This Shabbat is Shushan Purim. It is the Yarhzeit of my father, Rabbi Dr. William Weinberg, who led the community of survivors after the Holocaust in DP Camps in Austria and then in the rebuilt Jewish community of Frankfurt, Germany, and the environs. The reading from the Prophets on this Shabbat is the direct theme of the speech that is referenced below.
In the years following the Holocaust, there has been a resurgence of Jewish life in Germany, all the while that German government was solicitous of the well-being of Jews
In the past decade,there have been ominous developments that undermine the security of the Jewish community. There is the rise of the far right Alternativ fuer Deutschland on the one hand, and the parallel rise of left anti-Semitism, some brought by the new Muslim immigrants,but some also shared with the supposedly enlightened left.
Hence, my father's farewell address of 74 years ago rings all too worrisome.
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Farewell
sermon by Rabbi Wilhelm Weinberg (1901-1976) in Frankfurt ‑
Am Main, on November 11, 1951
Translated
from the German transcript as printed in Menora: Jahrbuch fuer deutsch-juedische
Geschichte 1995(Menora: Yearbook for German-Jewish History 1995).
“Ich verlasse dieses Land” (I leave this country with bitterness, but
the window can not be shut upon any nation.” Regarding the Farewell Address of
Rabbi Dr. Wilhelm Weinberg, 1901-1976, in Frankfurt/Main, November 11, 1951
Transcription
and historical overview by the late Prof. Michael Bodemann
,
University of Toronto. Prof. Bodemann passed away this January (2025) and I
extend my condolences to his family. He helped me with research for my book,
Courage of the Spirit, and he, in turn, was able to utilize my research in some
of his writings. This is a link to his account: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y._Michal_Bodemann
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YHWH
hu haelohim. The Eternal is God.
We call out this word seven times with a loud
voice before the open Ark of the Covenant to God on the Day of Atonement, seven
times corresponding to the seven days of the week, the everyday life to which
we wish to return and which we want to fill with the spirit of this holy word.
This
word comes from a time that bears much resemblance to our own time.
In
the Book of Kings (1:18) we are told about that time in which Ahab was king over
Israel.
Up! Gather all Israel together on Mount
Carmel,
and all the priests of Baal and Ashtoreth... And Elijah came to the people and
said, “How long will you hop from branch to branch like a bird? If the Lord is
God, follow him; if Baal, follow him. And the people saw it, fell on their
faces, and cried, "The Lord is God, the Lord is God."
How long will you waver between God and idol,
hopping from branch to branch like a bird? Every generation is faced with the
question of whether it is ready. Even in our time, which is plagued by fear of
war and crisis, the question is whether we are ready to open the gates to God
again in order to begin a new life with him, or whether we, to use Spengler's
words, are heading towards destruction knowingly but powerlessly like
Cassandra, whether we want to take the
path of reflection on human solidarity, on the common foundations of our lives
for all people, in order to stop the destruction.
"If
the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do ?" (Ps 11)
Maintaining
the great tradition of the German Jewish communities is an illusionistic wish,
since all the prerequisites for this are lacking. Judaism here can no longer be
a truly full-flowing, spirit-penetrating and dominating living thing. We all
know that and must remain without illusions in this regard. Can one blame
someone who has a child for offering him a humane and Jewishly stable
atmosphere? Our work here is uncertain fumbling around in all areas, everything
is in suspense, unrest, and disagreement.
But
as Isaiah says (42:2-3): "A bruised reed he will not break,
and
he will not extinguish the dimly glowing wick."
It
is the task of the board to ensure that this smoldering wick does not go out,
and it will therefore have to make every effort to find a worthy, even more
honorable successor. I have spoken extensively about all this many times,
especially in my recent sermons.
In
the battle between truth and lies, between power and law, in the millennia-old
dispute over competence between the powers of freedom and unfreedom, there can
be no neutrality. Even in the years of the reign of terror, this country has
not lacked heroes and heroines of resistance against the evil spirit, who have
secured a place of honor in the history of humanity through their courage and
pure greatness of soul. To establish this is a joyful and honorable task,
especially for a Jew who has not lost the gift of differentiation.
At
the same time, however, it is our duty to say that even those of us who
believed or wanted to believe in a change of thinking among the German people
are gradually losing this belief. For even the politically blind are gradually
realizing that those figures who worked for the smooth implementation of the
Nazi order and the Nazi campaign of world conquest are once again haunting the
German lands, this time disguising their face on Mars with an expression of
wounded innocence but tomorrow showing their true face without a trace. We are
gripped by horror and dread when we think that the gruesome figures who are
complicit in the murder of our brothers and sisters and who were complicit in
the genocide of the Second World War, when we see the figures from the devil's
laboratory once again acting in public.
All
this weighs heavily on our minds. The wounds hurt too deeply, the stories from
recent days, when people confronted us as predatory and murderous beasts, are
too deeply etched in our retinas for us to be able to trivialize these events.
More
than Freud and the entire field of depth psychology, those terrible years have
shown us the underbelly of the human soul, of human-inhuman beings, of human-inhuman.
A
black curtain woven from blood, tears and deep sorrow separates us from all
such figures for all eternity. Who has the hubris to speak of Jewish
intolerance here? Are we speaking of Christian intolerance when the Church
excommunicates all those who were complicit in the tragedy of the Budapest
Cardinal Mindszenty ([Note: sentenced to
life imprisonment by the Communist regime, later released]? Are we speaking of
intolerance or vindictiveness when German courts harshly condemn those who
tortured their comrades? Or are there two standards for good and evil?
There
is only one measure, and, in this sense, the Holy Scripture calls us: "You
shall rebuke your neighbor and rebuke him in return, so that you do not become
an accomplice."
