In the Kovno ghetto in the early 1940s an extraordinary scene took place one morning in the makeshift synagogue. The Jews in the ghetto had begun to realize the fate that lay in store for them. They knew that none of them would escape, that the work camps to which they would be transported were in fact factories of death. And at the morning service, the leader of prayer, an old and pious Jew, could finally say the words no longer. He had come to the blessing in which we thank God for not making us slaves. He turned to the congregation and said: "I cannot say this prayer. How can I thank God for my freedom when I am now a prisoner facing death? Only a madman could say this prayer now."

Some members of the congregation turned to the rabbi for advice. Could a Jew in the Kovno ghetto pronounce the blessing thanking God for not having made him a slave? The rabbi replied very simply. "Heaven forbid that we should abolish the blessing now. Our enemies wish to make us their slaves. But though they control our bodies they do not own our souls. By saying this blessing we show that even here we still see ourselves as free men, temporarily in captiviity, awaiting God's redemption.

The hardest question for faith today is: Where was God in Auschwitz?  Where was God when His faithful servants were being turned to ashes and dying as martyrs in their millions? Where was redemption when the Jews of Europe were gassed and burned and God was silent? That question haunts us on the night of Pesach, because on this night we remmeber that slavery in Egypt was not the only, or even the worst, chapter of Jewish suffering. There have been pharoahs in every generation. And not only Jews have been their victims. There are peoples today who live under the threat of genocide. If God redeems – not in heaven but here on earth – where is God's redemption?

The greatest prophets asked this question and received no answer. Nonetheless there is a fragment of an answer, and it was given by the rabbi in the Kovno ghetto. God has chosen only one dwelling place in this finite, physical universe and that is the human heart. 

Where was God in the Kovno ghetto? In the hearts of those who, though they were prisoners in the valley of the shadow of death, insisted on pronouncing a blessing as free human beings. Their story has no simple ending, but they left us an immortal legacy: the knowledge that the human spirit cannot be killed, and that therefore freedom will always win the final battle.


haggadah Section: -- Exodus Story
Source: Koren Haggadah p. 30-31