THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

happens here. But man and his restraints are mine, here and now; I can speak, agree,accept, reject, fight back, understand, or contradict all our doings. Therefore I seekto build a world that is based on the faith of man and his communities, rather thanhearsay evidence of what God allegedly said.In the faith of responsibility, the believer’s status is altered anyway. I am no longera witness to God’s greatness on earth; I am the evidence itself. If my behavior as ahuman being is proper, good and just, and humanity is proper and improving, I amproof of the state of the world, its creator, and its creations. But if I becomeinsensitive, thieving, and covetous, then I am a bad example. From now on we shouldsay: Man is not a witness to God’s greatness, but man’s greatness is testimony to thegreatness of creation. One could stretch it to say that the good man is evidence for agood God. This is the same embodiment of the invisible in the fundamental tenet ofGod’s image. God is not around; he has gone to other pastures, or maybe has neverbeen here. All that is left of him is memory, a stubborn rumor; fingerprints stamped oneach one of us. If our conduct is proper and exalted, then the image that we reflect isexalted as well. If the opposite happens, then the image sinks to the depths andGod’s image becomes a dark, intimidating shadow. Man gives, man takes; may thename of man be blessed forever and ever.The foundations for this responsibility were laid by the writers and editors ofprayer when they concluded, “Because of our sins we were exiled from our land.”But the responsibility for the Ruin of the Second Temple, the harshest event in Jewishhistory until the past century, does not rest on God and his famous whims, and noteven on the Roman executioners. Rather, the responsibility rests on us, for we hadsinned. At the moment, it does not matter what the sin was. It could have beenbrotherly hatred and brotherly wars; or it could have been political folly by peoplewho did not understand the stupidity of a tiny nation rebellion against a superpower.The most important Jewish legacy is to assume responsibility for repair,redemption, restoration, and reconstruction of the ruins. If society is good, thecommunity appropriate and humanity more humane, then Godliness, which we reflect,is better, and vice versa. A bad world and evil people are bad testimony to the stateof the world and to its wanting spirituality.According to this assumption, it seems that God and the Shoah do not belongtogether. My question is not where was my God, but where were the humans, myenemy-brethren? My Shoah question is not man’s question of God—“Where were