Persuasive Essay: The Holocaust

God has his reasons although we may not know them we know they are there. Fate guides us through the choices we make. Religious faith helped people to cope through the Holocaust because t... ... middle of paper ... ...ay think that God is betraying them by the Holocaust and mass slaughter of the Jews and that he is going against there agreement in the Covenant. I personally believe he is testing the Jews and that he will reward them in their “second life.” Another group of people may not like to think of the Holocaust, as though it had never happened. I also don’t agree.

The people of Israel, Jeremiah’s prosecutors, the ones that were actually causing the suffering of Jeremiah by mocking him. However, they were described in similar terms alike God: “Perhaps he will be deceived; then we will prevail over him” (Jeremiah 20:10). In this context, his prosecutors were hoping for the faith of Jeremiah toward God to fall and so that they can succeed over him. Jeremiah, however, does not realize how similar he and his prosecutors were. Jeremiah’s harsh words was not only toward God but also toward his own predestined bir... ... middle of paper ... ... 20:10).

Step 1 In the first century, the world was divided, just like today, but the basic distinction was between Jew and Gentile. For that reason, some Jewish Christians had trouble accepting Gentile converts—some even said they needed to become Jewish first. Paul shows the Ephesians how God answered the world’s plea for oneness—it was in Christ. The paragraph before my section speaks of the former state of Gentiles and Jews. Jews hated those who were not of their race and called them Gentiles, but the Law affected their bodies and not their hearts; Gentiles were outsiders-excluded from God’s people.

We all know cases of good people who suffer terrible pains for no obvious reason. From a religious side of life this disturbs me because it seems to contradict certain basic Jewish beliefs. In particular, we believe: God is omniscient (He knows everything), God is omnipotent (He can do anything), and God is just. If these beliefs are right then how is it possible that innocent people suffer? In this essay I am going to briefly tell you what Judaism says about the concept of suffering and then I?m going to attempt explaining the two main explanations!

When he delivers this defiance to Rabbi Binder, he is... ... middle of paper ... ...nbsp;    By applying the theory of the hero’s journey as found in Discoveries: Fifty Stories of the Quest and applying it to Roth’s “The Conversion of the Jews”, we see that the character Ozzie Freedman truly fits the title of a hero. Ozzie questions his religious beliefs and is not ashamed to bring forth his insight and seek answers and new ways of thinking. He winds up teaching his mentor a lesson in religion and sets out to have his message heard, despite the possibility of ridicule and even death. Once he realizes he has a different belief than the people of the Jewish religion, he understands his life will never be the same and that he cannot go back to the Jewish belief that God is not able to produce a child without intercourse. Ozzie gets his message across, that one should never be punished for his beliefs, and he is then born into a new day and a new life journey.

My reaction to the Holocaust was devastating. It is one example of bad things happening to great people. The mass murdering of so many Jews is just disgusting and also because it was done for basically no reason. As this was a true event many sources or witnesses are available to express their views, feelings and emotions of themselves and those who survived this terrible tragedy. I will demonstrate examples of Jews who have survived what they have been through and what they think about God.

Questioning is fundamental to the idea of faith and belief in God. The Holocaust forced Elie to ask terrible questions about good and evil and about whether God really does exists. But just him asking these questions shows his true belief in God. So Elie questioned whether he really was faithful to God, but as he did this, he soon realized questioning belief makes him know God is really there. The next theme that became apparent throughout the story was Silence.

Initially, Elie one of the most devout Jews in Sighet. On the contrary, as he is put through the nightmares of the concentration camps, he view of God changes. In the end, God is now the enemy and resentment floods over Elie. Elie’s physical and emotional abuse during the Holocaust is to blame for this change in Elie’s

For many Jews who lived through the Holocaust, their faith in God will never be the same. The question that many of them ask is “Why?” Why the gas chambers? Why the Jews? “Why has God apparently forsaken us?” Many survivors feel great anger towards the God of their ancestors, and through this anger they try to understand the “whys.” For many, this is the only way they can live after what they have been through. Through anger, survivors can assert their presence: “To overwhelming death one must respond with overwhelming life…” (Greenberg 330).

Religious people from many religions all over the world need a response to the Holocaust to understand what to believe, why it happened, and what can be done to prevent it from happening again. Some religious people need a response to the Holocaust to justify their belief in God after such destruction has taken place, even though God is supposed to be benevolent, all loving. Jews specifically need a response to the Holocaust a great amount of those who died in the Holocaust were Jewish and since then many theologians have tried to decipher the message of the Holocaust. Fackenheim has a unique response to the Holocaust and his theory of a new commandment, and his answers of how to prevail after such evil was committed are unusual and controversial. The 'Commandment' is explicit and detailed, and although Fackenheim's theories do not explain why the Holocaust happened, or how to prevent it, he explains how to live after the Holocaust.