they believe in the coming of the Messiah
over there?
From where did they draw their faith in divine kindness and grace?
Then I sometimes question the child within me: What in the world was the Good Lord doing while His people were being massacred and incinerated? When He veils his face, as in the times of the biblical Malediction, what does he see? And then I ask myself: What were our ancestors, the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, doing while their descendants were humiliated and sent to their death? Were they not, according to our tradition, our protectors and intercessors? Why didn’t they shake the celestial throne with their prayers and drown it in their tears?
God. Of all the characters in Scripture, said Saul Lieberman, God is the most tragic. It is not sacrilegious to feel sorry for Him. He, too, needs Redemption. Thus it is for Him, too, that we recite
Ani Maamin—
yes, I believe with all my heart in the coming, however belated, of the Messiah.
Ani Maamin?
I believe? In what? In whom? In the coming of the Messiah? Whom will he deliver? Who is there sufficiently worthy to make him come and save a humanity that has doomed itself?
These are thoughts that come to my mind every year as we commemorate the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The speakers recall the heroism of the fighters and the faith of the martyrs. And to conclude the ceremony the
Ani Maamin
is sung as if to emphasize that the dead, at the moment of dying, had maintained their faith.
Is it possible that in the midst of hell the victims kept their faith ina better world? Some witnesses answer affirmatively; I have no right to contradict them. We know that a principal goal of the fighters was to show the world that Jews were capable of taking up arms “to defend and save Jewish honor.” This expression often appears in their letters and testaments. We also know that those who were lucky enough to escape from the ghettos cared more about alerting their unfortunate brothers outside than about their own survival. All were filled with
ahavat Israel
, love for their people. That was why these young Jews risked their lives. And in the death camps there were Jews who took it upon themselves to become chroniclers and historians, writing and collecting testimonies so that future generations would remember and judge.
And yet there are other documents that reflect total despair. In their solitude Jews realized they could count on no one, that they counted for no one. The free and “civilized” world had handed them over to the executioner. There were the killers—the murderers—and there were those who remained silent. Does that explain the so-called Jewish passivity during the Holocaust? Perhaps Jews refused to fight for a world that had disappointed and betrayed them? Such pessimism is irreconcilable with
Ani Maamin
.
But then which approach is more justified? Both are, equally. There were Jews who prayed for the Messiah, and others who were ready to send him away. There were those who clung to the belief that all was not lost, and others who proclaimed that humanity was doomed. To say, as I do in my cantata, that the silence of God is God, is both an admission of resignation and an affirmation of hope.
The whole question of faith in God, surely in spite of man and perhaps in spite of God, permeates this cantata:
In those days, even as the heart of the world was being consumed by the black flames of Night, three angry old men appeared before the celestial court, asking to be heard.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the three forefathers of a people consecrated to God by God—were desperate. Their mission had been to roam the lands near and far, gathering the echoes of Jewish suffering in the world, and make them known in heaven. They wanted to bring it to an end.
Abraham tells what he sees on an earth drenched in blood, and the choir responds: “Pray for Abraham.” Isaac describes what he sees,and the choir responds: “Pray for Isaac.”
over there?
From where did they draw their faith in divine kindness and grace?
Then I sometimes question the child within me: What in the world was the Good Lord doing while His people were being massacred and incinerated? When He veils his face, as in the times of the biblical Malediction, what does he see? And then I ask myself: What were our ancestors, the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, doing while their descendants were humiliated and sent to their death? Were they not, according to our tradition, our protectors and intercessors? Why didn’t they shake the celestial throne with their prayers and drown it in their tears?
God. Of all the characters in Scripture, said Saul Lieberman, God is the most tragic. It is not sacrilegious to feel sorry for Him. He, too, needs Redemption. Thus it is for Him, too, that we recite
Ani Maamin—
yes, I believe with all my heart in the coming, however belated, of the Messiah.
Ani Maamin?
I believe? In what? In whom? In the coming of the Messiah? Whom will he deliver? Who is there sufficiently worthy to make him come and save a humanity that has doomed itself?
These are thoughts that come to my mind every year as we commemorate the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The speakers recall the heroism of the fighters and the faith of the martyrs. And to conclude the ceremony the
Ani Maamin
is sung as if to emphasize that the dead, at the moment of dying, had maintained their faith.
Is it possible that in the midst of hell the victims kept their faith ina better world? Some witnesses answer affirmatively; I have no right to contradict them. We know that a principal goal of the fighters was to show the world that Jews were capable of taking up arms “to defend and save Jewish honor.” This expression often appears in their letters and testaments. We also know that those who were lucky enough to escape from the ghettos cared more about alerting their unfortunate brothers outside than about their own survival. All were filled with
ahavat Israel
, love for their people. That was why these young Jews risked their lives. And in the death camps there were Jews who took it upon themselves to become chroniclers and historians, writing and collecting testimonies so that future generations would remember and judge.
And yet there are other documents that reflect total despair. In their solitude Jews realized they could count on no one, that they counted for no one. The free and “civilized” world had handed them over to the executioner. There were the killers—the murderers—and there were those who remained silent. Does that explain the so-called Jewish passivity during the Holocaust? Perhaps Jews refused to fight for a world that had disappointed and betrayed them? Such pessimism is irreconcilable with
Ani Maamin
.
But then which approach is more justified? Both are, equally. There were Jews who prayed for the Messiah, and others who were ready to send him away. There were those who clung to the belief that all was not lost, and others who proclaimed that humanity was doomed. To say, as I do in my cantata, that the silence of God is God, is both an admission of resignation and an affirmation of hope.
The whole question of faith in God, surely in spite of man and perhaps in spite of God, permeates this cantata:
In those days, even as the heart of the world was being consumed by the black flames of Night, three angry old men appeared before the celestial court, asking to be heard.
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the three forefathers of a people consecrated to God by God—were desperate. Their mission had been to roam the lands near and far, gathering the echoes of Jewish suffering in the world, and make them known in heaven. They wanted to bring it to an end.
Abraham tells what he sees on an earth drenched in blood, and the choir responds: “Pray for Abraham.” Isaac describes what he sees,and the choir responds: “Pray for Isaac.”
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