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Forum
-> Interesting Discussions
only answer if you have a very difficult life now: if you had gone through the holocaust, would you have remained frum afterwards?
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| yes |
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13% |
[ 11 ] |
| no |
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30% |
[ 24 ] |
| not sure |
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56% |
[ 45 ] |
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| Total Votes : 80 |
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amother
Gray
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 Thu, Mar 08 2018, 12:28 pm
I was just thinking that if I had lived at the time of the Holocaust, I'm not sure I would have remained frum afterwards which is sad but realistic. Those people are incredible who still remained frum. When people go through tragedy, how do they cope. Like people who G-d forbid lost a child. how do they cope?
I'm going through a very hard time and I'm losing faith, but the holocaust that's on a whole different scale. It's one thing to have a difficult area or two or three in your life, but whne you struggle through almost every single area, there's no way to cope, no way. If there is nothing to live for nothing to look forward to except death, how do you maintain faith? I always thought I was a strong person, but I guess I'm not. I think G-d chose the wrong person to give all these painful things to. I thought Hashem only gives yesurim to Tzadikim; I'm far from it, so not sure why he chose me. The hardest part is thinking Hashem can do anything, Hashem can show me he cares about me in other ways and he doesn't. What kind of a merciful G-d is that? Who else here counts down till death? I count down till 120-- its morbid and pathetic. Sometimes I don't think it can come fast enough. At least then, supposedly all our tzaar will be gone and we'll lvie happily ever after in olam haba. I've cried and begged Hashem so many times for yeshua. I've lit candles liluy nishmat certain tzadikim, I've davened at kivrei tzadikim, all of whom supposeedly promised yeshuah to those who do these things for a certain amount of time but nothing. If Hashem doesn't want it to happen, it won't, no matter how much you daven and no matter what the tzadikim say. It's a lie that saying: what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. It chips and chips until there's nothing left.
If you have gone through a serious devastating tragedy, how did you cope? Were you always the type who had faith or did you ever have your faith shaken?
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southernbubby
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Thu, Mar 08 2018, 12:41 pm
Like the majority, I chose not sure.
At the time that I became frum, we were going through the tragic loss of my husband's 12 year old brother so I found religion something to gravitate toward rather than away from.
If I would have survived the Holocaust, being frum would probably have depended on how possible that would be under my new circumstances rather than wondering where G-d was throughout all of that.
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das
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Thu, Mar 08 2018, 12:49 pm
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All of my grandparents went through hell during the Holocaust and emerged with their fate intact. Three were teenagers with no parents and almost their entire family decimated. Thousands of years of persecution and we're still hanging in there. We're made of strong stuff.
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tichellady
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Thu, Mar 08 2018, 1:04 pm
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I don’t think anyone of us can say for sure. When I went on a Educational trip to Poland my reaction was not what I expected. I really didn’t want to be jewish anymore, but it wasn’t that I suddenly didn’t believe in Gd, I just felt afraid to be jewish
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amother
Babyblue
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Thu, Mar 08 2018, 1:09 pm
I see it this way. Something tragic happens. Either I try and believe there is a higher power looking after me, or I believe there is no G-d and what good does that do me??
Taking pain out on religion totally pushes me into deeper depression because then not only did I lose loved ones.. I lost hope that there is any reason/purpose behind it...and thats really helpless.
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byisrael
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Thu, Mar 08 2018, 2:02 pm
I hope I would
I would like to believe I would
At the end of the day I don't think any of us could know how we would react in extreme traumatic situations.
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Chayalle
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Thu, Mar 08 2018, 2:14 pm
| das wrote: | | All of my grandparents went through hell during the Holocaust and emerged with their fate intact. Three were teenagers with no parents and almost their entire family decimated. Thousands of years of persecution and we're still hanging in there. We're made of strong stuff. |
Though I can say the same for my grandparents, I can't say the same for all of their relatives. And I can't judge. So I selected "not sure". I pray I'm never tested like that.
My grandfather stayed frum (he was in the Hungarian labor camps, was freed by partisans, and hid in Budapest till the end of the war), but one brother - who had been the biggest Talmid Chacham and masmid among them - did not. After surviving Auschwitz, he tried to get to E"Y and ended up in Cyprus. There he met his angry-at-Hashem wife (who had grown up in a frum home) and married and raised an Israeli, secular family. His three children are decidedly anti-religious. In his old age, after his wife passed away, he became somewhat reconciled with religion. At my grandfather's first yartzeit, he spoke at the grave and recited a whole high-level pilpul, verbatim, that he and my grandfather had learned together as teens just before the family was deported.
That my grandmother - she should live to 120 - remained frum, after losing her whole family and going thru untold horrors in several camps, is definitely testimony to the strong stuff she is made of. So is the fact that in her 90's B"AH, she still thinks she should be as capable as a teenager.
