Did God turn away from that darkling place?

The other day, as I fed my daughter, I watched a news report on the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of KL Auschwitz. Seeing the documentary footage again I couldn’t help but immediately think a number of things. The first was a renewed sense of horror that something like that happened, that people did this and that, if he exists, God allowed it to happened. With my daughter lying in my arms, I couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like for her to go through something like that and what it would be like for me to see it happen. Finally, and not of the first time, I was struck by the fact that even after that there are Jews who believe in God fervently. I add ‘fervently’ as for many Jews going to shul is much more about being part of their community than about any real belief in a maker. The fact that the very stones in Auschwitz do not weep for those that died there is all the proof I need to know that we live in a cold and empty universe in which, paradoxically, the only kinship we might find we must look for among ourselves – the very ones who committed this atrocity.