The Emotions Of Atonement 'A Yom Kippur'

Faith and Forgiveness

The Emotions of Atonement A Yom Kippur Essay

Many years ago I picked up an edition of the book Sunflower by the famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal. He recounts a personal experience, though I can’t recall if it was during or after the war, when he was in the presence of a dying Nazi soldier, an SS member if I recall correctly, who admitted the atrocities he performed and asked if he would be able to meet a Jewish prisoner to ask for forgiveness for the horrible atrocities that he had committed, especially one act in particular.

In addition to Mr. Wiesenthal’s recounting of his actions towards the SS soldier, the volume contained responses of a litany of different types of people, from all walks of life and perspectives,

When do we have the right to forgive? What are the reasons to forgive and are there times that we either have no right to forgive so much so that forgiveness is inappropriate.

Just today I was told of a story that parodied Wiesenthal’s dilemma on a much higher level. In that case, brought by the Israeli Rabbanut to the attention of Rav Avraham Steinberg, author of Chukas HaGer, the Nazi in question did not just seek forgiveness. He had somehow managed to escape to Palestine, and in his great remorse for his actions his quest for atonement manifest in a desire to convert to Judaism. Rabbi Steinberg was presented with a question as to whether the hands that admittedly were dripping with Jewish blood could ever be those that would one day shake a lulav and esrog.

In a very succinct response, Rabbi Steinberg told the Rabbanut that technically we cannot say, “no,” citing a number of atrocious figures in history who were accepted as converts. He, did, however discuss the motivation behind the conversion request, a key to any would be

Rav Moshe kurdeveiro in his classic Tomer Devorah reiterates, how we not would survive a day, if not a moment with the exacting justice of His ever present Eye and all encompassing judgment. In fact He provides the very lifeblood and power which fuels any rebellion against Him. Yet somehow even seventy years after the Holocaust has ended and the rebirth of the Jewish communities and its culture is abound with more Torah study taking place than ever before in recent history, people will still not let the Almighty off the hook. I am not a survivor nor a child of one, but I send out a weekly d’var Torah to a few thousand people every Friday and hardly a month goes by without an email response that is similar to the one that I received this week. It has nothing to do with my message per se, all they do is ask how the Almighty allowed the Holocaust to