I would never presume to say what would be...but hope I would remain frum, and pray I am never tested.
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DrMom
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Thu, Mar 08 2018, 2:35 pm
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I don't think there is any way we can really comprehend what it would have been like to live through such a horrific, evil time in history.
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Zehava
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Thu, Mar 08 2018, 4:46 pm
I think the reason people stopped being Frum had a lot to do with the fact that entire communities were decimated. Their worlds were upended, their families killed. They had to figure out a whole new identity for themselves and for many that identity did not include religiosity.
Especially for those in the concentration camps all they wanted after liberation was freedom. Not more restrictions.
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SixOfWands
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Thu, Mar 08 2018, 5:34 pm
| Zehava wrote: | I think the reason people stopped being Frum had a lot to do with the fact that entire communities were decimated. Their worlds were upended, their families killed. They had to figure out a whole new identity for themselves and for many that identity did not include religiosity.
Especially for those in the concentration camps all they wanted after liberation was freedom. Not more restrictions. |
It would be difficult to believe in a loving and munificent Gd after living through horrible deprivations and conditions, after learning that the children you grew up with, your neighbors, your parents, your siblings, your children, your spouse were murdered. When you know that the prayers of millions were ignored. I'm more shocked that anyone who went through that remained religious than I am that they turned to Hashem.
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octopus
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Thu, Mar 08 2018, 5:40 pm
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A bigger question would be if you would be able to stay sane after experiencing so much trauma on a daily basis for years.None of us can answer these questions. And as other posters said, may we never be tested in this way.
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amother
Brunette
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Thu, Mar 08 2018, 5:55 pm
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I would be terrified of being identified as a Yid so I'd probably hide, if not abandon, anything that would identify me.
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Amarante
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Thu, Mar 08 2018, 10:12 pm
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Why is actually living through the Holocaust different than just knowing about it in terms of impact on one's faith?
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mirror
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Thu, Mar 08 2018, 10:29 pm
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It depends who my parents were and how they raised me.
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amother
Linen
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Thu, Mar 08 2018, 10:44 pm
| mirror wrote: | | It depends who my parents were and how they raised me. |
This. I've lived thru my own personal holocaust and fantasized, planned and even experimented with suicide (not really going thru but trying to figure out how much it'll hurt....) on a daily basis. But there was one person in this world that I fiercely loved and I knew will be devastated if I left. And that kept me going.
Now as an adult, on a healing journey, I know and understand a lot more.
And so, had I had a loving stable safe upbringing, I'd probably stay religious.
Having the upbringing I had, and the one person I loved (who I always felt was truly 'gutsforchtig' religious unlike the other farfrumt farkrumt ppl I knew) being my rock, and giving me such strong faith in him, in Hashem (and now it is growing into faith in myself, my spouse and children), I beleive and hope I would.
Had I not had him (and I unfortunately know ppl who didn't have that one safe person in their life) I honestly beleive I wouldn't. I wouldn't even have the concept of hashems love, or faith in Hashem, even though we were taught all of that in school.
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amother
Jetblack
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Thu, Mar 08 2018, 10:51 pm
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Is anyone's reaction to this: I'm living my own personal Holocaust? Edit: I just read through post I missed, apparently yes, I'm not the only one
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amother
Blonde
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Thu, Mar 08 2018, 10:58 pm
| SixOfWands wrote: | | It would be difficult to believe in a loving and munificent Gd after living through horrible deprivations and conditions, after learning that the children you grew up with, your neighbors, your parents, your siblings, your children, your spouse were murdered. When you know that the prayers of millions were ignored. I'm more shocked that anyone who went through that remained religious than I am that they turned to Hashem. |
Does the knowledge that the holocaust happened impact your faith and belief that hashem is a loving God who listens to prayers?
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FranticFrummie
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Fri, Mar 09 2018, 12:05 am
Two things I've learned about the Holocaust:
1. We are not allowed to judge what anyone went through. It's beyond any reason or understanding.
2. We won't know why the Holocaust happened until after 120.
I answered "not sure". I cling to emunah and bitachon, in hope that Hashem should watch over all of us and keep us safe.
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amother
Seagreen
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Fri, Mar 09 2018, 12:22 pm
I can relate to what you are saying.......I won't even comment on the Holocaust issue/question bc that is in a completely different category with so many other factors involved.
I went through something terrible, it was really terrible and traumatic for me. And before that I also had many struggles in my life. Things were never easy. Yes, it did change my relationship with religion and my faith. But I also do not come from a background where religion was observed or emunah or anything was even a familiar concept in my family. I became frum later on bc I was missing something larger. But I guess you could say I don't have a "strong footing" and maybe that's why I'm falling now. Maybe someone raised frum comes closer during challenges, but it's not happening by me..... IDK
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