ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author describes the main Jewish theological responses – for the most part excluding those voiced in the ultra-Orthodox and Hasidic world. The biblical Book of Job, the best-known treatment of theodicy in the Hebrew Bible, naturally presents itself as a second possible model for decoding the Holocaust. For example, Martin Buber, Eliezer Berkovits, and Robert Gordis have all discussed its relevance in the context of post-Holocaust Jewish theology. According to the majority of traditional Jewish interpreters, the “suffering servant” is the nation of Israel, the people of the covenant, who suffer with and for God in the midst of the evil of creation. The theological deconstruction of the Holocaust using the suffering servant model can thus be seen to be interesting as well as challenging. Irving Greenberg’s reconstruction of Jewish theology after the Holocaust presents a creative reaction to the unprecedented evil manifest in the death camps.