There
are circles that believe that the pillars of the National Socialist blood
regime can be used against communism. There were such "believers" in
the Weimar period. It proved to be a tragic illusion then and this time too it
cannot have a different ending.
"O
that they were wise, that they had understanding. They considered the
end," says the Holy Scripture.
You cannot drive out the devil with Beelzebub.
Our
world has sunk in blood and tears. Our ranks have thinned out and alas! They
will not reappear; the gaps will not be filled! Those we have seen fall under
the sickle of death, we will never see them again here on earth. And those who
were saved, those who survived, the so-called DPs? The book of Job tells us the
story of the suffering of a man whose world suddenly sinks into nothingness. As
is well known, this book ends with a happy ending. Job has children again, his
belongings and, in addition, a kind of compensation for his pain and suffering.
So far everything seems to be back in order. In the Talmud, however, one of our
wise men remarks about this strange happy ending: "Not even God could give
back to Job his suffering and the years he lost." Because an injustice
suffered cannot be made up for, or, in the language of our day, made good.
The
words "The Eternal is God; the Eternal is God" keep echoing in my
mind. And the question of the prophet Elijah, "How long will you hop from
one branch to another like a bird?" We believed that people would learn
lessons from this genocide and rediscover the right attitude and an
unchangeable standpoint in this ancient dispute over competence between spirit
and iron. Instead, people spoke of forgetting and recommended drawing a line
under the past . As if history were dissolving into partial stories.
It was neither Jews nor Christians who let
their souls drink from Lethe, the river of forgetfulness; it was rather pagan
Greeks who had such ideas. Judaism and Christianity wanted to educate people to
intellectual and moral responsibility, to distinguish between good and evil and
to decide in favor of the good. The Western world has not forgotten the Huns,
nor Genghis Khan or the Janissaries. Nor will it ever forget the accursed Nazi
followers. "Forgetting, according to Schopenhauer, means throwing precious
experiences out the window."
Anyone
who is supported by the certainty of faith cannot speak of drawing a line under
the past. That would mean declaring everything to be null and void, regarding
everything that has happened as meaningless chaos, as a process from nothing to
nothing. The events in the world are too closely intertwined for one to be
able to clearly demarcate eras from one another by dividing lines, and they
have too much of an impact for one to be able to or should forget them.
Contrary to Jacob Burkhardt, spiritual and unspiritual developments do not
happen in leaps or spurts.
A bridge, a bridge between Jews and Germans, carefully built over
twelve hundred years, has been sacrilegiously destroyed by the devil's
generals. A few weeks ago, an emergency ladder was carefully rebuilt in Bonn.
An emergency ladder must be trod with great caution. "It is not fitting to
rejoice, there will be no triumph," as the poet says, all the less so as
dark figures who have turned the world into a hall, into a slaughterhouse, are
again waiting for the moment to tear down this emergency ladder built by
well-meaning Jews. Laws, constitutions, and declarations such as those issued
in Bonn on the German-Jewish question. Bans that have been imposed on us by the
government only offer a guarantee of security and order if they are an
expression of the views of a large, unshakable majority, otherwise they will
one day degenerate into a tragic farce. Only those who have lost touch with
reality can be surprised that most of our people, and especially those who
still have strength and initiative, have their bags packed.
Judaism,
my dear friends, was the first to establish the principle of a unified origin
of the human race; even today, despite all bitter disappointments, we still see
it as the goal of all history to restore this consciousness of unity; that is
part of our messianic ideal. Once, in the days of Canaan Ahab, a rift ran
through Israel between the followers of the god Baal and the Eternal. One man,
the prophet Elijah, had the courage to stand in this rift and to carry the
people along with him to the point that they cried out: The Eternal is our God.
His memory is blessed. May there be more and more German people here who have
the courage to stand in the rift that runs not only between Jews and Germans
but through the whole world and to build new bridges. It took four hundred
years after the Jews were expelled from Spain for some Polish Jews to
re-establish the first Jewish community during the First World War. No new
Jewish communities have been established here yet. We are dealing with the
remnants of old Jewish communities. Development is proceeding much more rapidly
today, both for better and for worse.
I
leave this country with bitterness, but we must not close our shutters on any
people. The future belongs to God, not man. May it not be too long before we
Jews can once again see in the Germans the bearers of a world culture, and in
the German language the language of Lessing, Kant, and Goethe.
Jacob
and Esau, the two enemy brothers [122], meet again one day. The meeting is
stormy and timid at the same time. They then part and promise to see each other
again. The Bible has nothing to say about such a new meeting. But it will
happen in the latter days (Isaiah 2:2-5) that the divine order will be restored,
and God will raise up the offspring of David, his servant, from whom we hope
for salvation. This faith and its partial fulfillment through the
re-establishment of the State of Israel give us the strength to persevere in
the present and to move forward into the future with faith and hope.
Bless
our brothers and sisters who leave this country, bless our brothers and
sisters, no matter for what reason they stay here.
Bless
Israel People and State
Bless
this community with your peace, holy peace of God, that here discord and strife
may never separate and alienate the spirits!
Bless
us who stand here gathered before your face, all who have come to take part in
our celebration!
Bless
the representatives of our community, give them strength and love to strive and
care for the overall well-being of this community.
Bless
the authorities of this land—where unspeakable suffering has befallen us—give
them strength and insight to restore law and justice. May love and reverence
reign here, so that all unite for you and the glory of your name.
Bless
all the people in this land who are of goodwill, pure hearts, and pure hands.
Peace
and joy everywhere; peace and joy for the people and state of Israel.
13
Yevarecha
YHWH veyischmerecha Yaer YHWH Panay elecha viychunecha Yisa JHWH panav elecha
veyasem lecha shalom Shalom, shalom larachok velakarov
Peace,
peace to those near and far.
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