Jewish Scene
Rabbi permitted eating chametz at concentration camp
Goel Beno
Published: 26.03.12, 07:53
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28 Talkbacks for this article
1. such a cool guy this god of yours
david ,   Jerusalem   (03.26.12)
this rabbi probably called his god and said something like this: come on dude, we are starving, we are cold, we'll all die in the next months...so be cool god, let us eat bread, come on, we wont tell anyone, and if you let us we promise we'll spread worldwide all the hate you preach in your one hit wonder The Bible. Come on god, be cool. It's not like we can pick up the phone and order something kosher, you know? And this god dude was in such a good mood he offered one more year of suffering in exchange for allowing them to eat bread. Such a cool guy this god of yours, I wonder why not everyone believe in the existence of such obviously real and caring god.
2. There're no boundaries to the wisdom of Torah-scholars:
tom ,   tel aviv   (03.26.12)
sometimes they even raise to the level of an average, sane person.
3. If anyone understands what #1 and #2
Israeli 2   (03.26.12)
are trying to say, please explain because even if they do not believe in God, why mock? If I mock their atheistic beliefs, would YNet print it?
4. Folly
dbnnet ,   n/a   (03.26.12)
@ #3: What is there to understand? 50% of our people were not just eradicated, but massacred with the most savage and brutal of methods. If God were such an all powerful creator, there is no evidence to support it. Since the Holocaust, many of us have realized the pure folly of following a creator that clearly (I am sad to say) no longer seems to exist.
5. This is a cool story...
Trance ,   USA   (03.26.12)
I wonder what my sister would make of it?
6. this is not news - any Rabbi could tell you this
lemmings hotline ,   sd usa   (03.26.12)
7. which Rabbi forbade eating chametz in the
J.K. ,   Brooklyn USA   (03.26.12)
death camps ?.the Jews under the Germans had to obey only one command : survive.
8. #1 and #2: not the sharpest tools in the shed
Serge ,   Montreal, Canada   (03.26.12)
It's interesting to see mockery when its swagger is based in false premises. What folks like #1 and #2 misunderstood is how legal systems work, whether they are Dutch law which binds all of the Netherlands' citizens, or Jewish law which, in a practical sense, binds only those Jews who consider themselves bound by it. When one considers oneself bound by a legal system, one takes care to obey its requirements. A rabbinical opinion like this one is the equivalent of a court dispensation from following a particular law during a particular period of time, like not breaking jaywalking rules when there is no other way to cross the street. Obviously most people will do what makes sense anyway. But they will also want to know that they have no requirement to obey the law and won't be punished for having failed to have done so. A Dutch citizen wants that because he wants to make sure the policeman won't give him a ticket. A Jew who considers himself bound by Jewish law wants that because e wants to make sure God won't punish him.
9. It's a heartbreaking story. Do any of you understand how
(03.26.12)
difficult that decision was? That Rabbi (even if you don't believe; IN HIS BELIEF), was accepting upon himself not only his own potential desecration of a very strong principle of Judaism -- he would also be accepting upon himself all the others' transgressions as if it were his own. This took nearly super-human self-sacrifice. The kind of heroism (whether you understand his kind of personal sacrifice or not) that you're not likely to see in your lifetime. He probably would have rather died, but felt he couldn't take the chance that others could follow that example.
10. 1 - you're disgusting
(03.26.12)
11. #4
gav ,   USA   (03.26.12)
Since when did God prevent any and all bad things to happen to the Jews in the history of Judaism? Never. I"m not sure how one more tragedy some how made people thrown God out, because of some Christianized concept of an all good God that prevents all evil.
12. To those nay-sayers: so if you're good you win the prize and
(03.27.12)
if you're bad you're instantly struck by lightning? That's the kind of G-d you'd be willing to believe in? Where would your oh-so-cherished freedom of choice be then? You'd be just a test-rat, zapped into being good. Satisfying to see the bad-guys get zapped right away, yes -- but did it ever occur to you that there may be something above the self-imposed matrix you're running through? (Take the blue-pill or accept the false facade of everything here n' now. :) ) --- a being with greater long-term insight and intelligence than your almighty self? There is one thing that discoveries in technology teach us all the time: yes there can be millions of recordings of lives long gone and current that can play at once(youtube); yes, there is such a thing as seeing everywhere at once (satellites/TV/cameras) -- yes you can walk directly under an auto-wreckyard magnet that can lift 20 cars at once and be completely oblivious to that force.
13. Bad karma
Latter-Day Prophet ,   mountain top   (03.27.12)
Gad (# 11): it's even more complicated. They can't really claim that their Deity is incapable of allowing evil to happen since it happens all the time. They try to explain it away by saying that the Devil is entirely responsible, but who created their Devil? Evil is obviously part of the show, in a free-will universe. There's no need for a feudal lord to lord it over the sundry devils. However, the other two Abrahamic faiths are just as contradictory. The further to the West you go, the further away from the truth you find yourself. Judaism is barely halfway there. The only explanation for the existence of evil lies in the concepts of free will and reincarnation, which Judaism teaches, and which includes karma by implication. Evil befalls those who incurred wicked deeds in previous lives or in the present one. This is Divine Justice, which skeptics call "poetic" ditto. Jews have had to put up with the same treatment they aimed at their neighbors, as described in their own chronicles: massacres, genocide and discrimination.
14. #1
steve ,   las vegas   (03.27.12)
Life must be good to you eh? Thats nice that you make fun of people. Just think about all those nutty people who actually waited for the Rabbi to make this statement. cant believe it can you? All these people who follow orders-wow. Just think about all those people who followed orders from a little man with a mustache who told them to kill all those people who follow this rabbi. Life imitates art and you are a real piece of work
15. chometz who cares
fred lazin ,   nyc USA Tel AViv   (03.27.12)
who cares. millions of jews are being slaughtered and a Rabbi deals with questions of Kashrut. once went to Thieresanstadt where we visited a small creamatorium. The only issue of importance to a charidi visitor was were the victims buried according to halacha. God what values.
