"Should I Let All This Horror Pass Because I Lack the Ability to Understand and Feel?"

One night while I was spending time in the ancient synagogue, I dreamt a dream, one of those dreams that impresses a lasting mark on us. In the dream, there were many tracks, and on them were many carriages. These carriages were meant for animals, but inside, there were crowds of people, packed like sardines in a can. Crying and groaning emanated from the carriages, and the feeling was horrific. Later, I envisioned the place from where these trains originated and reached the station from where they departed. There I could see mothers parting from their husbands and children. Those left behind had no idea of the destination of those traveling, and the travelers themselves were just as unaware. Then I imagined the final destination of the carriages. There were hundreds, even thousands of carriages, and tens of thousands of people disembarked from them. People were led towards a plant, a type of factory that didn't produce anything, only destroyed. They were lined up. Some were chosen to help in the factory, others were selected for experiments, and the rest were intended to become the product of the factory, or more precisely, the target of its destruction. I didn't understand what these factories before me were for, but within the dream's space, there was a message that a virus threatening to annihilate the entire world needed to be exterminated, its life and body destroyed, leaving no trace. The people from the carriages were 'viruses,' yet I didn't comprehend why such anger and cruelty were directed toward them. How could there be any justification for such cruelty towards children, infants, and the mothers holding them in their arms?!

The people entered the factory and were destroyed. Their belongings, clothes, even false teeth were taken to enrich their murderers. Not millions of people were killed there because 'millions' is just a number. There was a young man named David Rosenbaum, an excellent student who dreamed of becoming a journalist. There was also a young mother, named Hannah Wolf, who had waited ten years to conceive. Her only infant was in her arms, and she did not know where her husband was. There was also Mendel Weiss next to his son, grandson, and great-grandson, all in the same line, on the way to extermination. There were many unique stories like this, multiplied by the millions. 'Six million' is not a mere statistic, but a story and also a dream of someone who was and is no longer. And they are multiplied by six million. Then my dream led me to the other side of the camp. There, piles of used shoes were amassed. Thousands of shoes, arranged according to size. Some belonged to young children. There were also glasses, suitcases, chairs, toys, and religious items. Everything was ordered and cataloged, just like in a well-organized factory.

At the end, there was a pile of ash. Tons. This is what those monsters did. They turned the image of Hashem in the faces of millions of humans to ash. And after everything, only infinite silence remained. I woke up. I woke up terrified. I ran to seek refuge near my guide, who hurried to explain to me the meaning of the strange dream I had dreamt: "Dan, you know, we are in the last moments of history, and it's true that not long ago, all this really happened. Here, on this continent, in Europe. The Nazi Germans and their collaborators did this to the Jews during World War II, the war we call 'the Holocaust.' Please, don't ask me why this happened, don't come to me seeking explanations. Because even if I know, I won't tell you. There are situations that do not belong to the realm of intellect but to the realm of emotion. We can only grieve, contemplate, and acknowledge that yes, there is a divine reason that we cannot comprehend."

For long minutes, I was paralyzed, until I asked: "Could it be that I feel something like infinite pain? How can one cry over such an amount of pain multiplied by the number of families I cannot even imagine?"

"You are right, Dan, right. For this very reason, many survivors prefer not to talk about the subject. Many say we don't talk about it to avoid reopening the wound. But that's not true. The wound is there regardless, and talking might ease it a little. Silence has another reason. Talking and describing the horrors might diminish the pain etched in the hearts of the survivors, and the survivors prefer not to diminish their pain this way, as those listening to them will not truly understand. The pain created by this war is infinite. There is no way to contain it in material or physical terms. It belongs to a higher, more elevated place that we do not understand."

"So, what should I do about this? Should I allow all this horror to disappear as it came, because I lack the ability to understand and feel?"

"Far from it! Feel and be moved as much as you can, and the more you feel, the greater your love for the people of Israel will be, and the greater your faith will be in the fact that the Jews are a distinctive people belonging to a higher place. This has never happened to any other people. Never once in history. There has never been a genocide on such a scale, with such cruelty, for no apparent reason other than hatred. The Nazi Germans didn't wage war on the Jews for land or ideology, but for the incomprehensible reason that they simply couldn't stand their existence and didn't realize that if an entire nation disturbed them so much, it was only because this nation had a very important message and mission for the world.

"Being a Jew after the Holocaust was perceived in a different light, received a different meaning. Now it is clear and evident what was previously theoretically true: the Jews have no choice but to fight for their people and their Torah. Even those born after the war cannot ignore it, live as if nothing happened, and act in their lives for individual goals alone. Each and every one of our people must feel an inseparable part of history and do everything in their power to breathe life into the ashes and revive it anew. Yes, a day will come when all the mounds of ash will rise, whatever meaning it will have, at a speed dependent on those living today."

After that conversation, I understood one thing: we can't understand everything, and we shouldn't understand everything. If we understood, our skills as seekers of knowledge would end. A person does not live because of the water, but because of his thirst for water. Thirst is what drives them to explore existence, build new things, change the world, and pursue new knowledge. If we were intellectually satisfied, we would have no choice but to observe the knowledge acquired, but we wouldn't struggle for something that exists in intellectual terms. This world in which we live is a world of struggle, as opposed to the world to come, which is where we will view the answers. As long as we live, we will not know for certain what stands behind every occurrence in history, and an attempt to state why Hashem did what He did to the Jewish people in the last century demonstrates a lack of humility. We can research, speculate, but never conclude.

Only one thing can be known for sure: Hashem watched closely and governed everything.

From the book "Dan's Journey for the Meaning of Life," by Roni Dayan. To purchase the book at Hidabroot Shops, click here