Fire in the Ashes: God, Evil, and the Holocaust(Fire in the Ashes)

Sixty years after it ended, the Holocaust continues to leave survivors and their descendants, as well as historians, philosophers, and theologians, pondering the enormity of that event. This book explores how inquiry about the Holocaust challenges understanding, especially its religious and ethical dimensions.

Debates about God's relationship to evil are ancient, but the Holocaust complicated them in ways never before imagined. Its massive destruction left Jews and Christians searching among the ashes to determine what, if anything, could repair the damage done to tradition and to theology.

Since the end of the Holocaust, Jews and Christians have increasingly sought to know how or even whether theological analysis and reflection can aid in comprehending its aftermath. Specifically, Jews and Christians, individually and collectively, find themselves more and more in the position of needing either to rethink theodicy -- typically understood as the vindication of divine justice in the face of evil -- or to abolish the concept altogether.

Writing in a format that creates the feel of dialogue, the contributors to Fire in the Ashes confront these and other difficult questions about God and evil after the Holocaust. This book -- created out of shared concerns and a desire to investigate differences and disagreements between religious traditions and philosophical perspectives -- represents an effort to advance meaningful conversation between Jews and Christians and to encourage others to participate in similar inter- and intrafaith inquiries.

The contributors to Fire in the Ashes are members of the Pastora Goldner Holocaust Symposium. Led since its founding in 1996 by Leonard Grob and Henry F. Knight, the symposium's Holocaust and genocide scholars -- a group that is interfaith, international, interdisciplinary, and intergenerational -- meet biennially in Oxfordshire, England.

Prologue: Flames in the Darkness / David Patterson and John K. Roth

Part One: The Burden of Evil

1. Fire and Ashes: The "Tempter-God," Evil, and the Shoah / Margaret Brearley

In Response

--Britta Frede-Wenger

--David Patterson

--Margaret Brearley

2. Jean Amery: Memories of Evil and Consequences for the Representation of Jewish Identity in Christian Theology / Hanna Holtschneider

In Response

--Peter J. Haas

--John K. Roth

--Hannah Holtschneider

3. Judaism in Protestant Encounters with the Shoah / Peter J. Haas

In Response

--Henry F. Knight

--Rochelle L. Millen

--Peter J. Haas

4. Locating God: Placing Ourselves in a Post-Shoah World / Henry F. Knight

In Response

--Margaret Brearley

--Leonard Grob

--Henry F. Knight

Part Two: Searching Traditions

5. "Like Pebbles on the Seashore": J. B. Soloveitchik on Suffering / Rochelle L. Millen

In Response

--Hannah Holtschneider

--Juergen Manemann

--Rochelle L. Millen

6. "Good" Friday after Auschwitz? / Britta Frede-Wenger

In Response

--Henry F. Knight

Rochelle L. Millen

--Britta Frede-Wenger

7. If the Good Become the Evil: Antimonotheism in Germany after Reunification and the Problems of the Doctrine of Justification / Juergen Manemann

In Response

--David Patterson

--Didier Pollefeyt

--Juergen Manemann

8. Some Fundamental Doubts about Posing the Question of Theodicy in the Post-Holocaust World / Leongard Grob

In Response

--Margaret Brearley

--Didier Pollefeyt

--Leonard Grob

Part Three: Beyond the Ruins?

9. Horror Vacui: God and Evil in/after Auschwitz / Didier Pollefeyt

In Response

--Britta Frede-Wenger

--Peter J. Haas

--Didier Pollefeyt

10. Deliver us from Evil? Kuhn's Prayer and the Masters of Death / John K. Roth

In Response

--Leonard Grob

--Juergen Manemann

--John K. Roth

11. Seeking the Fire in the Ashes: A Chasidic Accounting for Evil form the Midst of Evil after the Evil of Auschwitz / David Patterson

In Response

--Hannah Holtschneider

--John K. Roth

--David Patterson

Postscript: The Disturbance of the Witness / David Patterson and John K. Roth

Bibliography

About the Editors and Contributors

Index

David Patterson is Bornblum Chair in Judaic Studies, University of Memphis. John K. Roth is Edward J. Sexton Professor of Philosophy and director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights, Claremont McKenna College. The other contributors are Margaret Brearley, Britta Frede-Wenger, Leonard Grob, Peter J. Haas, Hannah Holtschneider, Henry F. Knight, Juergen Manemann, Rochelle L. Millen, and Didier Pollefeyt.