16. #1, you should shame yourself!
Shalom ,   U.S.A.   (03.27.12)
You can't hide from His justice!
17. #1 sicko
Larry ,   Los Angeles   (03.27.12)
most learned people know that nothing stands in the way of saving a life, but the people who were there possibly did not know. It is not a p'sak that is strange under the circumstances. What is strange is the reaction of #1, who should hide his face in shame for his truly disgusting reaction.
18. It's very disrespectful to religion-bash in a triibute.
(03.27.12)
Some people just don't seem to know their manners. There is a time and place for everything. Pushing one's rabid anti-theological views in an article paying tribute to someone's efforts on behalf of others is.....classless and gauche.
19. #3,8,10,14,16,17,18 and so on:It makes me cringe to read
tom ,   tel aviv   (03.27.12)
these pitiful scraps of learned reasonong in service of totally psychotic fallacy that ALL religions are! Sorry good folks, your harts are in the right place but... No respect of any kind is warranted towards religion: it is a wholesale humbug designed to suck money & free will out of gullible simpeltons. But go ahead, knock yourself out. #1: you deserve a Sanity Prize!!!
20. We all die in the end!
Moshe ,   Jerusalem   (03.27.12)
But where we go from here depends on what we did in this life. Thank G-d we are not in this position and to be honest I don't know what I would have done if I was. We are commanded not to eat Chametz for 7 days, we are commanded to eat Matza for 1 day. May be I would just have drunk water but as I said B"H we are not in this postion and with the help of G-d will never be again. May you all have a Kosher Peseach and have the strength not to eat Chametz for 7 days but I guess you guys in Tel Aviv will eat.
21. Isn't there a mitzvah that states you don't have to follow
Henry from New York ,   USA   (03.27.12)
Mitzot that endanger your own health during a yom tov? I am pretty sure there is. If so, why are people surprised someone invoked this?
22. #19 - there is always the possibility you could be wrong in
Henry from New York ,   USA   (03.27.12)
Your beliefs. It could be (by a small chance) that at least one of the major faiths is correct, or that there is a higher being. Can you prove otherwise? If so, I would be amazed and wish for the evidence. If not, and you come to realise this, then you are taking a wise man's approach. It is fine for you to be an atheist, it is your choice for you to believe there is no god of any sort. However, it doesn't make sense to deny and indeed mock those beliefs of others as it is our choice to believe in a higher being we call our God. There is the possibility that we could be wrong in our beliefs, there is the possibility that there is no higher being of any sort. However, there is also the possibility that you could be wrong. Remember this.
23. #6 is right
solomon ,   bklyn   (03.27.12)
In every story I've read about the camps, eating chometz was insisted upon by rabbis and k'lal Israel. I think the article is "news" because an actual written document was found, and not so much on what was written.
24. Most of these TBs sound like mega-ignorants...
(03.27.12)
have you all forgotten that one single mitzva overrides all 613 Mitzvot? That one single is: Choose Life! In case of a life threatening situation choose life. That means that the rabbi didn't need to mega sweat it to come to the decision of allowing Chametz eating during Passover during the Holocaust. that said: For goodness sakes people whatever are you caring on about with all this minor "pilpul" of yours!?!
25. Non-story
Bertram ,   London, UK   (03.27.12)
I think this is non-news. As others have said, to have continued to proscribe chometz in these circumstances would have been considered contrary to Jewish law. As for #22, despite the fact that I do not believe in a supreme being I generally take your point, although it is folly to attempt to prove the non-existence of something. I can no more prove the non-existence of a deity than I can the non-existence of ghosts. The onus is on others to provide a convincing argument for the existence of either. For many, the Holocaust did not help in this matter.
26. #25, but both of those points are based on the idea
Henry from New York ,   USA   (03.27.12)
that having a belief in something requires one to prove that that thing does in fact exist or that the being we talk about is necessarily bound by the rules we created. The whole idea behind people having faith is they believe in something without having to rely on evidence for it. As for the Shoah, that is based on the idea that if there is a higher being, it was the responsibility of that being to intervene on our, or someone else's, behalf. We can say that we intrepret a holy scripture that way, but they are written by people (the idea I was getting at was the infinite monekys in a room writing Shakespeare). Given that such a responsibility would be placed on this being by someone else and is just an expectation (rather than a rule of that being's behaviour) anything claiming lack of intervention on this being's part is proof of non-existance makes no sense. I also hope I didn't sound so hoighty toighty that what I said sounded non-sensical.
27. #26 - Idea I was getting at.
Henry from New York ,   USA   (03.27.12)
Oh, in context. The monkey idea is that there is a possibility (though slim) that the writers of the scriptures of one the world's faiths got it right.
28. Torah lays no forebearence on eating, beyond not to harm.
Miron ,   USA   (03.28.12)
Jewish religion has no consept of attaining any kind of holiness through food, in any shape of form, period. It lays no other commandment on a man beyond responsibility to take care of own body in a way that keeps one healthy and unharmed. Neither fasting nor any kind of food specialties ever connected to anything remotely related to any kind of relationship with the deity. The matza is neither penace nor elevation / special thing. It is a mere remembrance of the Exhodus. Similarly other foods remembered and prepared for memorable occasions. Talmud is full of warnings to false servants who try to imitate conditions and sensual experiences of those who went through seminal events through words of our great forefathers, some of those purportedly by witnesses of the Exhodus itself. With strict warning in the very Torah that invoking those events in vain and out of vanity will bring about anger of the G-d.
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