Where Was God During the Holocaust?

Why did God save the Jews from slavery in Egypt but not a Holocaust in Europe?

Quite often I will hear a question that burrows itself into my mind and won’t go away until I have fleshed it out. This was one of them.

Dennis Prager asked where God was during the Holocaust and why God intervened so dramatically in Egypt during Exodus. He had his own ideas, but asked this big question as a means for discussion in Jordan Peterson's sixth episode of the Exodus seminar on Daily Wire.

It's an incredible question to tackle. I mean, why one and not the other? If the Israelites are God's people, why would God allow them to be slaughtered in Europe after destroying Egypt to get them out? I understand how huge this question is and that I am wading into an incredibly tumultuous sea. But this thought won't leave me alone. So here goes.

The Jews of Egypt are not the same Jews post Exodus.

This differentiation starts with a burning bush and a name.

In the third chapter of Exodus, Moses has a discussion with God via a burning bush that is not consumed by the fire. God tells him to deliver a message to the Israelites. Moses then asks God for His name so he can tell his people who sends this message. God tells Moses that “I am.” Because Hebrew does not us a tense for the word “to be,” it simultaneously means “I was, I am, and will always be.” Essentially, God says He is the essence of Being itself: that which always has been and always will be.

But the Israelites in Egypt were a population of illiterate slaves with little remembrance of any God. Moses can't go to a group of slightly religious, illiterate slaves, and tell them that the essence of Being has a message of liberation for them. They wouldn’t know what that means. So, he says His name and adds that he is also "the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God is Isaac, and the God of Jacob."

This tells us that God understands who his audience is and what they are capable of. But this is all about to change. They will not be illiterate slaves forever. They will mature and have the responsibilities of a mature people.

After leaving Egypt, the Israelites spend many years in the desert figuring out how to manage being a society free from tyranny. This chaotic time bears the fruit of the Ten Commandments as well as Deuteronomy. God has now given them a set of rules to live by.

These are no longer illiterate slaves tyrannized by a Pharaoh. They have entered the desert with the freedom to serve God. They have rules, rituals and guidelines. The Torah has everything a people need to recognize, resist, fight and avoid the tyranny of man.

God has provided the tools and it is on His people to use them. It may even be necessary to step aside to prove any confidence in the word provided. If God believes his own word, then he believes that it, on its own, is redemptive. Swooping in every time evil rears its head and victimizes the innocent could be seen as an admission that the word itself is not enough.

When we don’t heed His word we end up putting our most innocent in the most vulnerable of positions.

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There is no promise of utopia. No guarantee of a world without suffering. What the Torah does with respect to tyranny is provide tools to understand how best to deal with the suffering and tyranny inherent in the nature of humanity.

God’s relationship with his people transforms post Exodus. It matures much like the relationship of a parent transforms as a child grows and matures. Then as parents we slowly let our children go out into the world on their own, hoping that they heed our words.