerely believe that Saddam Hussein's SCUDS were a
wake-up call. Next time; incoming missiles just may contain nuclear
warheads instead of high explosives; and many among Jacob's people will be
poisoned to death with radiation instead of pesticide.

The upside to the Holocaust is its value as historical evidence for the
existence of the covenant's God. It is also valuable as historical evidence
that the covenant was still in force for Moses' people as recent as the middle
of the last century. True; the covenant is obsolete where Christians are
concerned, but that old dog can still bark; and it will be the basis in the
future to decide which Jews return to their homeland and which don't. (Ezek
20:33-38)

I believe it's okay to pity the Jews as per Lam 1:12; but I do not believe it is
appropriate to let them get away with playing the victim all the time. That's
just a red herring diverting attention away from their own chronic failure to
honor the covenant in a manner consistent with their God's requirements.
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POSIT: Your degree of anti-Semitism is unacceptable; especially coming
from somebody passing themselves off as a Christian!

RESPONSE: Jehovah's very own criticisms, and the prophets' writings too,
contain far more of what can be construed as "anti-Semitism" than anything
I've written. For example: the book of Isaiah opens with this:

• Isa 1:1-3 . . The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw
concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, [and]
Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Hear O heavens! and give ear O earth! for Yhvh
has spoken. Children I have raised and exalted, yet they have rebelled
against Me. An ox knows his owner and a donkey his master's crib; but
Israel does not know, My people do not think about it.

Oxen and burros are well known for their below-average IQ; but in His
indictment, Jehovah complained that those two species of barnyard beasts of
burden have more brains than His own people when it comes to appreciating
His providence; and Jehovah's statement: "they have rebelled against me"
mirrors the age-old colloquialism of biting the hand that feeds you.

There are so many anti-Semitic comments and remarks throughout the book
of Isaiah that sometimes it's actually difficult to believe it wasn't penned by
a Palestinian instead of a patriot; and that's only Isaiah, some of the other
prophets are just as harsh.

NOTE: The term "holocaust" comes from the Greek word holókauston,
referring to an animal sacrifice offered to a god in which the whole (olos)
animal is completely burnt (kaustos).

That's an appropriate meaning seeing as how a number of observant Jews
sincerely believe that the deaths of six million of their fellows via German
atrocities during the second world war satisfied certain teachings and
predictions in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah's prophecy. A rabbinic interpretation
of that chapter proposes, in so many words, that the fate of Jehovah's
people at the hands of Hitler's minions accomplished the salvation of the
world.

The interpretation is a bit involved so I won't go into it here; but suffice to
say that the interpretation provides, for some, the only rational explanation
as to why Jehovah stood by and did nothing to prevent so many of His own
people from being rounded up like cattle, stripped of their dignity, their
property, their wealth, and their possessions, enslaved, starved,
malnourished, deprived of basic human necessities, tortured, subjected to
Frankenstein medical experiments, worked to death, and gassed, shot, and
incinerated by the millions by Nazi mad men.

The error of that interpretation is so obvious that it's almost below me to
point it out; to wit: Judaism regards human sacrifice as a breach of the
covenant that Moses' people agreed upon with God; and also sincerely
believes that human sacrifice is an abomination.

There are astute Bible scholars of the opinion that the Jewish genocide of the
last century was only a taste of one to come in the future when a super
powerful political figure, known to just about everybody as the anti-Christ,
will target Jehovah's people with another mass extinction. They say his won't
be confined to Europe like the last one, but will encompass the entire globe
so that Jews won't be safe anywhere on the planet.

Those scholars also believe that the present State of Israel isn't permanent;
but that it will be conquered and the Jews lose control of their homeland all
over again. I don't know for myself whether those scholars are right, but if
they are, then it would appear that the future of Jehovah's people at this
point in time is looking mighty grim, to say the least.
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Writing to the Christians in Rome; the apostle Paul said:

"Share with God's people who are in need." (Rom 12:13)

The Jews are God's people in accordance with an unconditional covenant
that He made with Abraham. (Gen 17:7-8)

Nazi Germany was very nearly 99% Christian. Had they all complied with
Rom 12:13, the effects of the Holocaust would've no doubt been greatly
reduced.
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