healing mass

I have lots of memories of you and Mom disagreeing over just about everything over the years. So I marveled when, not too many years ago, you each reacted to me by uttering the exact same words within a day of one another.

Homegrown spiritual misfit that I was before Messiah, when you were suffering from hip pain I suggested you accompany me to a Catholic healing mass, where a priest would lay hands on you. The big surprise for me was that you agreed to come. We were painting together one day in your studio and I asked if you thought miraculous things could happen. You enthusiastically affirmed that you had seen in your life many strange and extraordinary things. I said that I believed it might be possible for extraordinary things to happen to your hip.

As the weeks passed following that conversation, I didn’t mention my invitation, not really believing that you would go with me. But one day you called me and asked, “So, when’s that healing mass?” I made preparations to take you.

The night before the mass I visited with Mom and after the dinner dishes were cleared she started a conversation with me that she had initiated a number of times before. She was very curious about my prayer life, and had even gone so far as to suggest that I might teach her how to pray.

Mom asked me what I thought God was. I responded that God sometimes appears to me as an enormous network of intelligence running through all things that is somehow able to care for the vast natural world, while also caring about the minutest details of our lives. When I spoke of a loving God Mom became very uncomfortable. She sputtered, “What about the holocaust?” I made an attempt to answer her, but her question was like a fallen boulder that makes the road impassible.

The next day I sat beside you in a pretty little Catholic church not far from your home. I prayed, sang and listened as the priest gave a sermon that was barely discernable above the raucous uniformed schoolboys playing ball out in the yard. The sermon was about acceptance. The priest described how an attitude of acceptance of all the things that come to us in our lives, good and bad, helps us to be at one with God’s will. He talked about how even the bad things that happen to us are in some way good for us. Out of the corner of my eye I could see you shaking your head and I could feel the bulldog setting his stubborn face. You finally leaned over to me and whispered, “What about the holocaust?”

Yes, what about the holocaust? I understand the need to ask that question. Yet I can’t help wondering if for some the question is the answer. But why stop there? That question leads to more questions: “What happened there? What part did you, the Almighty, play? Were you powerless over evil? Did you abandon us? Do you abandon us whenever someone is unfairly victimized, or whenever something we don’t like happens to us? Are you powerless to stop it? Is the holocaust just part of the consequence of your having endowed us with free will? Can you be at once there for us and not there for us?”

free choice

I believe these difficult questions can be answered. We were created as autonomous beings with free choice to embrace God or not, to run to him, stumble toward him or reject him, to create monuments to ourselves or to the devil or to God or to not make monuments at all. When we leave God out of our lives he suffers, but he respects our choices. God didn't make the holocaust, people did. He hurts when we hurt and does all he can to create opportunities for us to accept his invitation to draw nearer to him, even in the midst of the most horrid tragedy.

The Nazis were not the first murderous people in history, nor was the holocaust the first time the Jews suffered. The bible provides an overview of our history of suffering, slavery and persecution. Israelites going back to the time in the wilderness with Moses have been questioning God’s presence when they suffer. Implicit in our sense of betrayal is the biblical assumption that we are in fact God’s chosen people. We have a promise from God. Furthermore, Jews are not the only ones who have suffered holocausts. The question evolves into this one: Does the presence of human suffering and cruelty deny the existence of God? Emphatically, no!

They crush your people, O Lord, and afflict your heritage. They kill the widow and the stranger, they murder the orphan, and they say, "The Lord does not see; the God of Jacob does not perceive." Understand, O dullest of the people; fools, when will you be wise? He who planted the ear, does he not hear? He who formed the eye, does he not see? (Psalm 94: 5-9)

The God that delivered us through Joseph into Egypt allowed us to become slaves in Egypt. The God who delivered us from slavery in Egypt allowed us to wander in a desert wilderness where many suffered ugly deaths before we were delivered to Canaan. The God that delivered us to Canaan allowed us to be conquered by Babylonians, Persians and Romans. Our temples were destroyed, we rebuilt them. The God that allowed us to be scattered throughout the world somehow dwelled in us so strongly that we remained Jews in spite of diaspora. Do you not see what a miracle it is that Jews still exist? God must surely have been keeping us.

the blessings in the tragedy

My experience as the child of a holocaust survivor is that I am compelled to find the blessings in the tragedy. I am convinced that even in the midst of the seemingly endless time of horror that was the holocaust, blessings occurred. Somebody was kind and sacrificed himself so someone else would suffer less. Some people made others laugh at moments that must have seemed impossible and insane. Someone was merciful. Some shared what little they had. Someone sang a beautiful song. Some escaped and started new lives and made children in free nations, and those children had children. Though many were lost, the Jewish people did not perish.

Blessings occurred, even if they were overshadowed by the presence of evil. God is not in the evil. He is trying to break through the evil, as a blade of grass finds a crack in the concrete and busts through to flourish, with the power to turn concrete to rubble. The deeper war that was taking place during the holocaust and is taking place each day in the hearts of men, is the war between God and God's enemy.

I am also convinced that devout Jews did not lose their faith through the holocaust. Many were probably comforted by their faith during that dark time. Others came to ha'Mashiach during that time. The presence of devout Jews today, both believer and non-believer, is a testament to a way of worshipping that can in fact accept the good and the bad that comes in life as the priest said, and that embraces a long history of trials and deliverance going back to the time of Moses.

I attend a church composed of 10% non-black and 90% black worshippers. It is their Christian faith that carried many black Americans through their holocaust of slavery, and is responsible for having preserved black culture in former slave nations. Black gospel music developed from every sort of adversity and from the human will and the will specifically of the African-American character, to prevail over adversity. It is a celebration of God’s partnership with us through the trials as well as the joys of life.

For an atheist, the holocaust is a good excuse not to inquire about God. For people who are not sure, a God that would let such a horror happen is not a God worthy of trust. I believe Mom is very angry with God about her abandonment. She may even wish to know God, but first God has to know how deeply he has let her down. How does a person who has met with insurmountable difficulty in their life leave the door open to God? Maybe start with a deep breath. After the tears and appeals, find some tiny willingness inside. Then ask God to reveal himself.

You and Mom were able to start a new life. If the holocaust had not happened, my wonderful children and my sister’s child (and my sister and I) would never have come into being. Does that mean I am glad it happened? No, I am recognizing the opportunity in the tragedy. Why does God seem to take such special care with my needs, while letting others suffer and die? Further on down the road I may know. This is part of God’s mystery. It is also an invitation to dwell in gratitude and to look for God even when we suffer.