I was once sent a manuscript by someone who had survived the Holocaust as a boy. Being young, he was part of a work detail sent daily to a German factory to work for the Third Reich. It ended up saving his life, because some German had mercy on him, seeing he was malnourished, and left a sandwich for him everyday in an electrical box. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to keep him from starving to death.
An older man at the time he wrote the book, he sent it to me to see if I could publish it for him. I looked through the manuscript and came across one story that has stuck with me even thirty years later like I just read it. He had recalled how during one roll call in the concentration camp the commandant, a viciously egotistical man, had come out to inspect the prisoners lined up. At one point, he stopped in front of a rabbi and mockingly asked him, “So where is your God now?”
It was obvious what the German meant. He was evil and in charge. He could do whatever he wanted and especially to the Jews, supposedly God’s people. The Nazi triumph, to him, was proof that either God didn’t exist, or that He liked the Nazis more.
But the rabbi was unfazed and didn’t miss a beat. Without saying a word, he pointed heavenward clearly indicating that the God of the Jewish people was alive and well and where He always was. Nazi success and cruelty proved nothing more than that they were the instrument of God’s wrath against the Jewish people, and his faith, even at that time, remained intact.
Needless to say, the Nazi commandant was not impressed. Before the eyes of all the other prisoners and his own guards, the rabbi had turned the table on the Nazi masochist without even saying a word. The German went ballistic and started beating and kicking the rabbi to death.
Some 70 years later, I was horrified. I don’t remember anything else I read because my mind and heart got stuck on that story. I could see it happening in my mind in explicit detail, and I could feel the rabbi’s heroism. He died painfully, but he joined the long list of Jewish martyrs, so many of whom died like him during the Holocaust and for a similar reason, who stood up for God even at times when it seemed that God was not standing up for them.
I did not publish the book because at the time I wasn’t in a position to do so. I also don’t know if anyone else did and never heard from the man again. But that one story, perhaps the whole reason why the manuscript was sent to me in the first place, was life-altering. I’ve known for a long time the extent to which a Jew is supposed to go to sanctify the name of God, but this story helped me to push that knowledge down to my heart as well. It’s the only way to make sure that you can be real with it.
Of course, I hope that I never will have to face such a personal challenge. I’d like to believe I’m more afraid of failing it than what might happen if I did the right thing. But at least it sends a powerful message, one that is very necessary today, about resisting the temptation to capitulate to falsehood just to avoid confrontation with the people in power who are pushing it.
It’s nice to be on the side of everyone else, but only when they are on the side of God and truth. You don’t have to go looking for a fight just to oppose them, but you have to make sure you are ready to stand your ground, GOD’S ground, if it comes looking for you. Society may accept corruption as “normal,” but we cannot, because God doesn’t either.