Holocaust: Have We Learned Its Lessons?

Rabbi Reuven Mann

This week we commemorate Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) in which all of Israel pauses from its normal routine to remember the worst Jewish catastrophe in a history of a seemingly endless succession of tribulations. In fact, our history confirms the haunting words of the Haggada we have just recited, “In every generation they arise to destroy us and the Holy One Blessed Is He saves us from their hands.” Has there ever been a more prescient prognosis than this one?

A major reason that is given for our need to remember is that we should not be among those who refuse to learn from the mistakes of the past and are therefore “doomed to repeat them.” The implication is that by recounting the Shoah and publicizing it to the world, we somehow gain an immunity from another one in the future. But let us face the question, has our vigilance about the past improved the outlook for Jewish survival in the future?

The answer is very complex. The massacre of October 7, 2023, took the Jewish world by surprise. We were shocked not only by the brazenness of the surprise attack but by the sheer ferocity of its savageness. The merciless brutality against helpless men, women, and children, including little babies in their cribs, drew valid comparisons to the butchery of the Nazis. Indeed, in terms of the primal Jew-hatred that was unleashed, the Hamas assault was in a qualitative sense no less abhorrent than the treatment the Jews received at the hands of Hitler, may his memory be obliterated.

It is therefore clear that remembering the tragedies of the past while extremely significant provides no protection against their being repeated. In my opinion, even those who do learn the lessons of history are often, nevertheless, doomed to repeat them. That is because it is not enough to simply understand bygone mistakes. The person is apt to make the same faulty decisions that he did before unless he recognizes the underlying emotions which caused him to make those mistakes in the first place and strives to master them.

In this context, it is important to note that the misjudgments which enabled the October 7 surprise attack had occurred once before, namely on Yom Kippur, 1973. In that instance also, a certain arrogance and refusal to consider the actual facts as opposed to reliance on the “assessments” of the military and political establishment caused Israel to allow the enemy to deliver the first blow with devastating consequences. In point of fact, Israel had in its employ an Egyptian spy, Nasser’s son-in-law Ashraf Marwan, who provided accurate information about the imminent attacks from Egypt and Syria. Inexplicably and amazingly, the chiefs of Israeli intelligence refused to accept the information because it contradicted the vaunted “conception” which they treated as if it were a revelation from heaven.

Unfortunately, the mindset which led to the calamity of Yom Kippur, 1973 was still in evidence on October 7, 2023. There was an over reliance on technology, a disdain for the capabilities of the enemy, a refusal to take the warnings about Hamas border activities seriously and an unquestioning belief in the accuracy of the contemporary “conceptzia” (conception) that Hamas was deterred and would not dare combat Israel. It is vitally important but existentially insufficient for Israel to limit its investigation to the practical errors that produced October 7, 2023. Such an endeavor will help greatly, but will be no guarantee that similar mistakes won’t be made again when we are threatened by Arab aggression.

And the same holds true for the Holocaust. Despite the multitude of research and books about all aspects of this catastrophe it seems that the oft repeated vow of “Never Again” has been  begrudgingly replaced by the reality of Yet Again. We have not managed to obtain the sympathy and support of the world which to a large extent views us as the culprits in the current wars of self-defense in which we are engaged. Large and violent demonstrations on respected American campuses which essentially call for the destruction of Israel are permitted under the guise of “freedom of expression.” The tide of public opinion in the Western democracies has turned increasingly pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel.

In this atmosphere, simply reminding the world of the Holocaust does not alleviate the Jew-hatred. This is because the anti-Semites tend to differentiate between the European Jews who perished in the Holocaust (Jews who perish are generally very well-liked by these people) and contemporary Zionist Jews, who are condemned as Nazis.

There needs to be a new dimension to the study and commemoration of the Shoah. We need to look within and seek to discover the faulty attitudes which afflicted the Jews and made us vulnerable to the “Final Solution.” We need to seriously consider what changes of a practical, emotional and spiritual nature we as a people must make in order to insure a better future. Learning from the failures of the past must also include insight into the distorted mentality which led us to make those errors. That is the only approach which will put true meaning back into our proclamation of “Never Again.”