After 75 years the question still being kicked around in the community is whether the Holocaust was a unique event in Jewish history, or whether it is but one of many similar tragedies of galus -- outstanding in its severity, in its magnitude, but nonetheless, qualitatively still on the tragedies-of-galus spectrum that includes the Inquisition, pogroms, etc. The nafka mina is how to respond. There is a long list of kinos to say on 9 Av that commemorate many tragedies -- do we just add one more for Holocaust? Or should we be doing something more, something that says this event was like no other?
There are no answers on a day like this... only questions.
As for your final paragraph.... I think that's why "aveilus" comes from the same shoresh as "aval". Mourning is when it feels like there is a "but" for every attempt to answer.
ReplyDeletein all of human history, what was unique (Devarim 4:32) was the Jews surprisingly surviving His voice mi'toch-ha'aish (4:33); but after that, is any single occasion when we can't hear His voice amid a consuming fire and die, more surprising than another? {did that singular hearing long ago render us fireproof? in universal solar time, no ('nothing new under the sun'*); ultimately, in Jewish lunar time, yes (chodesh: chadash, a surprising nation, something new under the moon)}
ReplyDelete*Koheles wrote his song of descent as one suffering sunstroke, lacking the protection of 121:6a; but the Jews, a moonstruck people lacking 121:6b, sing shir la'ma'alos (121, case in point)...