What Did Harav Nissim Yagen Zt”l Say About The Holocaust

0:06And he's not rational. No, I love you again. I love us alone. When he was about 18 years old, 17 years old, he took a course, and he learned about the Holocaust. Anyone to learn about the Holocaust sees the worst of mankind documented on video and in pictures. Horrible of horrible. Anyone that watched the recommended film that I gave you, that I recommended a few months ago, probably lost a little bit of sleep and understands what evil looks like. If you haven't watched it, I still recommend watching it. I think every human being should watch this film at least once in their life. It'll at least show you how bad evil really is. And it'll make you feel grateful about your life. But nonetheless, it'll show you what punishment looks like. Now, I'll have you again, I'll have a shalom. Come, come, Reza, here, there's a couple of seats. Go, go, it's okay, come. I'll have you again, it says when he first learned about the Holocaust, he just couldn't reason with it. He was 17, 18 years old, like many of you. He couldn't deal with it. He says he couldn't sleep for two weeks. He was sick; he was throwing up.

1:23He just couldn't deal with it. Couldn't deal with the fact that six million Jews got murdered in cold blood. He couldn't deal with it. Now, anyone that ever saw this movie, it's hard to see. It's hard to see. You see bodies thrown like mamash, like nothing. Young people, babies, adults, all, everything. Disgusting what they did. It doesn't make any sense. So he said, where was God during the Holocaust? Tough question. Now, we've answered this question in at least six or seven lectures. Anyone that wants the answer in detail, you can watch those lectures. I actually even have a lecture called, "Where Was God During the Holocaust?" But Rav Yagen says, when he was 17 or 18 years old, he asked this question. And someone told him, why don't you go meet with your neighbor? He knows a lot about it. He says, what neighbor? He says, Hugo Bergen. Hugo Bergen, something like that. He was a friend of Einstein. He was alive during the Holocaust. Very, very well-known person. He says he knows a lot about the Holocaust. He's your neighbor. He lives five houses away from you. Go ask him. So, he went to visit him. He said, yeah, come back on Shabbat. Any questions you have, I'll tell you. I'll give you the answers. So, he and Hugo, Rav Yagen and Hugo. Rav Yagen is not Rav Yagen yet. He's still...

2:53he's still young, and he goes and meets him at 10 o'clock in the morning on Shabbat. And he says, "Can you please tell me, where was God during the Holocaust?" And he says, at that moment, that moment that I asked him the question, Where was God during the Holocaust? A little fly, like a mosquito, something small, passed right between us. You know, I'm standing here, he's standing in front of me, and a little mosquito passed between us. It just happened to be there. So he says to me, Hugo says to me, "You see that mosquito? Yeah, it just passed. Do you think it understands what we're talking about?" He says, "No, I don't think so." Why not? The distance between us and intellect is far away. This is a mosquito with a mosquito-sized brain. We're humans. There's no way that it understands us. It's a mosquito, after all. He says, do you understand the mosquito? Even though it has a small brain, you have a big brain. Does that make you understand the mosquito? He says, no, I don't understand the mosquito. So the mosquito doesn't understand you, and you don't understand the mosquito, even though you're bigger than the mosquito.

4:12He says, yeah. He goes, okay. Now we are even smaller than the mosquito in comparison to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. But He understands us because He created us. And we cannot understand Him, just like we can't even understand the mosquito. So when you ask a question, "Where was God during the Holocaust?" you have to first understand that your perspective is already starting with one leg. You're already starting short change. Why? You don't have the whole picture. You're not Hashem. You don't know who, what, when, and how Hashem is running the world and why He does what He does. The only thing you do have is what He said. So you have to look at what He said. Now, once you look at what He said, in parashat Ki Tavo, in parashat Bechukotai, in parashat Ha'azinu, in half of the Torah, You see what he says in the laws. If you follow my laws, He gives you all types of blessings you’re going to get. If you don’t follow the laws, here are all the curses you’re going to get. So now it should lead you to another question. Now where was God during the Holocaust? Where was Am Yisrael two weeks before the Holocaust?

5:34Three weeks before the Holocaust. A month before the Holocaust. Six years before the Holocaust. Ten years before the Holocaust. Where were they? Were they following the law that HaKadosh Baruch Hu said? Or no? And the professor, Hugo, said to him, he says, see, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, when He gave us these laws, He took it seriously. We didn't take it seriously, but He for sure was serious. Why? We broke our part of the deal. He kept His. We broke our part of the deal. We said we were going to keep the laws. We didn't keep the laws. Over 80% of Jews were intermarried in Germany, and many, many high percentages across the whole world. Intermarriage was running rampant. Jews were marrying goyim. Jews were converting to Christianity and Catholicism on a weekly basis. over 150,000 Jews fought for Nazi Germany, killing other Jews. They became so Christian, these Jews, they actually fought against other Jews. 150,000 Jews fought in Hitler's army. Yes, I'm saying it again. You can check the numbers. Some of them even helped in concentration camps. Hashem yerachem.

6:59This is all documented information that nobody really wants to talk about, except the people that lived in it or the people that actually read history books. Point is, Abutai, if you look at what Hashem said, look at what Hashem said. He kept His deal. Why? He said, if you follow the law, I'm going to give you all the blessings in the world. If you don't follow the law, these are the things I'm going to do to you in order to punish you. And guess what? If you read these parashiyot that I mentioned to you, every single thing that happened in the Holocaust is written in the Torah. It's written in the Torah, meaning that Hashem takes His deals seriously. Whether we like it or not, whether we agree with it or not. Now, this may disagree with our rationale, this may disagree with our little weak hearts, this may disagree with what we like, but who cares? You're not running the world; He is. That is a very serious step that each one of us needs to take in order to understand how and what Hashem is here to do and how and what we are here to do. If you think you're running the world, you have a very serious problem. If you understand that Hashem is running the world, then it's a different issue. Now,