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Originally Posted by Schrodinger's Cat
The Holocaust. You can make every argument you please, but that one is the deal breaker for me. A personal god who presided over that is the devil and he gets no allegiance from me. BTW, WHOSE material? God's? On what proof, other than your belief?
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Let me preface by saying the Holocaust was a horrible horrible thing and I am not trying to minimize it in any way by the following thoughts.
Throughout Jewish history, from the Flood in Genesis and wandering in Exodus through present day, when Jews turned away from God, bad things happened to them. Every single time, more than just Jews were affected. This holds true for the Holocaust as well.
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The political situation in Germany was extremely unstable. The writings of Trotsky and Lenin reveal the efforts that the 'communist international' was putting into Germany. Everyone was sure that Germany was the next country to go communist.
In this climate, suddenly, small nationalist folk parties started to spring up. All of them had similar agendas on their platform: Democracy had to go to get some law and order back again. These parties claimed that it was not that Germany lost World War I; rather, the boys on the front lines had the rug pulled out from under their feet.
Who did that? Those wheelers and dealers back home - the Jews.
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That's a teeny bit of the historical account of "why the Jews?".
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So where is God in all of this? Nature takes its course. Some people get lucky, some get unlucky. But God seems to take a back seat.
It's so easy to feel this way about the world. But it's completely incorrect.
Firstly, on a philosophical level, if you believe God to be infinite then He cannot take a back seat. He is the active element of all that exists and all that happens. A cancer cell cannot grow without God willing it to grow.
On a relationship level, God is our father. He loves us as a father loves a child - and more so, because He works in infinites.
No loving father, were he able to prevent it, would allow his child to be left to the random happenings of this world. Any loving father who could prevent his child from sickness, accident, pain, would surely do so. The same loving father might actively cause his child pain in order to help him grow. But no father would randomly and meaninglessly allow his child to suffer.
You can believe in no God or you can believe in a pagan god. But if you are a believer in the Jewish God, you must believe that He is intimately involved in all that happens in our lives. And if what happens is cancer, then not only does He know about it, He makes it happen.
Why He makes bad things happen is the point of a different discussion that I hope to deal with in a future article. But the starting point is seeing and feeling God's direct involvement in your life. The more you see and feel Him on a day to day basis, the more you will be able to see and feel Him in times of challenge.
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That's a quote by Rabbi Shaul Rosenblatt.
If Jews can get past the Holocaust, so can you.