Last year I had the privilege of hearing Rabbi Lau, shlit"a, speak at a Holocaust Remembrance event. Rabbi Yisroel Meir Lau, former Chief Rabbi of Israel, is himself a Holocaust survivor, and thus very qualified to speak on the topic.
In his speech Rabbi Lau described, among other things, a scene from the days of the liberation of the Nazi extermination camp Buchenwald, in April 1945, when American soldiers finally appeared on the horizon like a host of saving angels.
The American troops gathered together the local population, so that they should be forced to witness the horror and destruction that their regime had wrought, and about which they had professed a complete and absolute ignorance. Rabbi Lau himself was, at the time, a little boy almost eight years of age, but so deprived and undernourished that his stature was that of a normal four year-old; a most unlikely survivor of a concentration camp for men, where any child detected would have been executed on the spot. General Patton himself lifted up little Meir in the air and addressed the assembled populace: "German people - this was your enemy; against such a child you declared a war! Did he threaten you? You were afraid of this child?!"
Rabbi Lau continued his narrative without commenting on General Patton's outburst, and I waited in vain for something beyond a shrug at the perceived preposterousness of adults waging war against infants. As I was listening to the speech progress, a protest started to murmur in my mind - didn't Patton's question stir a thoughtful reaction? Was there no spiritual lesson here?
Over time the protest has fermented to such a degree that I find I must write down my thoughts. Not wishing to be disrespectful to Rabbi Lau, I must nevertheless deplore the fact that he lost a magnificent opportunity to make a resounding statement to the world. Let me make it for him: YES - THIS STARVING, SHIVERING, SLIVER OF A CHILD - HE IS THE ENEMY!
Over time the protest has fermented to such a degree that I find I must write down my thoughts. Not wishing to be disrespectful to Rabbi Lau, I must nevertheless deplore the fact that he lost a magnificent opportunity to make a resounding statement to the world. Let me make it for him: YES - THIS STARVING, SHIVERING, SLIVER OF A CHILD - HE IS THE ENEMY!
Hitler - may his name be obliterated! - is supposed to have written/said:
"They refer to me as an uneducated barbarian. Yes, we are barbarians. We want to be barbarians; it is an honored title to us. We shall rejuvenate the world."
YOU FRIGHTENED, HELPLESS CHILD - YOU ARE THE ENEMY OF THAT BARBARIANISM AND BRUTALITY!
"Conscience is a Jewish invention; it is a blemish!"
AS A REPRESENTATIVE OF CONSCIENCE AND MORALITY YOU, TINY LAD, ARE A THREAT AGAINST SOULLESS, GUILTLESS CRUELTY AND HEDONISM!
"If only one country, for whatever reason, tolerates a Jewish family in it, that family will become the germ center for fresh sedition. If one little Jewish boy survives without any Jewish education, with no synagogue and no Hebrew school, it [Judaism] is in his soul."
YES, YOU LTTLE JEWISH BOY, BARELY ALIVE - YOU ARE THAT SURVIVOR; YOU CARRY WITHIN YOUR SOUL THAT SPARK WHICH IS SO FEARED THAT THE GERMAN REGIME HAD TO DECLARE A WAR ON YOU!
"Even had there never existed a synagogue or a Jewish school or the Old Testament, the Jewish spirit would still exist and would exert its influence. It has been there from the beginning, and there is no Jew ― not a single one ― who does not personify it."YOU RAVAGED SCHMATTE OF A CHILD - YOU ARE THEIR ENEMY! YOU ARE FOREVER THE PERSONIFICATION OF THE JEWISH SPIRIT, AND YOU WILL CARRY IT THROUGH TO GENERATIONS TO COME! AS LONG AS YOU BREATHE, THE JEWISH SPIRIT WILL LIVE AND THE BARBARIANS WILL ULTIMATELY BE POWERLESS!
Yes, Rabbi Lau - you indeed were, and still are, the enemy - and you should be proud to be so!
Shalom Uv'racha!
Shulamit
