Where Was God in the Holocaust? Faith, Divine Providence, and the Question of Suffering

Yehudit Asks: “Hello, If God is good and does good, and everything is under individual Divine providence, how did the Holocaust happen? Even if it was a decree, how does that work? Does a decree mean there is no individual providence?

Also, God is compared to a father of the Jewish people. Did a father murder his children, with such cruelty? How is that possible? I have no doubt that God exists, but after the Holocaust I am not so sure that He is only good.”

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Hello Yehudit, and thank you for your honest and courageous questions.

Of course, we cannot know the calculations of Heaven, nor can we truly comprehend the depth of harsh decrees such as the Holocaust. Still, there is clear evidence that the Holocaust unfolded under directed Divine providence. Not only did it not happen by chance, there was nothing natural or logical about it.

Why would the educated German nation invest such immense effort in annihilating a wandering people that did not fight them, did not act against them, and even attempted to assimilate among them? Why did the Nazis pursue Jews up to four generations back? Why was their campaign carried out with such obsessive, cold, and calculated cruelty toward men, women, elderly people, and children?

If the Holocaust were not a historical fact, it would be nearly impossible to believe it could occur, simply because of how irrational it was.

There is no doubt that this was a Heavenly decree that came upon the Jewish people during one of the most severe periods of enlightenment and assimilation in Jewish history. Many remarkable and surprising facts about the Holocaust and the era preceding it shed light on this reality.

I once heard a Holocaust survivor say that he did not understand those who lost faith in God because of the Holocaust. Wherever he was during those years, he saw God. He did not understand God’s harsh actions, but he clearly understood that nothing about the Holocaust was natural. In addition, anyone who survived can tell extraordinary stories of miracles that defied all odds, moments in which individual Divine providence determined who would live and who would die.

This is similar to stories told by people who survived suicide bombings on buses in Israel. Some recount how the bus driver saw them but did not open the door that day, or how they were inexplicably delayed and missed the bus. These stories testify to precise individual providence that saved them. At the same time, they also testify that those who were killed were souls whose time had been decreed from Heaven, at that moment, in that place. Neither the attack nor the survival was random. Everything occurred according to Divine calculation, soul by soul.

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Judaism teaches that no one dies by chance. There is also the concept of reincarnation of souls. Kabbalah teaches that we have lived in this world before and returned to repair what was not completed and to atone for past wrongdoing. This means that in a single generation, millions of souls may descend with similar spiritual repair to complete.

Our sages teach that even the smallest suffering is decreed from Heaven for each soul. How much more so immense suffering such as that of the Holocaust, which was surely decreed with exact precision for the souls who were destined to endure that terrible chapter in Jewish history.

Martyrdom and the World to Come

Judaism teaches that Jews who were murdered because of their Jewish identity, even if they were not righteous in their deeds, merit a portion in the World to Come as martyrs. They were killed for who they were. Therefore, not only the righteous who perished in the Holocaust attained eternal reward, but even sinners were elevated through their deaths.

God as Father and the Meaning of Death

The metaphor of a father must be understood carefully. A human father who murders his children removes them from this world entirely. God, however, created souls for the World to Come. Death is not annihilation but a passage into eternal existence, where reward is also eternal.

In death, God takes the soul back to Him, to its true and natural place. We all age and die eventually, even those who lived without great suffering, because this world is not the place of reward or eternity. It is a temporary station for fulfilling a purpose. The true world is the World to Come.

Where Do Good and Mercy Come From

When we speak of good and evil, we must first remember who gave us morality and the very concepts of good and evil. Who gave us compassion in the first place?

Ask yourself, where does human compassion come from? There are cruel people in the world who feel no mercy. Animals do not show mercy to their own kind. Compassion is something uniquely placed in the human heart by God. He is the source of all mercy, and from Him all mercy flows. Our sages call Him the Merciful One, and the Torah describes Him as patient and abundant in kindness.

The Jewish people themselves are described as compassionate, modest, and kind. From this we must learn that God is far more compassionate than we are, because He is the source of compassion itself. Any cruelty we attribute to Him stems only from our lack of understanding. This world is hidden and unclear, just a small segment of many lifetimes whose beginnings and ends we do not see.

When we reach the World to Come and see reality as it truly is, we will understand that God is infinitely compassionate, far beyond anything we can imagine.

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Trusting the Hidden Good

We must believe that God, who gave us the capacity for mercy, understands everything we understand and infinitely more. If He acted as He did, then it was the only possible path, even if we cannot grasp it. We must remember that this world is temporary and that the true destination of the soul is eternal.

We are like children who demand sweets, not understanding that too much sugar harms them. Even when parents limit them out of love, the children cry and protest. So too, we demand physical comfort and cannot yet see that one day, as souls, we will understand reality very differently.

God acts toward us as a loving father, doing what is truly best for His children, even when they do not understand it.

The Survival of the Jewish People

Despite everything, God’s goodness toward Israel is undeniable. The greatest empires of history have vanished, ancient Egypt, Greece, Assyria, Rome, Babylon, Persia. Yet the Jewish people alone have survived over 3,300 years against all natural expectations.

God has preserved us miraculously and even returned us to the Land of Israel in the end of days, exactly as foretold in the Torah.

The Torah contains many astonishing prophecies: exile from the land, dispersion across the world, global notoriety despite small numbers, enduring hatred, survival against annihilation, eventual return to the land, and the absence of any other religion claiming national revelation before an entire people. All of these have come true in ways unmatched in history.

Nothing about the Jewish people is natural. Not our existence, not our history, and not our Torah. We have always existed beyond nature, testifying to Divine involvement in our destiny.

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Understanding Suffering and Redemption

The Holocaust was an unimaginably painful period, a time of Divine concealment. But concealment does not mean evil. It means hidden good.

The Lubavitcher Rebbe illustrated this with a parable of a man from a primitive culture who walks into a hospital and sees a surgeon cutting into a patient. To him, it looks like cruel murder. Only those who understand medicine know that the surgeon is saving a life.

So too in this world, we are like children who do not yet understand the work of the greatest Physician of all, the Healer of souls. Sometimes souls must be healed through painful processes. The body is left behind, but the soul returns whole and corrected.

This is why this world is sometimes called a world of illusion, because it hides the deeper truth.

When complete redemption arrives, we will understand the purpose of all suffering throughout history and recognize the depth of God’s love even in the darkest times. Until then, we are called to strengthen our faith, recognize the revealed good around us, and trust in His goodness even when it is hidden.

Our sages promised that in the World to Come, we will bless God only as the One who is good and does good, even for what once seemed tragic.

May we merit to see that day soon.