Throughout this year, people have asked this question. But on October 7 itself, almost every person to whom I spoke asked it: “Where was God on October 7?” Or some variant: “I am angry at God!” or “How can I pray?” This is my answer.
Many Jews carry a model in their heads of the interaction of God and humanity in which an all-controlling God pulls the strings of history. God rewards Jews for good behavior – punishes their enemies and saves them – or, inflicts suffering on Jews – including sending enemies to hurt them – as punishment for not obeying God.
The haredi (ultra-Orthodox) version of this model was expressed recently by a haredi yeshiva head. Secular kibbutzim in the Gaza envelope were ravaged by Hamas, whereas religious observant kibbutzim nearby, such as Alumim or Sa’ad, were saved.
Admittedly, this model is asserted in parts of the Bible. The second paragraph of the daily Shema Yisrael prayer (“Hear O’Israel” from Deuteronomy ch. 11, v. 13-17), states that if we listen to God, it will rain. But if we do not listen or do not serve God, He will deny us rain. If we sin and make God angry, then we will be driven out of this land.
This model does not describe God or divine interaction with Jewry in our time. The Rabbis in the Talmud explained that in their time of destruction and exile, the covenant between God and Israel continued to operate strongly. But God had self-limited beyond the Biblical, releasing control and giving humanity more freedom. Hashem called on the human partner to take more responsibility for their behavior. Revelation from heaven (as well as prophecy, e.g. direct messages from God) stopped. Humans had to discern what God wanted from them. Their behaviors had much more impact on the outcomes in history.
Thus the First Temple was destroyed due to the sins of murder, idolatry (betraying God) and sexual perversion (murder of the soul). However, in the Second Temple, the anti-Roman rebels were motivated by zealousness for God and desire to drive out the Roman idolaters and their statues. Why then did they lose? Because they humiliated other Jews, because they revolted recklessly against the world’s leading power instead of seeking a diplomatic live-and-let-live solution by negotiating with the Romans as Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai did later. The extremists burned the food stores of Jerusalem to force the people to go out and fight the Romans. The zealots killed people who opposed them. The “baseless hatred” and civil wars between the Jews did them in (see on all this Talmud Gittin 55A and following). God did not split the Mediterranean Sea and drown the Roman army because God no longer operated that way in the world.
THE TALMUD points out that Moses spoke of God as “great, mighty and awesome” (Deuteronomy 10:17) because God smashed the Israelites’ opponents. After God’s self-limitation allowed the destruction of the Temple, prophets like Jeremiah and Daniel would not use that language. A God whose Temple is destroyed is not mighty; a God whose people is enslaved and exiled is not awesome.
The Men of the Great Assembly (who usher in the rabbinic age) restored this phrase. These words are in the opening blessing of the Shmoneh Esrai, the 18-part standing, silent central Jewish prayer. However, they explained that God is mighty now because God self-limits – i.e. controls the urge to smash the Romans. By self-limiting, God gives freedom to humans to act. Evil forces misuse their power to oppress while good leaders use their power for life. The outcome depends on the wisdom, good judgment and effectiveness of the leadership. In our days, God is awesome because the people Israel is like a sheep alone among wolves (the nations of the world) but manages to survive – an awesome testimony to being God’s people (see on all this Talmud Yoma 69B).
In my book, The Triumph of Life (Jewish Publication Society, 2024), I argue that we are living in the stage after the Rabbis. God is totally self-limited and has given humans full responsibility for achieving the goals of the covenant, i.e. to create a model society and to repair the whole world. The outcomes then depend on human behavior.
What about the Holocaust?
This understanding derives from the Holocaust experience. Given full freedom, the Nazis gathered immense power and focused it on killing the Jews. European Jews were powerless. They had no army to defend them and no state to give them haven. They could not save themselves. The Allies had enough power to finally defeat the Nazis but they would not use it to save the Jews. Where they did use the power to save, i.e. Denmark, Bulgaria, Albania, partially in Italy, France, Belgium, Spain – Jews were saved. In such countries as Poland and Lithuania, where the neighbors mostly helped the Nazis, 90-95% of the Jews were killed.
Where was God in the Holocaust? Not smiting the Nazis or lifting Jews on magic carpets and flying them to safety. But God was present among the Jews in the Holocaust. In the words of Psalms (91:15) “I am with him (=Jew) in his troubles”. God was starving in the ghettos, tortured and worked to death in the concentration camps, tormented and asphyxiated in the gas chambers. In the words of Isaiah “in all (their afflictions/tortures, (God) was afflicted/tortured” (Isaiah 63:9).
AFTER THE Holocaust , the entire Jewish people understood that Jews had to take power for life. Creating the state of Israel was the act of taking power and taking responsibility for Jewish life going forward. The Law of Return gave every Jew in trouble anywhere in the world a guaranteed haven and protection.
The Arabs did not accept this achievement. They used their freedom and power to try and destroy the Jewish state by war, economic boycott, and political isolation. Thanks to the fact that the bulk of Israelis took power responsibility (and the IDF exercised military might ethically while Israeli hi-tech exercised it economically, etc.) Israel defeated its would-be destroyers, again and again. Where the Israeli wielders of power were caught up in a wrong conception (as in the 1973 Yom Kippur War) and on October 7, when the state was in danger and losses were heavy.
In all the thriving life, in the repeated ingathering of the exiles, in the joy of family and population growth and the blossoming of Israeli culture, God was present. But God did not send Hamas to punish us, any more than God sent angels to fight for us. The haredi claim that it is all God leads to the assertion that by learning Torah they get God to protect us. This leads to the selfish and irresponsible demand to be exempt from the draft. This leads to abandoning the other Jews. This leads to doing the opposite of God’s behavior. The Divine shares the fate and the suffering and the pain of loss of the Israelis.
So where was God on October 7? Being murdered, raped, burned alive, being tortured by the killing of children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children, being tormented by being abducted and treated cruelly. Where the human image of God is abused, God is infinitely abused.
Ever since October 7, God has fought with our soldiers and been rescued, redeemed in their achievements. God has wept with our bereaved parents, rejoiced with babies born in the national baby boom, been uplifted by IDF’s victories and nurtured by the new bonds of unity and responsibility being forged in our society.
This is the heroic age of the Jewish people – in which the people take responsibility to protect our right to live here, and all over the world. The most secular Israeli fighting in the IDF is doing more to redeem God than the ostensibly religious persons who stand on the sidelines.
We are living in the age in which the prophets predicted – that God’s name and standing in the world is established by the actions and the condition of the Jewish people.
The writer is a rabbi and an oleh (new immigrant). He was a leader in Modern Orthodoxy in America. This column draws upon material in his book, The Triumph of Life (Jewish Publication Society 2024).